Baseball: Giants lose game, pitchers in Denver; A’s fall
DENVER — Whoever said dark clouds always have a silver lining never met the Giants. Their dark clouds have darker linings, and the rain they produce is acidic enough to dissolve a season.
They had another awful night at Coors Field on Tuesday, way beyond an 11-4 loss, their 15th in the past 21 games.
They lost two pitchers, too. Starter Jeff Samardzija left after one inning with a tight right shoulder that he later confessed has been the root of his low velocity and high ERA in his first innings this year.
Asked if the tightness that forced him out of the game was related to the injury he had all spring, what the team termed a strained pectoral muscle, Samardzija said, “That’s a fair assessment.”
Manager Bruce Bochy called on Dereck Rodriguez to replace Samardzija. Rodriguez was electric in his big-league debut, hitting 95 with a fastball that generated 11 swings and misses, three more than any Giants pitcher had in a game this season.
Rodriguez even hit a double for his first hit and RBI to put the Giants on the board in a 5-0 game.
Then, Rodriguez had to leave after 31⁄3 innings when he took an Ian Desmond line drive off his right shin. X-rays were negative, and Rodriguez does not expect to miss time.
“It got more meat than bone,” he said. “We’re good.”
The same cannot be said for the Giants.
They fell to 1-6 on their trip, which ends Wednesday night, while dropping their leagueworst road record to 11-20. They are five games under .500 for the first time this season.
Samardzija entered with a 10.29 first-inning ERA. He allowed eight of his 24 earned runs and issued eight of his 23 walks in the first inning over his first seven starts, then allowed two more runs Tuesday on three hits.
Bochy said Samardzija’s shoulder clearly was not loose and pulled him from the game. The big righty grabbed his bat off the dugout bench and slammed it over his thigh.
“It was more so frustration over the whole thing, not just frustration about today,” Samardzija said.
Bochy expects Samardzija to miss at least one start. For the moment, that means the Giants’ top three starters are on the shelf. Madison Bumgarner is due back Tuesday after one more minorleague game, but that could change in light of Samardzija’s setback.
Rodriguez began his career with two shutout innings before allowing a two-out double to pitcher Kyle Freeland in the fourth. Charlie Blackmon followed with a grounder that should have gotten the Giants back to the dugout down 2-0, but Kelby Tomlinson, on a bizarre error jag the past two games, muffed it for the second of his three errors.
That opened the door for three unearned runs that doomed the Giants.
The Giants tried to power their way back. Buster Posey hit his first homer in nearly a month and a half and Evan Longoria hit two solos. But four seventhinning runs off Cory Gearrin secured a Colorado rout.
Rodriguez got four commemorative balls, including the one he hit for the double.
“It was awesome,” he said. “It was cool standing up in that box and seeing a big-league pitcher. It was a lot of fun.”