Padres 5, Giants 2:
S.F. finishes a 9-17 April.
The Giants offered a fitting ending to a truly hideous April.
They fell 5-2 to the Padres on Sunday in China Basin, courtesy of Wil Myers’ resounding threerun, 12th-inning homer off George Kontos. Myers’ blast came in the wake of Hector Sanchez’s game-tying, two-run homer off closer Mark Melancon in the ninth, when the Giants stood two outs from victory.
Instead, they finished the season’s opening month at 9-17 (.346), their fourth-lowest April winning percentage in San Francisco and their lowest since 1984. The Giants will begin May with the worst record in the National League and thirdworst in the majors, ahead of only Toronto (8-17) and Kansas City (7-16).
“It just flat-out hasn’t been pretty,” Melancon said.
Asked if the Giants aren’t panicking yet, he replied, “We better start panicking. If we don’t get our act together, it’s going to be ugly. There are too many good teams out there that are ready to go after us. We need to figure it out.”
April was terrible in larger ways for the Giants, given the tragic deaths of Orlando Cepeda’s wife, Mirian, and Brandon Crawford’s sister-in-law, Jennifer Pippin.
Baseball-wise, the team waded through a parade of injuries. Most notably, pitcher Madison Bumgarner took a regrettable dirt-bike ride April 20 in Denver, sprained his valuable left shoulder and will not return until after the All-Star break.
Even so, manager Bruce Bochy expected the Giants to weather the storm better than they did.
“April was not a good month,” he said. “We just haven’t been playing winning baseball. Luckily, it’s April, so we have some time to get it going. Our play definitely has to pick up.”
Bochy naturally fielded questions about his beleaguered bullpen, again, after Sunday’s loss. But he quickly pointed toward his offense, which produced only 18 runs in seven games on this homestand.
The Giants went 3-4 against the Dodgers and Padres and didn’t score more than four runs in any game.
“We’ve got to find a way to get more runs on the board,” Bochy said. “I can’t always put this on the bullpen. We’re not driving the ball, and it’s catching up with us. …
“More than anything, it’s up to our core players to find their swings and get clicking.”
Up 2-0, the Giants seemed on the brink of a much-needed victory Sunday until the bottom of the ninth. Shortstop Eduardo Nuñez opened the door for San Diego, booting Luis Sardinas’ routine leadoff grounder for an error.
One out later, Sanchez, the ex-Giants catcher, barged through the door. Melancon threw him a cut fastball down the middle, and Sanchez smacked it into the arcade above the right-field wall.
It was Melancon’s second blown save this season; he had converted five straight opportunities since his Opening Day pratfall in Arizona.
“Today was on me, 100 percent,” Melancon said. “That’s a game we need to win. That’s a must-win game right there.”
Sanchez collected the third pinch-hit homer of his career, his first since he blasted one for the Giants on June 15, 2014, against Colorado.
The Giants still had a chance to erase Melancon’s mistake, but they went 1-for-13 in the final four innings. And the Padres seized the lead in the 12th, after singles by Cory Spangenberg and Erick Aybar.
With one out, Kontos tried to throw a high-and-inside fastball to Myers. But the pitch caught too much of the plate, and the sound upon contact was loud and unmistakable.
The sight of the ball sailing over the left-field wall sent discouraged Giants fans streaming for the exits.
“I just didn’t execute the pitch inside enough,” Kontos said. “He made me pay for it, unfortunately.”