GIANTS HIT ROCK BOTTOM AT COORS
Team has MLB’s worst record and still hasn’t won in Denver this year
Buster Posey hopped out of his crouch in pain after a foul tip rapped him on the right knuckle Tuesday night. He walked off the field in the eighth inning and into the back room with the big and scary medical equipment.
“X-rays negative,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “So that’s good news.”
In this ash heap of a season, you trumpet any good news you get. Try finding something else to amplify on a night when the Giants lost 9-6 to the Rockies, remained winless in nine games at Coors Field this year, found themselves back on pace to lose 100 games for just the second time in franchise history, and with a .383 winning percentage, officially dipped below the Phillies for the worst record in the major leagues.
The final out was futility squared. Pablo San-
doval popped up to left field and matched Johnnie LeMaster’s franchise record of 37 consecutive hitless atbats.
Sandoval would not speak with reporters. Posey did, albeit with a selectively limited vocabulary when asked about playing September baseball for baseball’s ultimate bottom feeder.
“It’s hard to put into words, and ‘disappointing’ is probably not strong enough,” Posey said. “But I’ll leave it at that.”
The Giants clinched another road series loss — their series record away from AT&T Park is an unconscionable 3-17-3 — but even for a team out of the pennant race, showing a little hustle never hurts.
Ty Blach shows it at the conclusion of every inning he pitches. He bounds off the mound and runs at a fast clip back to the dugout. It’s a habit he picked up at Creighton University, and he has the good sense to know that wholesome traits are worth keeping.
Not even Blach, a Denverarea native, had the lung capacity and legs to get them to a handshake line.
Blach pitched well enough, as he has most of this season, and the Giants trailed 2-1 entering the sixth inning. But Bochy might have asked too much of his level headed rookie.
The Rockies blitzed Blach for three consecutive hits to start the sixth, and then Derek Law allowed two more while throwing a pair of wild pitches as an inherited runner scored.
By the time the inning ended, the Rockies had scored four runs while sending three doubles to gaps that appear even larger given the Giants’ limited outfield range here – one of the biggest reasons they have been non-competitive in most of their road games against a division rival.
Blach was pitching on the one-year anniversary of his big league debut, which also came in this ballpark, in a September where he leapt from innings filler to a clutch performer on a team that needed to win its final four games to sneak into the wild-card playoff.
Blach acquitted himself so well down the stretch that he won himself a spot on the postseason roster and a firm place in the team’s plans for the following year. Now at the end of it, the overall numbers (8-12, 4.81 ERA in 24 starts) tend to obscure his contribution and positive presence.
“He’s been able to make adjustments, and he understands he’ll have to constantly do that throughout his career,” Posey said. “He prepares as well as anybody. I always appreciate when pitchers do their homework.”
Said Blach: “I look at every day here as a blessing.”
A better bullpen and more offensive support would enhance Blach’s value and help him become a steady rotation piece like the Giants had with Kirk Rueter for so many years. But can the Giants count on those things in 2018? And if not, would Blach serve them better as a left-handed relief presence next season?
This much is clear: Blach goes against the grain of power pitchers that litter rosters up and down the big leagues.
How many hard throwers are there these days? Consider this: the Giants had two pitchers, Reyes Moronta and Roberto Gomez, make their major league debuts in the seventh inning. Moronta threw 98 mph. Gomez threw 96.
“Those two guys, for making a debut, showed great poise,” Bochy said.
The Giants lineup, on the other hand, did not signify a youth movement. On the day that they made their final additions from the minor leagues, including outfielder Austin Slater, they started a literal graybeard (Denard Span) in center field and a third baseman (Sandoval) whose hitless streak was the longest by a Giant in a generation.
By the time the night was over, Sandoval grounded into a double play, grounded out to third base, struck out, drew a walk and flied out to left. He matched the Giants franchise record for a hitless streak set by LeMaster (0 for 37) in 1984.
Bochy said that Sandoval would be off on Wednesday. Even though he is making the major league minimum, and his presence initially brought a jolt of energy to a lifeless team, you have to wonder if the team will continue to invest at-bats in the rehabilitation of their 2012 World Series MVP.
Some handy information for you, in case the Sandoval experiment continues: Former Giant Eugenio Velez holds the major league record with 46 consecutive hitless at-bats (nine with the Giants in 2009, and then 37 with the Dodgers the following season).
The Rockies were in full Johnny Wholestaff mode Tuesday, with Tyler Chatwood lasting three innings in a spot start and eight relievers seeing action after he departed.
Yet the Giants once again got off to a tardy start with the bats. They killed rallies with double-play grounders, left the bases loaded in the third and trailed 6-1 in the seventh when Buster Posey hit a two-run double. Span, who reached base four times, hit his own tworun double in the eighth. He scored on Joe Panik’s fourth hit of the night, a single up the middle, to cut the deficit to one run.
And you were reminded of the old baseball saw: no lead is safe at Coors Field — even, in theory, against a team that hasn’t won here all season. But Posey chased a pitch a foot outside to end the eighth. And Mark Melancon, pitching for a second consecutive day even as arm surgery looms, gave up two runs in the bottom of the inning.
Posey did not make it to the end of the eighth. He jumped in pain after his right hand was struck by a foul tip, and then left the game. Posey also has been dealing with a bone bruise in his left wrist.
The foul tip struck him on the ring finger and swelled up immediately, but Posey said it had subsided after treatment. He is day to day.
• The Giants filled out their September roster with three final call-ups, including Slater. First baseman/outfielder Chris Shaw and flashy center fielder Steven Duggar also joined the team.
• Posey was named the Giants’ nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award, which honors a player for his community philanthropy.