Giants can’t make pain go away
Posey hurting as Bochy’s punchless bunch swept by Arizona; road series record drops to 3-16-2
PHOENIX >> Buster Posey managed to lace up his dress shoes despite a left thumb wrapped in gauze.
He is the beating heart of the Giants lineup, and every swing he took over the weekend, including Sunday’s 11-0 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field, made it clear that he is not at full strength.
Posey bent back his thumb on a tag play against the Phillies one Sunday earlier. He has been playing through discomfort. He hasn’t gone for X-rays or an MRI exam.
“It’s been more of a nuisance as much as anything,” said Posey, who went 1 for 11 as the Giants were swept in another road series. “Hopefully it’ll feel a little bit better.”
There is no hope that it’ll get better for the Giants. Not after they were swept in three games here. Not after their road series record fell to 3-16-2. Not after they were shut out at Chase Field for the first time since 2008, way back when Posey was a freshly drafted prospect out of Florida State.
It’s true: the Giants, despite some lean lineups over recent years, had scored a run in 82 consecutive games in this ballpark — the equivalent of half a season.
They did not need to outslug
Arizona to win this series. A manufactured run here or there would’ve been enough. Until the eighth inning Sunday, when the Diamondbacks set off blasting caps against Matt Cain while breaking open a 2-0 game, Arizona had scored eight runs all series.
Chris Stratton struck out 10 in six innings and gave the Giants every opportunity to win, just as Madison Bumgarner and Ty Blach did before him.
But the Giants have not followed their usual pattern this season. They haven’t pitched nearly well enough to win those squeakers at home. And the hitters haven’t let loose when they set down their bat bags in livelier road environs.
The Giants have played 66 home games and 66 road games. They have scored just six more runs away from AT&T Park (265 to 259).
Take away Arizona’s nine-run feast in their final offensive inning, and Sunday’s game was one more example of a road series in which Bruce Bochy’s lineup was just too light to compete.
The dimensions at AT&T Park are blameless here.
“It shows more than anything how challenged we are offensively,” Bochy said. “It’s not our bigger ballpark. We’ve struggled in these types of parks, too.”
You could see this one coming against Arizona left-hander Patrick Corbin. The first two hitters in Bochy’s lineup, Gorkys Hernandez and Kelby Tomlinson, haven’t hit a home run all season. The Giants’ hottest hitter, Brandon Crawford, needed a day to rest an ailing hamstring. Pablo Sandoval hasn’t been a productive right-handed hitter in years. Jarrett Parker was challenged in his left-on-left at-bats.
If the Giants were to do any damage, they needed their top two right-handed hitters to inflict it. But Posey’s thumb is sore and Hunter Pence is barely mobile as he tries to play through left hamstring issues.
Posey managed one single in the entire series. Pence had one infield hit in three games. They each grounded into a double play on Sunday to complete a series in which they combined to go 2 for 22.
They hit a total of two balls beyond the infield.
In an era when other teams are taking two pails to the power font, Bochy’s squad continues to thirst for the long ball.
“I saw more ground balls today from our offense than I’ve seen all year,” Bochy said. “Just a lot of smothering the ball. Corbin threw well, but you still think you’ll find a way to score two or three runs.”
Is there any doubt? The Giants front office absolutely must be active and creative this winter to balance out a lineup that is too left-handed and features virtually no right-handed power.
At least Stratton continued his emergence, overcoming a vulnerability against left-handed hitters (.340 average, .443 on-base percentage) while facing a Diamondbacks lineup loaded with them. He snapped his curveball, made his 93 mph heater play up by firing it at the letters and struck out 10 for the second time in three starts. He fanned Jake Lamb, the Diamondbacks’ top lefty hitter, three times.
If he had any run support, the soft-spoken rookie with the basic-training haircut might have won his third consecutive start.
J.D. Martinez cracked a home run in the sixth that soared over the swimming pool — a mammoth drive for a pitch that came within a couple inches of jamming him. Arizona’s only other run against Stratton scored with two outs in the second inning when Rey Fuentes struck out on a wild pitch and Chris Herrmann crossed the plate.
“He’s doing what you want to see, and that’s make a statement that he can pitch up here,” Bochy said.
• Before the game, Bochy said that Stratton would remain in the rotation after Johnny Cueto returns from his rehab assignment.
Cueto might need another tuneup, though. He gave up eight runs (five earned) on nine hits in 3 2/3 innings for Single-A San Jose against Stockton, including a grand slam, while striking out four.
Cueto threw 72 pitches, didn’t walk a batter and picked a runner off base. But he couldn’t pitch around an error.