Offense meek as Bumgarner stays winless
As good as the Giants looked toward the end of spring training, they have to be disappointed with seven losses in their first 11 games, especially with three of the defeats in Madison Bumgarner starts.
No. 3 came Thursday night in the first of four against the Rockies, a 3-1 loss at AT&T Park that ended a rotten day for the organization, personally and competitively, and again showed how vulnerable the Giants can be when two of their mainstays are out.
With catcher Buster Posey on the concus-
sion list and shortstop Brandon Crawford on the bench after a family tragedy took him to Los Angeles and back, the offense looked weak against Colorado Opening Day starter Jon Gray and four relievers, who combined on a five-hitter.
The Giants got two of the hits as they loaded the bases with one out in the ninth against closer Greg Holland before Eduardo Nuñez hit a sharp one-hopper to second baseman DJ LeMahieu to start a game-ending double play.
The Giants took the field knowing that Crawford had driven to Los Angeles and flown back, all since late Wednesday night, after learning about the death of a sister-inlaw, Jennifer Pippin, one of his wife Jalynne’s sisters.
He surprised manager Bruce Bochy by arriving back at AT&T Park in time for the game and saying he wanted to play despite nearly zero sleep. Crawford grounded out as a pinch-hitter in the eighth.
“It was a tough 24 hours for him,” Bochy said. “I feel for him, what he had to deal with. Here he comes up to join us and wants to help us win a ballgame. That says a lot about Brandon. He didn’t have to be here. I used him to pinch-hit and told him to get out of here.”
Crawford was dressed and left quickly after the final out.
“It’s terrible,” Bumgarner said. “There aren’t really any words I can give for that. We’re thinking about him and his family and praying for him. It’s a bad deal.”
Bumgarner failed to earn a win within his first three starts for the first time since 2011, when he did not win until his ninth. He was throwing to Tim Federowicz, only the second time in the past 69 starts Bumgarner has not worked with Posey.
Bumgarner allowed three runs in six innings, two on one bad fastball down the pike to a badly struggling Trevor Story in the fourth inning. Story sent it to the left-field seats, putting the Giants in a 2-0 hole from which they could not emerge on a night of silent bats.
“I just didn’t make a whole lot of great pitches tonight,” Bumgarner said. “I did OK keeping us in the ballgame. Obviously, I’d like to be a little better for us than that.”
Bochy had to credit Colorado left-hander Chris Rusin, who entered in the fourth after Gray was forced out with a recurrence of the foot injury he first sustained in a spring training game against the Giants.
Rusin maintained the shutout until the seventh, when Brandon Belt ended an 0-for-18 with a line single off Story’s glove to start a rally that resulted in the Giants’ run, which scored on a Nuñez sacrifice fly.
The Giants have not won when trailing after eight innings since May 2015. They have had decent chances this year, including Thursday, when infield hits by Joe Panik and Hunter Pence (on his 34th birthday), plus a walk to Conor Gillaspie, loaded the bases for Nuñez.
Nuñez hit the ball hard, just to the wrong spot.
“You feel good about the way the inning unfolded,” Bochy said. “The only thing you can do is take a good swing and drive the ball. Nuny did that. Like I’ve said, we owe ourselves two or three comebacks because we lost a couple of tough ones. We’d like to think we had that one tonight, but we came up short.”