Giants lose first series in more than a month
San Francisco’s last series loss was June 26 vs. Colorado
PHILADELPHIA – Instead of opting to rip up the foundation and spend the rest of the year rebuilding, the Giants’ front office kept the team’s core intact at Wednesday’s trade deadline.
Three veteran relievers were shipped out and replaced with younger arms, but the Giants held onto ace Madison Bumgarner, closer Will Smith and several more of their most valuable assets.
The result of the Giants’ deadline deals are team that still believes it has enough talent to compete for a playoff berth and an organization that’s in better shape to contend in future seasons than it was a day ago.
Time will tell on the future, but the present didn’t look so rosy when the Giants slogged through a 10-2 defeat to the Phillies on Thursday.
“This ballpark, you keep it close and you feel like we can come back anytime,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We just let it get away.”
The blowout clinched the Giants’ first series loss since they fell twice in three days against the Rockies from June 24-26 and snapped a streak of seven consecutive series victories.
The Giants are confident they have enough veteran pitchers to stay in the Wild Card hunt for the remainder of the year, but they’ll need much more from a slumping offense and some of their younger arms who have encountered struggles of late.
Earlier this week, the Giants decided to push rookie Shaun Anderson’s scheduled Thursday start back a day for rest purposes. The move cleared the way for San Francisco to promote Dereck Rodríguez to face the Phillies, but Rodríguez lasted just three ineffective innings as he allowed seven runs.
Three of the runs Rodríguez gave up were unearned as he fell on hard luck following a missed strike three call and a Brandon Crawford error on a one-hopper hit by Phillies pitcher Jake Arrieta that extended the second inning. The other four runs fell on Rodríguez’s shoulders, including one which came on a solo shot hit in the fourth inning by second baseman Cesar Hernández that signaled the end of his day.