Giants take league lead in errors in loss to Rockies

DENVER — There’s one statistical category where the San Francisco Giants have every other team in the majors beat: Fielding errors.

The Giants are throwing the ball away, missing routine grounders and misplaying flyballs at an alarming rate and there’s no question their defensive mistakes are ruining chances to compete.

With three errors in Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies, first-year manager Gabe Kapler’s team dropped to 5-7 and overtook the Kansas City Royals for the MLB lead in errors with 16.

“Our defense has to make plays behind our pitchers in order for them to really see the best possible results of their efforts,” Kapler said.

Shortstop Brandon Crawford, catcher Tyler Heineman and reliever Conner Menez all committed errors Tuesday in a game where San Francisco needed to play its cleanest baseball to have a chance against Rockies ace German Marquez.

The Giants opened the summer with two sloppy blowout losses in Los Angeles in which the team could chalk up defensive miscues to early-season miscues, but the physical and mental mistakes haven’t gone away and in some instances, are becoming more inexcusable.

“We have to figure out a way to correct this and to improve this so that when a guy pitches his tail off, we can reward him,” Kapler said.

The outfield walls typically provide trouble for a defense, but on Tuesday, the left field fence at Coors Field also stifled a Giants hitter.

The PGA Championship doesn’t start until Thursday morning but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a golfer at San Francisco’s Harding Park who puts as much backspin on a shot as Giants outfielder Steven Duggar did in the fifth inning at Coors Field Tuesday.

With the Giants trailing 3-0, Duggar launched what appeared to be a game-tying home run out to left center field. The umpire crew told Duggar to round the bases, but sent him back to second when a replay review revealed Duggar’s drive plopped off the top of the outfield wall and rolled back onto the outfield grass.

Both of the Giants’ runners were allowed to score on the play, including Mauricio Dubon who began the at-bat at first base, but Duggar was forced to hold at second with his first extra-base hit of the year and the Giants never added a third run.

Centennial, Colorado native and Giants starter Kevin Gausman grew up about 15 miles from

Coors Field, but had never pitched in the stadium prior to Tuesday.

Gausman’s final line suggests he may not want to return anytime soon, but he entered the bottom of the sixth inning having given up just three hits. On his first pitch of the sixth, Gausman missed his spot with a slider to Rockies slugger Nolan Arenado, who homered for the second consecutive day and for the 30th time in his career against the Giants with a line drive that barely scraped over the left field wall.

“He hit it and I automatically thought it was a double and the ball just kind of kept going and the next thing you know it went over the fence,” Gausman said. “Not the most fun thing. A bad pitch in a bad situation, but it was such a bad slider, most guys would probably get out on it.”

Gausman’s average fastball velocity sat above 95.0 miles per hour Tuesday

and the right-hander induced seven swings and misses with the pitch, but a handful of mistakes coupled with a number of defensive miscues prevented him from pitching deep enough to earn a quality start.

“Early on it’s been a challenge for a lot of us, we had to change up a lot of things early on and it’s tough when you’re so routine-based,” Gausman said. “But you’re kind of thrown into our summer camp where it was hurry up and get ready as fast as you can, it’s not get into your five-day routine so i think it’s just a product of that, me getting into my five-day routine and that’s when I’m able to pitch my best.”

The Rockies tagged Gausman for a run in the first when center fielder Mike Yastrzemski couldn’t pull in a deep flyball off the center field wall from David Dahl that turned into a leadoff triple. Dahl scored on a sacrifice fly from Charlie Blackmon, but didn’t cross home again until the fourth.