Bullpen surrenders five runs in ninth inning to turn seeming victory to defeat.
The Giants have closer problems once more. Two days after Hunter Strickland closed out a win in Arizona, he had a chance to secure the role when handed a three-run lead in the ninth inning. And he blew it. Then it was Steven Okert’s turn. He blew it, too. The Giants’ closer-by-committee failed Tuesday night, and manager Bruce Bochy is running out of options. Strickland and Okert coughed up five runs in the ninth inning, and the Giants fell to the Padres 6-4, the wrong time for an ugly loss.
“That was terrible,” Strickland said. “This is as bad as it gets.”
For those scoring at home, the Giants have blown six of 10 save opportunities in September and have 27 blown saves this season.
The Giants were one out from gaining a game on the first-place Dodgers in the NL West and maintaining their 1½-game wild-card lead on the Mets and two-game edge on the Cardinals. All that flew out the window as Ryan Schimpf ’s threerun homer left the field at AT&T Park.
The Padres quickly loaded the bases off Strickland on bloop singles by Derek Norris and — with one out — Jon Jay and an infield single by Luis Sardiñas off first baseman Buster Posey’s mitt, a play on which Strickland admitted he was slow to cover the bag.
Strickland forced in one run by walking Wil Myers and allowed another when Yangervis Solarte grounded out, the ball ricocheting off Strickland’s glove to second baseman Joe Panik.
“That’s on me,” said Strickland, who seemed bothered mostly by the bases-loaded walk and failure to cover first. “I obviously didn’t do my job tonight.”
Bochy pulled Strickland for Okert, who reached a 1-2 count, before Schimpf launched his three-run homer to center.
“These things happen,” Hunter Pence said. “Hunter’s unbelievable. He shouldn’t be too hard on himself. The breaks don’t always go your way. It just didn’t work out tonight.”
For eight innings, the game belonged to the Giants. Bochy’s 110th lineup of the season produced. He had four regulars on the bench and considered resting Posey.
Sure enough, Gorkys Hernandez, Ehire Adrianza and Kelby Tomlinson, reserves most days, combined for half of the Giants’ 12 hits.
Angel Pagan broke a 1-1 tie with a fifth-inning homer, and Hernandez homered to cap a three-hit game. Tomlinson scored twice, on a Pence double and a Brandon Crawford single.
With lefty Clayton Richard starting for the Padres, Bochy rested Denard Span and Panik. Eduardo Nuñez still had a stiff back, and Brandon Belt was ill. Bochy would have given Posey a rest, but Belt’s absence prompted Posey to play first and Trevor Brown to catch.
The Padres’ only damage off starter Albert Suarez was a run-scoring single by Sardiñas. Once Suarez departed, Bochy began pulling the strings on his 14-man bullpen.
Javier Lopez tossed a perfect sixth inning. George Kontos escaped a bases-loaded jam in the seventh by getting Solarte to fly out. Will Smith breezed past three hitters in the eighth.
Then the ninth. Before the game, Bochy was asked whether anything has changed with his closer-by-committee, and he said, “They’re all on board.”
And taking on water, fast.