Road woes showing no signs of letting up
LOS ANGELES — As the Giants’ latest marathon tour across America continued Friday night, they had to face two unhappy facts. One, they are an immensely bad road team. Two, the Dodgers increasingly look like they have sufficient firepower to overcome their pitching injuries and win the West.
The Dodgers’ 3-2 victory in the opener of a three-game series was their 20th in 26 games. They have hit 32 home runs in the first half of June, including solo shots by Kiké Hernandez and Matt Kemp against Derek Holland.
Meanwhile, the Giants fell to 3-5 on this trip and 15-25 on the road. That is a lot of road games for mid-June.
The Giants can see the AT&T Park lights at the end of the tunnel. They will reach the midpoint of their road schedule for the season during Saturday’s game, a Madison Bumgar-
ner start. Sunday’s game will end their fourth consecutive three-city trip, the last three of which sent them to the Central or Eastern time zones.
Nobody in black and orange can whine about the schedule as a reason for being 10 games under .500 on the road. Injuries have played a role, but the team that beat them Friday, and has rolled over its competition for a month, lost its entire Opening Day rotation at various points, played six weeks without lineup linchpin Justin Turner and will not see shortstop Corey Seager until 2019.
“We can’t use that as an excuse, being on the road and stuff,” Holland said. “We’ve got to keep playing the game of baseball. We showed that yesterday, going (16) innings. We never gave in. We continued to plug away.”
Manager Bruce Bochy was wary of a noon game in Miami, a cross-country flight and a night game in Los Angeles with no day off in between, and that was before the Giants played 16 innings before hopping on their plane.
“Still,” he said, “we came out and played hard tonight. It was a one-run ballgame.”
Pablo Sandoval threw a wrench into the fatigue argument. He played all 16 innings Thursday and hit the two-run homer in the seventh Friday that made it a one-run ballgame. Sandoval will get most of the starts at third base in place of Evan Longoria starting Saturday, when Brandon Belt returns.
The 16-inning affair in Miami indirectly affected Friday’s game in Los Angeles.
Bochy had to rest Gorkys Hernandez, who played all 16 innings, which meant Austin Jackson in center field. With one out in the fourth inning, Jackson dropped a long Yasmani Grandal flyball for a three-base error. Yasiel Puig doubled home the run which proved to be the difference.
The Giants have a delicate problem that needs to be addressed soon, a crowded outfield with two underperforming players — Jackson and Hunter Pence — and perhaps better alternatives on the bench (Alen Hanson) and in the minors (Austin Slater).
Slater is killing the Pacific Coast League, hitting .343 with a league-leading 22 doubles. The season is no longer young. The Giants have to find a way to get Slater to the majors, even if a tough decision on a veteran needs to be made.
More immediately, the Giants need to win Saturday and Sunday to finish .500 on a 10-game trip that began with a series win in Washington. Five and five would be the best showing among their four three-city trips.
On Friday, they had to face the Dodgers’ toughest starter. Ross Stripling is making an All-Star case with his sub-2.00 ERA. He has won each of his past six starts.
Joe Panik, in a 3-for-38 dive, doubled off Stripling to start the game. The Giants did not get another hit until Sandoval hit a leadoff single in the fifth. Sandoval’s homer was the fourth and final hit that Stripling allowed.