MINNEAPOLIS — Heliot Ramos knows Christian Vázquez’s tendencies. He knows that Vázquez loves to back pick runners. He knows he should have been prepared for Vázquez to do the same to him.

Ramos was not ready. In his mind, it cost his team a win.

“I’ve known him for a minute,” Ramos said following the Giants’ 2-1 loss to the Minnesota Twins. “He played with my brother. I know the type of catcher that he is. He loves doing stuff like that. He’s not afraid of doing it. I was just focused on trying to go on contact and score the run. At the end of the day, that’s the play of the game. I do feel back about it because it was because of me that we lost that game.”

With one out in the eighth inning, Ramos stood 90 feet away from scoring the tying run. He led off the inning with a double, then advanced to third on LaMonte Wade Jr.’s sharp line out. Minnesota moved its infield in, and Ramos planned to run on contact if Patrick Bailey put the ball in play. Vázquez eliminated that plan.

The Twins’ Cole Sands began Bailey with a four-seam fastball that missed high. Vázquez received the pitch and immediately fired a bullet to third baseman Royce Lewis. Ramos, who took an aggressive secondary lead, scrambled to get back to the bag safely. He was too late.

Lewis applied the tag, Ramos was called out and the opportunity was gone. Bailey flied out three pitches later and the inning was over. The Giants still had a chance in the ninth, but closer Jhoan Duran shut the door with a scoreless frame.

“(Ramos) is going on contact to start, so he’s trying to get down the line. When it crosses the plate, you try to get back. Guy made a hell of a throw,” said manager Bob Melvin. “A little bit of a double-edged sword. He’s trying to get a good secondary to be able to score on a ground ball.”

Ramos’ mistake did prove costly, but he was San Francisco’s hitter who could do damage against Minnesota’s pitching staff. He accounted for the Giants’ only run with a solo shot, his sixth home run of the year. He finished a triple shy of the cycle, accounting for three of his team’s four hits.

The Giants’ offense has been cold in Minneapolis, mustering just two runs and seven hits against the Twins’ pitching staff. On Friday, Chris Paddack took a perfect game into the sixth inning despite entering play with a 5.57 ERA. San Francisco has one of baseball’s better walk rates but hasn’t drawn a free pass all series.

Despite his teammates’ lack of production on Saturday, Ramos took full accountability for the loss.

“At the end of the day, we battle as a team, we pick each other up and that’s all that matters,” Ramos said. “We should’ve won that game. We should’ve been tied and we should still be playing right now if that play didn’t happen.”

“It comes down to the little things,” Melvin said. “With a man on third and less than two outs, we got picked off — but again, there’s some variables involved with that.”

The Giants’ quiet night on offense wasted an excellent start from their ace. Logan Webb allowed two runs over seven innings with nine strikeouts to one walk but was saddled with the loss. It marks the second time in Webb’s career that he’s pitched seven innings, allowed two runs or fewer and taken the loss.

The only two runs that Webb allowed were the product of a home run in the third inning by Trevor Larnach, who attended College Park High School in Pleasant Hill. Webb walked Vázquez to lead off the inning, then hung a sweeper to Larnach in his hot zone that the Bay Area product sent over the right-field wall.

“I wanted to attack him,” said Webb, who has a 2.60 ERA and 1.99 FIP. “He had a really good at-bat the first at-bat and hit a double, so I was like, ‘Maybe he’s taking this one.’ Just a mistake pitch. When I look back at it, it’s not that I didn’t want to throw it. Just not the right location for it.”

Webb’s outing against the Twins represents his fourth start of at least seven innings, tied with the Red Sox’s Garrett Crochett and the Yankees’ Max Fried for the most in baseball. Webb doesn’t consider himself a high-volume strikeout pitcher, but the right-hander has totaled 65 strikeouts over 55 1/3 innings, putting him on pace to eclipse 200 strikeouts for the first time in his career.

“He always gives us a chance to win,” Ramos said. “He always backs us up. Even when he’s not doing well, he makes his adjustments. He’s a great pitcher. He’s one of the best that I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Originally Published: May 10, 2025 at 6:21 PM PDT