Giants finish road trip with another offensive dud, miss chance to widen lead in NL West
A Giants team that opened a sixgame road trip this week with a chance to boost its record against a pair of last-place clubs is returning home disappointed.
Gabe Kapler’s team went 3-3 against the Rangers and Nationals, but capped off a concerning week at the plate with another offensive dud in a 5-0 loss to Washington on Sunday.
Nationals starter Joe Ross became the first opposing pitcher to complete eight innings against the Giants this season as he held San Francisco to five hits and no walks while striking out nine. Ross entered Sunday’s game with a 4.80 ERA, but the Giants were unable to threaten him as they scored just three runs in their four-game set in Washington, D.C.
“He did do a nice job, I don’t want to take anything away from Ross, he was good,” Kapler said. “With that said, extended beyond today’s game, this entire series hasn’t been our best offensive performance and I think we have a better brand of offense in us.”
Nationals leadoff man Kyle Schwarber crushed a pair of home runs off Giants starter Johnny Cueto, including a solo shot to lead off the first and a three-run home run on an offering was well above the strike zone in the second inning.
The Nationals’ second inning rally started when Washington catcher Alex Avila reached on a groundball that kicked off Cueto’s foot and found a hole in the infield and continued when Cueto was unable to make a routine play on a Victor Robles bunt. The Giants made several mistakes Sunday that could typically be labeled as
“uncharacteristic,” but they were the types of miscues that appeared all too frequently throughout the club’s road trip.
After scoring nine runs in a win over Texas to open the trip, the Giants scored six runs over their last five games as veteran starters and role players who have made critical contributions this season all struggled to reach base. The first-place Giants have pointed to their depth as a key component of the hot start that landed them atop the National League West, but after third baseman Evan Longoria hit the injured list last Sunday with a left shoulder sprain, the club hasn’t come close to replicating his All-star-caliber production.
The Giants did bring first
baseman Brandon Belt and outfielder Mike Yastrzemski back from the injured list this week, but neither made the type of overwhelming impact the club needed without Longoria and other regulars such as Alex Dickerson, Tommy La Stella and Darin Ruf in the lineup.
“The more you let it linger, the more you get frustrated and the more you try to do too much,” Yastrzemski said of the series. “We can’t win this game anymore, it’s over, so we can’t go back and do anything and we look to the next one and try to be as good and precise and as disciplined as we can.”
Belt had three hits in Tuesday’s win over the Rangers, but went 0-for-16 with seven strikeouts on the rest of the trip.
“I’m not worried about him from a health perspective and I’m not worried about him from an offensive performance standpoint either,” Kapler said. “I’m pretty confident that’s going to come in short order as well.”
Another concern for the Giants are the recent struggles Johnny Cueto has endured as the right-hander has battled inconsistent command since returning from a lat injury a month ago. Cueto has enjoyed a handful of impressive starts this season, but wasn’t at his best on Sunday as he allowed nine hits, three walks and four earned runs in 5 1/3 innings.
Since returning from Tommy
John surgery in September, 2019, Cueto is 7-8 with a 4.79 ERA in 26 starts.
Kapler likely would have removed Cueto a bit earlier from Sunday’s game, but the Giants don’t have another off day until Monday, June 21 and are patching together their rotation with Logan Webb and Aaron Sanchez both on the injured list. The club received an outstanding outing from lefty Sammy Long in his MLB debut on Wednesday against the Rangers, but Long is only built up to throw about 4.0 innings at a time and the Giants need to be mindful about covering the remainder of a game with fresh bullpen arms the next time he pitches.