ROLL SLOWED
Upstart Giants can’t hold a five-run lead, fall to Rockies at Coors Field
The Giants were rolling, treating their sport as if were slow-pitch softball and poised to return home in third place in their division and maybe even making a run at second.
Then the hitting stopped, the bullpen imploded and the Giants lost 9-6 on Wednesday to the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field.
The Giants (18-20) fell percentage points behind Colorado (18-19) and are in fourth place in the National League West.
Yet it was difficult to get too overwrought at the split of the two-game series with the Rockies. These things happen at Coors Field, where the Giants exploded for a 23-5 win Tuesday night that included a historic performance by Alex Dickerson (three home runs, two doubles, six RBIs, 16 total bases) and where a 6-1 lead in the fourth inning is still tenuous at best.
The Giants held that five-run margin after Daniel Robertson drew a bases loaded walk in fourth inning. They scored four in the first inning, had a run three of the first four innings and 11 of the previous 13 innings including Tuesday night’s 27-hit explosion.
And then … nothing.
It wasn’t lost on Giants manager Gabe Kapler that his team had also left nine runners on base in those four innings.
“I think you never feel safe with a lead here, and with good reason,” Kapler said. “I won’t say it’s easy to put up a five spot in an inning, but it’s certainly not out of the ordinary. You have to take the opportunities to put them away when you have them.”
First baseman Wilmer Flores believed that had the Giants continued to add on the way they did Tuesday night, it would have been a different story.
“If you want to win at Coors Field, you have to keep scoring like we did (Tuesday),” Flores said. “You know how the games are here. But we didn’t and we lost the game.”
The Giants built their lead with a four-run first inning that included a solo home run by Mike Yastrzemski (his eighth) and consecutive run-scoring singles by Dickerson, Joey Bart and Robertson. They added runs in the third on Yastrzemski’s bloop RBI single and in the fourth on Robertson’s walk with the bases loaded.
They never scored again as Ryan Castellani, Mychal Givens, Carlos Estevez and Daniel Bard held the Giants to two hits and no runs the rest of the way. Givens (1-0) was the winning pitcher with Bard picking up his fourth save.
The Giants’ bullpen, unlike Colorado’s, couldn’t support rookie starter Logan Webb, who pitched continually with runners on base but left with a 6-4 lead in with one out in the sixth.
Reliever Jarlin Garcia gave up two inherited runners from Webb on a run-scoring single by Sam Hilliard and a sacrifice fly to Josh Fuentes in the sixth, and then Sam Coonrod (0-1) and Tyler Rogers were preyed upon for five runs in the seventh.
Coonrod didn’t get anybody out and was charged with three earned runs, with Rogers giving up two earned runs in an inning.
“Those guys aren’t going to be perfect,” Kapler said. “They’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to miss with their location. That’s going to happen.”
Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon each had seventhinning hits that narrowly evaded the glove of Yastrzemski in right, with former Giant Kevin Pillar adding a tworun triple and Hillard an opposite-field two-run home run against Rogers.
After an off-day, the Giants return to Oracle Park for six games, four against the Arizona Diamondbacks and two against the Seattle Mariners.
Their hitting is creating a buzz around Major League Baseball and the Giants expect it to continue. They have won 10 of their last 14 games.
“We all feel good about it,” Flores said. “There are guys here that can hit. We have the right approach right now at the plate.”
• Dickerson drew the rare start against a left-handed starter based on his explosion Tuesday night. He went 2 for 5 with a double.
• With Brandon Belt (3 for 19) and Brandon Crawford (2 for 17) having not had much success against Colorado lefthander Kyle Freeland, neither was in the starting lineup even though both had been hitting well of late.
Belt was on a 17-for-31 tear (.548) since Aug. 22. Each was inserted as a pinch hitter in the ninth inning and Bard struck them out for the second and third outs of the inning.
• A run-scoring single by Hilliard in the sixth got past Flores, who was playing for Belt at first. Flores said he could have had the ball and made a play at second base for a force.
“It took a funny hop, but that’s a ball I can handle,” Flores said.
Kapler said he has faith in Flores’ defensive ability and didn’t regret not having Belt, a superior defender, in the game for defensive purposes.
• Kapler said he has not decided on the starting rotation for the Arizona series.