When the Giants finally got Max Fried out of the game Monday night in Atlanta, they were confronted with two relievers they know very, very well.
Will Smith was their closer for parts of two seasons, and an excellent one at that, making the All-Star Game in 2019. Smith was followed Monday by Kenley Jansen, who spent his first dozen seasons in Los Angeles and has 35 career saves against the Giants.
Smith got out of a huge jam largely unscathed in the eighth inning, and Jansen, as he has done so often, worked around trouble in the top of the ninth. At that point, the Giants turned it over to a closer they hope can follow the paths that those two have taken, but he had a rare off night.
Camilo Doval had been one of the better relievers in baseball throughout the first three weeks of June, but he walked the leadoff batter and then hung a slider to Orlando Arcia with two outs. Arcia's single to left gave the Braves a 2-1 walk-off win.
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The game was a thriller and certainly an indication that these two -- who nearly faced off last October -- could have a hell of a postseason series. If they do, Doval will be heavily involved, but he didn't have his best stuff in his first look at the Braves this season. The stumble was his first since he allowed runs in four straight games at the end of May and early in June.
"Since then he's been as good as any reliever in baseball," manager Gabe Kapler told reporters in Atlanta. "I would say that to be Kenley Jansen-level effective, it's (doing it) over the course of months with that style, rather than for a two- or three-week stretch, which is also really hard to do in this league.
"I haven't looked at it on video so I'm just going to tell you what I saw from the dugout. (Doval) was just a little bit around the plate rather than on the corners of the plate and executing his slider for strikes. It's hard to complain about his recent performance. He's just been so good, but this was a little bit of a hiccup."
Doval has been worked hard, pitching in seven of the Giants previous 10 games, and he has responded to the increase in work. Over his last nine appearances before the bottom of the ninth Monday, Doval had allowed just two hits and struck out 10.
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The rookie has been particularly deadly against righties, limiting them to a .143 average, but his slider wasn't quite as sharp Monday and Arcia made him pay.
The walk-off came after the Giants failed to make either Smith or Jansen regret too many pitches. Smith entered with the bases loaded and allowed a run, but he struck out Wilmer Flores in a matchup the Giants had to love, and he beat Mike Yastrzemski to the bag on a grounder to first to end the inning. In the ninth, the Giants put two in scoring position against Jansen, but he struck out Thairo Estrada and Brandon Crawford. A few minutes later, the game was over.
"We have to finish," Kapler said. "We fell one huge at-bat short."