Giants blow early lead to Rockies, 5-4.
Fighting for a playoff spot, San Francisco suffers crushing loss to Colorado
SAN FRANCISCO >> For all the entertainment and excitement the San Francisco Giants have provided cardboard cut- outs and television viewers this season, the 2020 club has suffered no shortage of gut-wrenching and heartbreaking losses.
The Giants watched reliever Trevor Gott blow three consecutive save opportunities in August, saw their former center fielder, Kevin Pillar, crush their hopes with a go-ahead triple in Colorado at the beginning of September and squandered a chance at a comeback victory over Arizona the same week when rookie
center fielder Mauricio Dubón committed a terrible baserunning mistake.
The Giants’ ability to bounce back from such discouraging losses put them in control of their own playoff destiny with four days left in the regular season, which is precisely why a 5- 4, 11-inning defeat against the Colorado Rockies is so crushing.
“We had some opportunities early in that game to blow it open, to deliver a knockout punch, and we weren’t able to do it,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “I think that’s the most important story from the game to me.”
Armed with a chance to enter a four-game series against the San Diego Padres with a lead in the National League wild-card standings, the Giants squandered an early 3- 0 lead in a loss that will jeopardize the team’s playoff hopes. First baseman Brandon Belt rescued the team from a 4-3 deficit with a solo home run in the bottom of the eighth, but the Giants lineup failed to take advantage of a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the 10th inning and another opportunity to tie the score
in the 11th.
With Mauricio Dubón standing on third base and Darin Ruf at first in the 11th inning, designated hitter Austin Slater bounced into a game-ending 5-4-3 double play that dropped the Giants back to .500 with four games to go.
“That’s definitely a tough loss right there,” Belt said. “Especially thinking we had that one in the bag. We let up a little bit too early. We needed to keep pushing, and we ended up paying for it.”
The Giants had an opportunity to put the Rockies away in the 10th inning after Colorado manager Bud Black called for back-to-back intentional walks and employed a five-man infield, but third baseman Evan Longoria hit a 104 mph one-hopper right into the glove of diving shortstop Trevor Story, who fired a strike home from the cut of the infield dirt for a forceout.
Colorado didn’t need a hit to score a runner from second in the 11th as a sacrifice fly and groundout did the job against reliever Trevor Cahill. Then the Giants couldn’t match the Rockies with right-hander Jairo Díaz on the mound.
After the Giants took an early 3- 0 lead, the Rockies rallied for two runs in the fourth against Giants starter Kevin Gausman and two more in the seventh against reliever Sam Coonrod to stun San Francisco en route to a series split.
“I think the way we’ve been playing here, we were hoping to come in and continue that and to get an even series. It’s a little bit disappointing because we feel like we’re the better team,” Belt said. “But there’s not much we can do about it now.”
At 28-28, the Giants were to end the day either in sole possession of the second wildcard spot or tied with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Kapler’s club now faces a tougher road to the postseason as it must pad its win total against a Padres club that has already locked up the fourth seed in the playoffs.
It doesn’t bode well for the club that the Giants are 1- 5 against the Padres this season, 0- 4 in doubleheader games, and will need to cover at least 14 innings today, a day after playing 11 against the Rockies.
Gausman struck out nine over six innings, recording his second consecutive quality start and holding an opponent to two or fewer runs in his fourth straight outing. The veteran right-hander lowered his ERA to 3.68 and isn’t scheduled to start again during the regular season. But it’s possible the Giants would make him available out of the bullpen on Saturday or Sunday if the team is still trying to lock up a playoff berth.
Regardless of whether Gausman pitches this weekend, he has clearly established himself as the Giants’ top option to start a playoff series and would be in line to pitch in Game 1 of a first-round matchup next Wednesday if the club makes it that far.
“Every game right now is important. We want to win every game, and that was a tough loss,” Gausman said. “We don’t really have the luxury of sitting around and feeling bad for ourselves. We’ve got a doubleheader tomorrow against the Padres, and if we can win both of those games, that would be huge. We’ll just try to forget about it.”
The Giants will try to outlast several other wild- card contenders including the Brewers, Phillies and Reds, but the road was made more difficult by the lineup’s struggles to break the game open against Rock ies sta r ter pitcher Chi Chi González on Thursday.
Six of the first 10 Giants batters recorded hits, but the team scored only three runs in the first two innings as second baseman Wilmer Flores was thrown out at the plate, trying to score on a fielder’s choice in the first. Then he struck out with runners at second and third and just one out in the second. After three early runs, Belt’s home run was the only run the Giants scored over the final nine innings.
“We needed to deliver that blow,” Kapler reiterated. “That said, and this is also important to me, I thought our guys did a great job of fighting through that game. There was a lot of continual tenacity that we’ve been seeing. A resilient nature to that group.”