Giants drop below .500 in loss to A’s
With other stars around the National League surging and Mike Yastrzemski’s eye-popping numbers beginning to decline during the final weeks of the season, the Giants outfielder was sliding out of the Most Valuable Player race.
All it took for Yastrzemski’s value to come into focus was a mild right calf strain.
An untimely injury kept Yastrzemski out of the Giants’ lineup for the second straight game on Saturday and the team’s offense was once again silenced in a 6-0 loss to the Oakland A’s.
With their most important player sidelined and another key outfielder, Alex Dickerson, missing Saturday’s game after being
placed on the paternity list, the Giants (25-26) were shut out for the second consecutive game by an A’s pitching staff led by rookie Jesús Luzardo. A punchless lineup kept the Giants from being competitive and an abysmal day for the outfield defense turned a game that could have been close into a blowout loss.
Left fielder Darin Ruf and center fielder Mauricio Dubón combined to drop three balls they got gloves on during a five-run seventh inning that also featured a two-run home run hit by A’s third baseman Jake Lamb. Fewer than 48 hours after the Giants led the National League Wildcard standings, a pair of losses in Oakland have moved the club out of a playoff position with just nine games left to play.
With eight days remaining in the regular season, it might be too soon for the Giants to smash the panic button, but it’s not too early to peek at the rest of the team’s schedule and see what a daunting challenge lies ahead.
A Giants team that fell to 5-16 against clubs with winning records is now 0-5 against the A’s and 1-5 against the San Diego Padres, who will visit San Francisco for a four-game series during the final weekend of the regular season. It might require rose-colored
glasses to see any positive developments for the Giants over the last two days, but the club did receive an important start from Kevin Gausman.
After the last three Giants starters failed to complete four innings, the club desperately needed the veteran right-hander to save the team’s bullpen and pitch deep into Saturday’s game. Gausman hadn’t started in 11 days because he had been scratched from his scheduled outing last Sunday in San Diego due to elbow tightness, but he didn’t show any signs of rust in a dominant performance against the A’s.
Gausman finished his start having allowed just one hit and one run over six dominant innings that gave the Giants every chance to take control of Saturday’s game, but he ended up taking the loss anyway.
Gausman didn’t allow a baserunner or a hit until the bottom of the fourth inning Saturday, but the A’s managed to capitalize on the minor mistakes he made en route to taking a 1-0 lead. After walking Mark Canha with two outs and allowing the A’s designated hitter to reach second on a wild pitch, Gausman gave up a line drive RBI single to first baseman Matt Olson.
The Giants had a chance to rally and score first in the top of the fourth against Luzardo, but second baseman Donovan Solano made a terrible baserunning mistake as he overran third base and was tagged out to end the inning. After Mauricio Dubón beat out an infield single, Olson saw Solano extend too far from third base and fired a strike across the infield to third baseman Jake Lamb to end the Giants’ threat.
Leadoff batters reached base in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings against Luzardo, but the Giants ran their way out of one inning and failed to challenge the A’s lefty out of the stretch in the others. It’s impossible to know how Saturday’s game would have looked if Yastrzemski or Dickerson were available, but it’s clear the Giants don’t look like a playoff team with either out of the lineup.
The A’s are a fantastic club and potentially set up to play deep into October, and while the Giants still have a chance to make the postseason, their recent performances make it difficult to envision any sort of a meaningful playoff run.