Gallen's frustrating pattern: Start strong, slip-up late

SAN FRANCISCO -- The last couple of starts for Zac Gallen have begun to feel formulaic to him: Toss a couple of solid innings, then get hit hard at the end of the outing.

That's why Wednesday's 4-3 loss to the Giants felt like an ever-so-slight step forward for the right-hander. But even so, Gallen can't help but feel frustrated by how he has performed lately.

"It's kind of been that fine line of, you know, you get four to five innings of shutout, minimal hits, strikeouts, stuff like that -- and then you have one [bad] inning," Gallen said. "It's just on that balancing act of still a pretty good outing and just having that one blow-up inning.

"It's hard to say that those outings were terrible, and to not necessarily beat myself up."

Wednesday's loss was tough to swallow for the D-backs, as they struck first and held a 3-2 lead through seven innings. Prior to Wednesday, Arizona had gone 29-4 when leading that late in the game.

"It's pretty somber in here right now, because these guys care," manager Torey Lovullo said. "When you don't win a game that you feel like you should have, you've got to grow and learn and keep pushing. I want them to digest what just happened so we can get better from it."

Gallen was at the center of the team's success when things were going right, putting up zeros to hold an early 3-0 lead. The right-hander said he made a point of throwing more sliders, one of his least-used pitches in 2022, to keep the Giants off-balance. And it seemingly worked, as he one-hit the Giants through six innings, striking out five against two walks.

"The more pitches they're able to eliminate, you can kind of get predictable out there," Gallen said. "I felt like it was something that I could kind of get going off the flip side of the plate for me, so you open up the rest of the plate for changeups, curveballs, fastballs."

But just as in his recent outings, things began to unravel a bit in his final inning.

With one out in the seventh, San Francisco's Brandon Belt stepped up to the plate. Belt fell behind, 0-2, then mashed a solo home run to the deepest part of the park. It was the first hit for the Giants since the second inning, and they quickly added two more on a Thairo Estrada base hit and a Mike Yastrzemski double.

After reflecting on his day, Gallen stands by the pitches he made that inning, but he does regret throwing a pitch that Yastrzemski was able to drive.

"That was probably the only pitch that was maybe a mistake," Gallen said. "I think the Belt one was still decently executed, he just put a good spin on it."

Gallen faced one more batter, David Villar, who lofted a sacrifice fly to right to pull the Giants within one run. By that point, Gallen lacked the sharpness that had allowed him to dominate early on, but his efforts kept Arizona in the game -- something that Lovullo appreciates.

"He was cruising … he just made a couple of mistakes," Lovullo said. "There were a couple well-placed balls that were hard-hit. It didn't go his way the entire time, but he left the mound with the lead, and that's what we ask our pitchers to do."

Despite tossing his ninth quality start of the season, Gallen got a no-decision on Wednesday afternoon, which is again familiar territory for him this season. He has not earned a win since May 30 or factored into a decision since June 10, which goes along with the trend of his recent performances: Not great, not bad. But Gallen expects more from himself.

"I would have loved to have won this game," Gallen said. "It's a game that I think we've got to win. It was a decent outing in the sense of getting us in the game, but I'd love to throw up as many zeros as possible while I'm out there."