Giants: S.F. bats continue to slumber as they manage one hit in a 1-0 loss in Phoenix, wasting a strong showing from Johnny Cueto.
Cueto thrives, but Corbin nearly no-hits S.F.
PHOENIX — No-hitters are not ordained against certain clubs. They are like direct-hit lightning strikes. Any pitcher can have that great a night. Any team, potent or not, can be victimized.
Still, some no-hitters and close calls are less shocking than others.
Take a pitcher as dominating as Arizona left-hander Patrick Corbin, have him face a lifeless offense like the Giants’, and the ingredients were there Tuesday night in a 1-0 loss that was not historic thanks to one Brandon Belt check-swing.
Rather than being exceptional, the game proved all too mundane for a San Francisco lineup that has failed to score as many as two runs in nine of its 16 games and ruined a fantastic injury comeback game for Johnny Cueto.
Corbin settled for a onehitter and his first career shutout. The Giants lost their fourth game in a row and fell to 6-10, leaving them already six games back of first-place Arizona.
Corbin took his no-hit bid into the eighth inning. Belt ended it with two outs when he checked his swing and rolled an infield hit to the left side,
which mostly was vacated in the standard Belt shift.
Shortstop Nick Ahmed, the only fielder with a shot to make a play, raced to backhand the ball and sent a strong throw to first, but Belt beat it easily.
“It happens sometimes,” Belt said. “I hit one earlier in the game and they took a hit away from me with a good diving play. The shift takes away a lot of hits. Every now and again, it gives one back.”
Belt was referring to his third-inning grounder to the right side. Third baseman Daniel Descalso, playing right of second base, stopped what might have been a needle threading hit to right field that would have ended any no-hit suspense early.
The Giants had not gone hitless this late in a game since Homer Bailey’s no-hitter in Cincinnati on July 2, 2013. The last time they went 72⁄3 hitless innings then got one was in 1995.
A Corbin no-hitter at least would have deflected part of the story away from the awful Giants offense. Yes, Corbin’s sliders looked an awful lot like fastballs before diving into the dirt, but Giants hitters helped him immensely by chasing them.
Manager Bruce Bochy sees a team pressing on all cylinders.
“They’re trying too hard. You can see it,” Bochy said. “You’re going to run into games like this, but even the past week, we’ve got to calm down here a little bit. As much as we’re chasing, it tells me there’s a little tension in these swings.”
What to do? For one thing, Mac Williamson hit another homer for Sacramento on Tuesday night. The decision-makers know this.
Cueto returned from his ankle injury and in some ways dominated more than Corbin.
Cueto pitched seven shutout innings, allowed two hits and struck out 11, one short of his career high.
His ankle was tested in consecutive innings, first when he had to sprint deep into foul territory to catch a Descalso pop-up in the second because the Giants’ infield was shifted the other way, and again when he had to race toward a Jarrod Dyson squibber in the third and tag Dyson on the way to first.
Asked if he felt anything in his ankle on those plays, Cueto said, “Thank God, no.”
Bochy felt seven innings were enough for Cueto in his first game back and turned to Tony Watson to pitch the eighth. Watson allowed his first run of the year, and lost, after walking Dyson and allowing him to score after a Corbin sacrifice and David Peralta’s two-out groundball single up the middle. Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: hschulman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hankschulman