S.F. looks for relief as lapses pile up
LOS ANGELES — The Giants’ season is so far gone, no game they play between now and merciful Game 162 means anything for the team. But some of these players must know they are being watched and judged by a front office that has to make some important decisions for 2018 and beyond.
Matt Moore needs to develop the consistency he has lacked all season and not commit the mistakes he made in the seventh inning of Friday night’s 6-4 loss to the Dodgers.
Some of the relievers who are failing in big spots need to prove they belong on a winning team, particularly Josh Osich and Steven Okert, who have squandered every chance to commandeer a left-handed bullpen job.
Still, while evaluation will mean more than postgame handshakes over the final 58 games, winning is still fun and still a goal, and the Giants lost one they easily could have taken against a team that has 37 wins in its past 43 games.
Moore was pitching a nice game and just inherited a 4-2 lead in the seventh when he opened the bottom half by
walking catcher Austin Barnes on four pitches, then allowing a one-out Joc Pederson double that finished the left-hander.
George Kontos allowed both inherited runners to score to tie the game before Osich hung a breaking pitch that Corey Seager sent out of the park for his second homer of the game, which capped a four-run rally and broke a 4-4 tie.
Moore was still seething after the game for throwing four straight balls to Barnes the minute he got a 4-2 lead.
“You don’t deserve anything good after something like that,” Moore said. “It was piss-poor. You’ve got to make him earn his way on. The pitch to Joc, I’ve got to bear down. It can’t be in the middle of the zone where he can handle it.”
Two-strike mistakes have factored into a lot of Giants losses. Kontos committed one with two outs in the seventh and the Giants ahead 4-3. Chris Taylor ripped a hanging slider into left for the tying double.
Wasted was one heck of a rally against 11-game winner Alex Wood that featured a tying single by Jae-Gyun Hwang, who was recalled from the minors Friday on his 30th birthday, and consecutive scoring doubles by Nick Hundley and Gorkys Hernandez that produced the two-run lead.
Osich, once considered a potential closer, has not been able to stem his mistakes. Nor has Okert, who is back in Triple-A but should return when rosters expand.
Good left-handed relief is expensive in trades and free agency. Manager Bruce Bochy still hopes one of the two will stake a claim.
“This is their time,” Bochy said. “They have some time in now. We need one of them to step up. (Left-handed relievers) play such a critical part of the bullpen. Both have the equipment to do it.”
The Dodgers have the equipment to win 110 regularseason games, and that might be selling them short.
One of their investors, Magic Johnson, guaranteed a World Series title Friday. He might want to seek the definitions of “hubris” and “overconfidence.” While he’s at it, he should Google “2001 Mariners,” the latest regular-season superteam to go home for the winter without a World Series parade.
But the Dodgers’ talent is scary, for now and maybe for years beyond.
“They’re pretty good, aren’t they?” Bochy said when asked if this might be the best Dodgers team he has seen during his decades playing and managing in the National League West.
“You look at the streak of wins they’ve put up, you have to say they’re one of the best teams in recent history,” said Bochy, who is patient answering questions about the Dodgers’ greatness.
For now.