Ballpark scene: Fans are eager to show support, but want more offense from a team that scored the fewest runs in the first four games in Giants history.
Next year, which Giants fans have been waiting for since last year, arrived in San Francisco on Tuesday and the jubilant yet jittery home-opening crowd at AT&T Park said it was too early to start waiting for any subsequent next years.
But two runs in the first four games is still two runs in four games. And another loss is another loss.
“If they don’t score runs, then no one shows up to buy caps,” said souvenir vendor Michael Dake, who was selling $30 ones from his stand in front of the ballpark. “Nobody wants to buy a hat for a team that doesn’t score runs.”
The Giants did a little better Tuesday, scoring four runs, still not enough to win when the other team scores six.
It’s the Giants’ 61st year in San Francisco and, in the previous 60, they hadn’t scored so few runs in their first four games. In Games 3 and 4 against the Dodgers, they didn’t score at all. Arriving fans, even young ones, knew that wasn’t good.
“That’s zero runs in 18 innings,” said Jarrett Hackney, 9, of Lincoln (Placer County), who was playing hooky from fourth grade with the permission of parents Jason and Kelly, who were feeling no better about the situation.
Jason, who said he would be studying math but for the baseball gods, was pretty good at it already. Asked how many runs the Giants would score in the 162-game season if they continue to score half a run per game, he took only a moment.
“Eighty-one,” he said. “And if they score 81 runs this season, I don’t think they’re going to the World Series.”
The game began 12 minutes late, to allow for four jets to fly overhead, a fireboat to squirt water, scores of skyrockets to take to skies and five former San Francisco mayors to wave at the crowd as if they were still mayors. Then came the introduction of such Giants luminaries as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Dusty Baker, Barry Bonds and other men who, according to the rules, would not be allowed to play.
After all that, there remained the game to play. Within 10 minutes, the Giants had given up four runs and the grandstand optimists had even more work to do to remain afloat.
Yet it was too splendid a day to panic. The sky was blue as a Dodger cap, the scent of Sheboygan dogs wafted from the grills, the scalpers called out their wares in hearty baritones and the World Series bunting from the even-numbered years of 2010, 2012 and 2014 dangled from the rails as prophetically as bunting can dangle in April.
The scalper who goes only by “Jay — the Best in the Building” said he still expected to get $75 for his worst bleacher seats, even with the slow start.
“I’m not worried,” he said, prowling the 3rd Street sidewalk. “Yet. They better not lose 10 in a row. Then I’ll be worried.”
Everyone had advice. Erika Pusey, a high school teacher from Los Angeles but a Giants fan, said she thought the answer was to move Brandon Crawford higher in the lineup. Hunter Moraida, 8, another hooky player, from Suisun, said the remedy was for Giants outfielders to call out “I got it!” just a little bit louder. Quinton Pierce, a sandwich carver at the Zach’s Deli stand, said the solution was to have Crawford, Buster Posey and Hunter Pence stop by for one of his $13.50 brisket sandwiches.
“You eat one of these and the ball will go over the fence, easy,” he said.
San Francisco dentist Mike Fox, who closed his office for the day to take in the game, said the answer was to sit tight, keep faith and floss twice a day.
“And if the Giants don’t win,” he said, “it’s going to hurt a lot more than one of my root canals.”
The ballyard looked as good as the fastballs on which the Giants have been whiffing. Flags fluttered, the Coke bottle slide beckoned and what seemed to be a record number of batting-practice balls were getting tossed to bleacher fans. Boats took up position in McCovey Cove, their captains waiting to jostle one another to retrieve the first splash hit of 2018.
Robert Bertorello of Napa was attending his 40th opener, which was “like Christmas and New Year’s all in one,” although he said it before the Giants fell into their firstinning hole.
“They’re just going to have to play a little harder,” he said. “They can do it. After what happened last year, well, anything will be better than that.”
In the souvenir store, fans feasted their eyes on such treasures as $30 bottles of genuine dirt from the infield. Each bottle of dirt comes with a hologram so that a buyer can be sure he or she is not trafficking in counterfeit dirt. Rob Karr of Campbell said he might have bought a bottle of dirt except that he already bought one last year, and one bottle of $30 dirt sufficed.
“They’re due,” he said, of the anemic-so-far lineup. “Today’s the day.”
The Giants figure to make the most of their 60th anniversary year. Shirts and baseballs with the 60th anniversary logo were selling for 20 percent more than identical merchandise without the logo. Those are even numbers, too. And 2018 is an even number, some fans pointed out, but then so is zero (the combined number of hits Tuesday by Hunter Pence, Nick Hundley and Crawford as well as the number of hits by new Giants third baseman Evan Longoria in his first 17 at-bats before he homered in the seventh inning).
Calmest of all about the slow start was Shadow, the bombsniffing Labrador retriever. Shadow, who doesn’t care about the final score as long as her partner, Kyle Reynolds, keeps the kibble coming, sniffed at the passing backpacks but detected nothing that would make her signal Reynolds that anything was amiss.
If the Giants don’t start hitting, however, Shadow might have extra work to do. Unlike most bomb sniffers, Shadow is available to be petted by the people she sniffs.
“She comforts a lot of people,” Reynolds said, “and she might have to comfort even more.”