Giants suffer crushing loss
Fighting for playoff spot, SF gives up early lead, loses to Colorado in extras
SANFRANCISCO » 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 themin control of their own playoff destiny with four days left in the regular season, which
“That’s definitely a toughloss right there. Especially thinkingwe had that one in thebag.” – Brandon Belt, Giants first baseman.
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 wildcard 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 basesloaded, one- out situation in the 10th inning and another opportunity to tie the score in the 11th.
With Dubón standing on third base andDarinRuf at first in the 11th inning, designatedhitter Austin Slater bounced into a game- ending 5- 4-3 double play that dropped the Giants back to .500with 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 backto-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 force out.
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 themound.
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 wild- card 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 Friday, a day after playing 11 against the Rockies.
“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.”