Offense struggles again as home skid hits 7
The best thing to be said about the Giants’ offense Saturday was ... well, Mike Broadway sure looked impressive on the mound in his major-league debut.
The Giants hit as they did Friday. Not early, not often. For much of the game, not at all.
A day after they got their first hit in the seventh inning, the Giants waited until the sixth to hit safely, and their 4-2 loss to the Diamondbacks was their seventh straight at home.
The last time the Giants went hitless through five innings in consecutive games was September 1986, facing Houston’s Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott. This time, it was Chase Anderson and Allen Webster.
“We were definitely underachieving the last couple of days,” Brandon Belt said. “Give some credit to them for making
good pitches and keeping us off balance, but we don’t expect it to continue, and we’ll be working hard to fix it.”
Theories as to why the Giants struggled include the hectic overnight travel from New York, facing two starting pitchers they had not seen and the whole hit-onthe-road, struggle-at-home thing.
Belt didn’t fully rule out the first two. But of the drastic home-road splits, he said, “We have to go into this with the same approach no matter where we’re playing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
The Giants had two hits Friday and four Saturday. Joe Panik’s sixth-inning double was the first off Webster and ignited a two-run rally. Angel Pagan hit a sacrifice fly and Buster Posey an RBI double.
Manager Bruce Bochy plans to rest Posey, who tried to reach base with a ninth-inning bunt (it went foul), and Pagan on Sunday. With three other outfielders on the roster, expect an alignment of Nori Aoki in left, Justin Maxwell in center and Jarrett Parker in right.
Like Broadway, Parker made his big- league debut but without much success. He was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. Not wanting Parker to get overnight jitters, Bochy told him hours before the first pitch that he was starting.
“I saw him in the weight room and said, ‘By the way, you’re starting,’ ” Bochy said. “I didn’t want him to overdo it.” Broadway is all about overdoing it. “I certainly don’t hold anything back,” he said after a scoreless seventh inning in which he flashed a 95-98 mph fastball and 86-89 mph slider, struck out Jake Lamb and got Paul Goldschmidt on a fly to center.
Yasmany Tomas singled and was thrown out trying to steal by Posey, who had time after receiving Broadway’s 97 mph heater.
Broadway said he felt “more comfortable than I thought I would. Buster makes it super comfortable. It’s hard to take it in as your first outing in the big leagues and stay focused on the task at hand.”
Ryan Vogelsong walked four batters in the first inning, two with the bases loaded, to hand the Diamondbacks a 3-0 lead and gave up Goldschmidt’s RBI single in the fourth. Four relievers combined for 51⁄3 shutout innings, none more dominant than Broadway, who fulfilled a dream after 11 seasons in the minors.
“Pretty impressive,” Belt said. “I had no expectations. I’ve never seen him pitch before. He came in popping 96, 98. That was pretty cool.”