Giants: Yet another torturous loss as team can’t dig out of deep hole
SAN FRANCISCO >> Fewer than 24 hours after making their fans’ hearts skip beats and their manager’s hair fall out in a too-close-for-comfort, onerun win, the Giants looked ready to “torture” the home crowd in a different way.
For the first seven innings of Wednesday’s matinee against the A’s, the Giants were sleepwalking. Their pitches found barrels, their bats whiffed in the strike zone and they appeared destined to suffer a big, embarrassing blowout loss.
Then came a furious, five-run rally that induced the type of nail-biting, pressure-packed moments that “Giants torture” is all about.
Those moments, while compelling,
were all-too fleeting. The Giants had dug a hole so deep that even one of the team’s biggest rallies of the season couldn’t help them escape it in a 9-5 defeat to cap the Oracle Park portion of the Bay Bridge Series. The teams resume the series Aug. 2425 in Oakland.
Rookie Mike Yastrzemski launched a three-run home run, veterans Evan Longoria and Stephen Vogt tacked on hits, and outfielders Alex Dickerson and Kevin Pillar stepped to the plate with chances to tie the score in the eighth inning.
In his first at-bat back from the injured list, Dickerson recorded a RBI groundout. After delivering the Giants’ only two hits in the first seven innings, Pillar struck out.
“That’s a good bullpen over there, so for us to climb back in and give ourselves a chance, that’s all you can ask for in a game like that,” Vogt said. “They did a great job of getting us on our heels early, but we were able to string some at-bats together late and make it a game.”
The Giants of 2010, 2012, 2014 and even 2016 grew accustomed to winning onerun games, thriving under pressure and ensuring the outcome would remain in jeopardy until the final pitch. This year’s club has won a significant amount of games using a similar formula, but it has also tortured fans in different ways, most notably in defeats such as Wednesday’s, where the Giants looked lifeless against a pitcher barely skating by.
It’s been more than six years since righthander Homer Bailey tossed a no-hitter against the Giants, and over his past five seasons, Bailey has posted an ERA of 6.09. Against the Giants’ lineup, throw out the numbers. There’s no rhyme or reason to who they hit and who they don’t.
The A’s scored a run in the first, another in the second and two more in the third against rookie Tyler Beede to break Wednesday’s game open early while the Giants managed just two hits in seven innings against Bailey. The journeyman matched the Giants’ hit total against him, drilling a single to center and reaching on an infield single that brought home a run from third base in the second inning.
Twenty-eight of the 60 victories the Giants have earned this season have come in one-run games, but 17 of their 61 losses have come by a margin of at least five runs. The combination of close wins and maddening defeats has frustrated the team’s front office, players and fans, who still believe in the club’s ability to make a run for a National League wild-card berth even if the odds have declined over the last two weeks.
The offensive troubles against pitchers such as Bailey are a concern for manager Bruce Bochy, but so too are the extensive struggles of his inexperienced starters.
“We’re just trying to get (Beede) over the hump as far as him executing his pitches,” Bochy said. “It’s really good at times and then it gets away from him at times.”
Ten different Giants pitchers have earned victories since the last time Beede, Shaun Anderson or left-hander Conner Menez received credit for a win. Starters Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija have carried the staff and kept the team within striking distance in the wild-card race for the last month, but the trio of rookies attempting to fill out the back half of the rotation haven’t helped the Giants gain any ground in the standings.
• Pablo Sandoval’s right elbow was too much to overcome and the club decided to place him on the 10-day injured list on Wednesday.
“It’s very damaged, it’s beat up,” Sandoval said.
Sandoval has had bone chips in his right elbow since 2013, but has found ways to manage the injury over the past six years. Pain in the elbow became progressively worse following a pinch-hit appearance in Friday’s 9-6 loss to the Phillies and reached a point where the Giants decided he ultimately needed rest.
The energetic infielder has been one of the team’s most valuable players this season and has contributed in a variety of roles. Sandoval’s 14 home runs tie him for second place on the club with starting third baseman Evan Longoria and his 18 pinch hits have tied him for the San Francisco Giants franchise record with Ken Oberkfell, who recorded 18 in 1989.
Neither Sandoval nor Bochy listed a definitive timetable for Sandoval’s potential return to the roster, but it’s possible Sandoval could be limited to pinch-hit duties for the remainder of the season.