Tough loss narrows S.F.’s margin for error
After falling in 11, Giants focus on four vs. Padres
Giants fans hate that the team always starts the season on the road. The club wants it that way because the flip side is almost always ending at Oracle Park.
The trick is you have to win those home games, especially against teams with inferior records. By that measure the Giants’ fourgame split with a Colorado squad missing Nolan Arenado, including Thursday’s frustrating 54, 11inning loss, was a fail.
The Giants blew a threerun lead, fell behind by a run in the seventh inning, then tied the score 44 when Brandon Belt’s 1,000th career hit flew over the leftfield wall, a leadoff homer in the eighth against Mychal Givens.
After a great play by shortstop Trevor Story saved the Rockies in the 10th, they won it in the
Top: The Rockies’ Raimel Tapia follows the flight of his goahead sacrifice fly to left in the 11th inning.
11th on Raimel Tapia’s oneout sacrifice fly against Trevor Cahill.
Austin Slater grounded into a double play with runners on the corners on the bottom half to end it.
“We had some opportunities in that game to blow it open and deliver a knockout punch,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “We weren’t able to do that. We needed to deliver that blow.”
Splitting with the Rockies leaves the Giants in an unenviable spot. To reach the playoffs, they probably need to take at least three of four from the Padres in the season’s final series, which starts with a Friday doubleheader.
That would require a significant reversal of recent events. The Giants are 15 against San Diego this year.
At least the Giants should be whole. Mike Yastrzemski flied out as a pinchhitter Thursday and is expected to rejoin the lineup Friday after missing seven starts with a calf strain. Having Yastrzemski and Alex Dickerson together, joined by Belt and Brandon Crawford, should serve as a nice wall against the righthanders the Giants have to face.
That begins with Chris Paddack and Dinelson Lamet in the doubleheader. Tyler Anderson will start one game for the Giants. Kapler would not say which. Nor would he confirm that Jeff Samardzija will return from his shoulder injury and make what should be his final start with the Giants, although that seems likely.
Thursday’s loss boiled down to two frustrations.
The first was taking a 30 lead in the second inning, still having runners on second and third with nobody out, Dickerson, Wilmer Flores and Belt due up. A flyball with less than two outs would have given the Giants a 40 lead, any single to the outfield 50, but Chi Chi Gonzalez retired all of them and the Giants did not score again until Belt’s eighthinning homer.
“We let up little bit too early,” Belt said. “We needed to keep pushing as an offense and we didn’t, and we ended up paying for it.”
The second frustration was the 10th inning, after Tyler Rogers and Caleb Baragar combined to strand Charlie Blackmon, who opened the inning as the free runner on second base.
The Giants thought they won when Flores started the bottom half with a long drive to left off Josh Bard, but Tapia caught it at the wall.
After Dickerson, the free runner, tagged and took third, the Rockies walked Belt and Crawford intentionally to load the bases and create a force at any base. Manager Bud Black brought Daniel Murphy into the game and used five infielders, three on the left side, against Evan Longoria.
The ploy worked only because Story, playing in, made a spectacular backhand stop of a 104 mph shot and forced Dickerson at the plate with a throw from his knees. Mauricio Dubón’s popout ended the inning.
Down 54 after Colorado cashed in its free runner in the 11th against Cahill, the Giants had a hot hitter at the plate in Slater with two on in the bottom of the inning, but Jairo Diaz got the gameending double play.
The Giants ended their season series with Colorado at 46.
“I think the way we’ve been playing, we were hoping to come in and continue that, and to get an even series is a little disappointing because we feel we’re the better team,” Belt said.
“We’ve just got to move on and focus on the Padres.”