Giants lose to Rockies, fall in playoff race
SAN FRANCISCO ( AP) — Raimel Tapia hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the 11th inning, and the Colorado Rockies rallied to keep contending San Francisco from gaining ground in the NL wild-card race by beating the Giants 5-4 on Thursday.
Jairo Díaz earned his fourth save by getting Austin Slater to ground into a game-ending double play. Several cheering Rockies jumped over the dugout rail celebrating.
The Giants (28-28), winners of three of their last five, dropped behind idle Cincinnati for the first NL wild card. The Reds (29-28) visit Minnesota over the final weekend as the playoff-bound Padres come to San Francisco.
Trevor Cahill (1-2) took the loss after San Francisco had a chance in the 10th.
Brandon Belt — who homered in the eighth inning to tie the game on his 1,000th career hit — and Brandon Crawford were intentionally walked by Daniel Bard (4-2). Shortstop Trevor Story fielded Evan Longoria’s grounder and threw Alex Dickerson out at home as San Francisco couldn’t capitalize.
Tyler Rogers and Caleb Baragar combined to strike out the Colorado side in the 10th, and the Rockies wound up with a season-high 16 Ks.
Josh Fuentes hit a go-ahead single in the seventh after Charlie Blackmon’s tying groundout.
Kevin Gausman struck out nine over six innings and Crawford hit an RBI double, but the Giants’ bullpen couldn’t hold it.
Gausman matched his second-most strikeouts of the season — he had 11 against Oakland on Aug. 15 — walked one, and allowed two runs on eight hits. He bounced back with a strong outing on the heels of a loss at Oakland his last time out following consecutive winning starts.
The Giants added another run on a wild pitch by Colorado right-hander Chi Chi Gonz√°lez in the second. Gonz√°lez is now winless in four career starts against San Francisco.
Ryan Mcmahon got Colorado on the board with an RBI double in the fourth, then Tapia singled in a run four batters later.
Colorado had two runners on in both the first and second innings but missed scoring chances.
Dickerson doubled in the first as he continued to deliver against the Rockies.
In 10 games this season facing Colorado, Dickerson went .462 (18 for 39) with 12 runs, seven doubles, six homers and 10 RBIS.
The Rockies won the season series 6-4. Colorado went 2-2 at Oracle Park and hasn’t had a winning record in San Francisco since going 6-3 in 2015. The Rockies are 17-26 at Oracle Park since the start of the 2016 season.