September blues continue in loss
MILWAUKEE >> If the season played out as the Giants front office expected, Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria would be the leaders of a revitalized offense, Buster Posey would still be catching and Derek Holland would be finishing up a nice year as a long reliever.
Expectations called for the Giants to contend in September, but instead the club is 0-6 in its final month and a season-worst six games under .500 after dropping a 4-2 series opener to the Brewers.
Little went according to plan for the Giants this year, who started a battery of pending free agents in Holland and catcher Nick Hundley against Milwaukee on Friday.
While Holland overcame an unreliable strike zone to throw six innings of two-run ball, home plate umpire Adam Hamari’s zone robbed Hundley and the Giants of an opportunity for a big fourth inning.
With runners on first and second and no outs, Hundley took a 3-0 fastball well off the outside corner that Hamari called a strike.
“That was probably one of the worst strike calls that I’ve had on me in my career,” Hundley said. “Probably the most inconsistent strike zone that I’ve seen all year.”
Hundley popped up on a 3-2 pitch later in the atbat, and by the time he was called out on strikes for the second out in the ninth, the Giants couldn’t hold back their frustration. Hundley drew a line with his bat in the dirt to earn an ejection before manager Bruce Bochy raced out of the dugout.
“You get a 3-0 pitch that’s a good eight inches outside, I’m not exaggerating, nobody out and bases loaded, like you said it’s
a completely different game,” Hundley said.
While Hundley retreated to the clubhouse, Hamari wasted little time tossing Bochy, too.
“It was mounting up,” Bochy said. “It was a rough night there on some calls for us and that’s what that was.”
Hundley wasn’t the only player to have the bat taken out of his hands in the fourth. With two outs and a runner on third, center fielder Gorkys Hernández watched a 3-0 fastball that appeared to miss off the inside corner.
Hamari called it a strike and two pitches later, Hernández struck out to end the inning.
The Giants scored two runs on five hits, but only gave up three hits in the loss. After allowing a tworun home run to Ryan Braun in the first, Holland settled in and threw five hitless innings to drop his season ERA to 3.54.
While the franchise’s highest-profile offseason acquisitions didn’t live up to expectations this season, Holland stabilized the rotation and has pitched
like an All-Star during the second half.
Reliever Tony Watson threw like one during the first three months of the season, but he was on the mound when Brewers first baseman Jesús Aguilar drilled a two-out, goahead double in the bottom of the seventh. Watson didn’t take the loss, as that was charged to Hunter Strickland after he opened the inning with back-to-back walks.
“He looked like he just missed on those first couple of hitters and the walks came back to haunt us,” Bochy said.
With a no-decision Friday, Holland has yet to be charged with a loss since the All-Star break and owns a 2.45 ERA during that span.
The lefty could have certainly helped a contending club’s rotation down the stretch, but the Giants hung onto Holland in lieu of trading him and stand to benefit if they’re able to re-sign him this offseason.
Holland, though, isn’t ready to look that far ahead.
“I don’t want to look at contract talk or any of that stuff,” Holland said. “I need to focus on now. I have, you know, personal goals that I want to achieve. But I need to worry about what’s going on now.”
While the emergences of rookies Dereck Rodríguez and Andrew Suárez have provided the Giants with a sense of hope for the future of their rotation, Holland is in the midst of a career year and deserves credit for stabilizing a starting staff that lost Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija for multiple months.
According to Holland, that credit should be shared with Posey and Hundley, who has taken over as the everyday catcher after Posey underwent season-ending hip surgery last week.
“He’s one of the best teammates I’ve had,” Holland said of Hundley. “He’s an awesome catcher, awesome dude, outstanding player out there. He’s competitive and the thing is, he was our backup catcher and he comes in every single day as if he’s the starter.”
• Shortstop Brandon Crawford sat for the fifth time in the Giants’ last seven games with lingering soreness in his left knee. Bochy said the staff has not discussed the possibility of shutting Crawford down for the remainder of the season, and he considers Crawford’s status as “day-to-day.”