Matt Moore’s run of success ends against rebuilding San Diego.
SAN DIEGO — As bad as the Giants have been, there are no obvious statistical reasons they should be 5-10 against the fourth-place Padres, who made no pretense about winning in 2017.
The Padres have scored the fewest runs in the National League and allowed the fourth most. Their run differential of minus-155 dwarfs the Giants’ minus-121. They had the second-most errors in the league, too.
Yet, after Tuesday night’s 6-3 victory against the Giants and Matt Moore at Petco Park, San Diego leads San Francisco by six games in the “race” for fourth place.
The Giants are a seasonworst 28 games under .500. The Padres, who spent about $100 million less on their team, are 16 under.
While a complete rebuild like the Padres’ can be painful, especially for a team that has not had a winning record since 2010, there are worse things in the game, like losing repeatedly to said rebuilding team.
Another conclusion: Youth can be exciting.
“They’ve got a lot of energy,” Moore said after his late-season renaissance took a detour with his 13th loss. “You can see their dugout when they score, the kind of fight they have. When you face them, you’ve got to bring it.”
Moore did not bring it in a bid for his fourth good start in a row. He allowed four runs in the fourth inning on two homers, a solo shot by secondyear right fielder Jabari Blash and a three-run, tie-breaking drive by rookie center fielder Manuel Margot.
And here is why defensive stats can be so misleading. While the Padres do not excel on defensive spreadsheets, their coaches do a great job of placing them in the right spot to provide a better chance of frustrating the opposing team, the way they did the Giants.
In the sixth inning, Blash charged a sinking liner and made a lunging catch to rob Joe Panik, who later homered. Fans were still digesting Blash’s catch when shortstop Yangervis Solarte made a leaping, backhanded stab on a Nick Hundley liner that seemed headed for left field.
Another rookie, left fielder Jose Pirela, leaped in the leftfield corner to take away what looked like an eighth-inning homer from Pablo Sandoval.
“Their defensive positioning beat us tonight, 100 percent,” Hundley said. “They do a really good job of positioning themselves. In my experience, they’ve taken away more hits against us than any other team I’ve seen.”
To wit, Sandoval ripped a second-inning drive to leftcenter that off the bat looked like a potential three-run double, which would have given the Giants a 5-0 lead. But Pirela was spotted well, got a good jump and ran the ball down to strand three.
The Giants’ first two innings were like eating a 12-course meal and still being hungry. They scored just twice despite eight of their first 11 hitters reaching base against Luis Perdomo, including five hits, two walks and one of two Cory Spangenberg errors in the second inning.
They still had a 2-1 lead when Moore hung a changeup to Blash to start the fourth for a homer that tied the game. Moore then lost it. He hit Spangenberg, walked Austin Hedges, nearly messed up a force at third on a Perdomo bunt then allowed Margot’s three-run homer .
“Their young guys have done well against our pitching,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “You look at their numbers against our pitchers. We just haven’t executed well.”