Giants take series vs. Nationals as Robbie Ray continues excellent stretch

Justice delos Santos, The Mercury News on May 25, 2025

Published in Baseball

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WASHINGTON — Before they were teammates, Sam Huff and Robbie Ray shared an odd, if not mildly amusing, moment together as opponents.

It was July 15, 2022. Ray, pitching for the Seattle Mariners, was the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner. Huff, hitting for the Texas Rangers, was a rookie. With the count at 2-2 and a runner on first, Ray came set and held his position for nearly 20 seconds. Ray refused to throw; Huff refused to step out. Ray, the veteran, finally budged and stepped off. He struck out Huff soon after.

Huff hated facing Ray, who struck him out three times in their five encounters. But he’s more than happy to serve as his primary catcher, especially on afternoons such as Sunday at Nationals Park where Ray pitched six innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts. Behind Ray’s gem and Huff’s second homer of the year, the San Francisco Giants (30-22) beat the Washington Nationals, 3-2, improving to 10-1 on days that Ray takes the mound.

“I love working with him,” Huff said. “I love … the thing we’re doing. Keep it going and just try to keep him on a good track to getting some wins.”

For Ray, whose seven wins are tied with the New York Yankees’ Max Fried and the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Brandon Pfaadt for the most in baseball, this marks his sixth consecutive quality start. During this stretch, Ray has allowed seven earned runs over 39 innings (1.62 ERA) with 44 strikeouts to four walks.

In his first full season since undergoing Tommy John surgery, Ray’s resurgence has given the Giants one of the better one-two punches in baseball this season. Ray and Logan Webb, whose 2.17 FIP is the best in the National League now have a combined 2.62 ERA with 143 strikeouts over 130 2/3 innings.

“One guy goes six, seven innings, you want to do the same,” Ray said of the pitching staff. “The energy, the focus, the intent, it’s infectious. We’re just building off of each other. We’re just trying to go out there and do what we’re supposed to do as starting pitchers, and that’s set the tone.”

Ray, as he is wont to do, heavily relied on his four-seam fastball. The left-hander’s heater accounted for 54 of his 90 pitches, inducing seven whiffs with the heater and landing 11 four-seamers for strikes. On his 90th pitch of the afternoon, Ray reached back and unfurled a 95 mph fastball to strike out James Wood, ending his afternoon on his own terms.

“This is a tough team,” Ray said. “A lot of power-hitting lefties. Kind of the first team that’s thrown a lot of lefties at me. Today, the game plan going in was fastball heavy, then just try to keep them off balance with all the other stuff. We stuck with it and it worked out pretty well.”

“He just attacks,” Huff said. “Some guys are afraid to get in there. They want to spin. But he established the fastball. He lets everyone know he’s going to throw it. He doesn’t care if you’re going to hit it or not, he’s going to keep throwing it.”

The Giants’ offense provided what proved to be just enough run support for Ray and company. Willy Adames got the Giants on the scoreboard in the second with an RBI groundout, then they tacked on two more with Huff’s solo homer and Heliot Ramos’ own RBI groundout.

Following the departure of Ray, whose lone run allowed was on a wild pitch, manager Bob Melvin followed a familiar formula: Randy Rodríguez for the seventh, Tyler Rogers for the eighth and Ryan Walker for the ninth.

Rodríguez and Rogers pitched scoreless innings but Walker allowed a run on back-to-back doubles by CJ Abrams and James Wood, cutting the Giants’ lead to one run. With one run and the tying run on second, Walker held his ground and recorded his 10th save of the season, though he did raise his ERA to 5.21 in the process.

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