San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
A’s beat punchless Giants 60 on consecutive days.
Giants: Clumsiness rules as playoff chances wither
Donovan Solano ran the Giants out of their only threat of the day, and not one, not two, but three fly balls popped out of the gloves of their outfielders.
In a single inning.
That’s no way to charge into the playoffs. “If we want to make it to the playoffs, we can’t do those things,” third baseman Evan Longoria said after Saturday’s 60 loss to the A’s at the Coliseum, a repeat of Friday night’s score.
“Obviously, those guys know that. I’m sure they’re not happy about it. But we have to be
better. We have to be able to address those things to a man and be able to play the game clean.”
Failing to play up to the competition, the Giants are 516 against teams currently with winning records. That covers just three opponents — A’s, Padres, Dodgers — and the Giants have five more games against that group, Sunday’s matinee in Oakland and a fourgame set with the Padres to close the season.
If the Giants keep playing sloppy baseball, those final games won’t matter.
“Obviously, if we want to play in playoffs, we have to be able to beat good pitching,” said Longoria, who knows what it takes to get to the playoffs, having reached the postseason four times with Tampa Bay. “We have to be able to find ways to continue to get on base and get some timely hitting. The last two games have been disappointing, to say the least.”
The score was 10 through six, thanks to starters Kevin Gausman and Jesus Luzardo, but when Giants manager Gabe Kapler went to the bullpen for the seventh, the game turned as his outfield was exposed during a fiverun rally.
Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise with the Giants missing three of their key outfielders: Mike Yastrzemski (calf strain), Alex Dickerson (paternity leave) and Austin Slater (bum elbow), who is limited to a DH role.
Jake Lamb’s tworun homer off Sam Selman made it 30, and when Sam Coonrod entered, chaos ensued. Left fielder Darin Ruf dropped Ramon Laureano’s fly ball at the warning track. Center fielder Mauricio Dubon failed to hold on to a deep fly off the bat of Tommy La Stella. And Ruf, after a long run toward the line, dropped Marcus Semien’s fly.
“The defensive stuff, we’re asking a lot out of some guys in the outfield,” Longoria said. “It is a little bit demoralizing when you feel like there are some plays that should be made and are not. We have to find a way to clean that up in the last week or else we’ll be going in the other direction.”
One day after Solano’s defensive mistake cost the Giants, his baserunning did the same. The Giants were putting pressure on Luzardo in the fourth when Longoria singled up the middle, sending Solano to second with two outs.
Dubon hit a chopper to short, and Semien bobbled the ball, giving Dubon time to reach safely to load the bases. But Solano took a big turn around the bag, and first baseman Matt Olson, who caught Semien’s late throw, threw a strike to third, where Lamb easily tagged out Solano.
The rally ended before it began.
“We need to win a lot of games here down the stretch,” said Longoria.