A’s avoid Bay Bridge Series sweep with 62 victory over Giants at Oracle Park.
Giants: Sleepy offense can’t erase early deficit
And now, after this interleague interlude, the Giants turn their sights back to the NL West.
The A’s rained a bit on San Francisco’s recent parade of wins in the finale of the threegame Bay Bridge Series, coming away with a 62 victory Sunday at Oracle Park to prevent a sweep. But the Giants still have the majors’ best record, at 5027 — no other team has reached 50 wins — and they lead the West by 31⁄2 games over secondplace Los Angeles.
It’s the first time since 1938 the Giants have beat every other team to the 50win mark.
“The run differential alone will tell you that, how well they’re playing,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said of the Giants’ plus100 mark. “It’s no fluke. They have good pitching, they have really good hitting, they match up — it’s kind of a Tampa Bay model in the National League. So they’re maximizing the roster. It’s been a successful model; they’re doing it very well, and they’re very disciplined in how they do it.”
Sunday bucked the Giants’ recent trends: The team is at or near the top of most major statistical categories, but neither the pitching nor the offense had a particularly great day.
Sammy Long, making his fourth bigleague appearance and second career start, gave up four hits, three walks and four runs in five innings. Two of the runs came on a base hit by Matt Chapman in the first inning, and two more came after Long had left the game. Long hit Chad Pinder and walked Tony Kemp to start the sixth, and John Brebbia took over and gave up an RBI single by Aramis Garcia and a safetysqueeze bunt by pitcher Cole Irvin that sent in Kemp.
“I was just trying to finish strong,” Long said. “Just one of those things where I needed to make some pitches and they didn’t go my way.”
Elvis Andrus added a sacrifice fly that inning, and Garcia another RBI single off Jimmie Sherfy the next inning.
The Giants’ offense not only couldn’t keep pace but couldn’t even mount much of a rally until the last possible moment. The team didn’t have a runner advance past first until the eighth; even then, it came courtesy of a twoout hit batter. They didn’t score until the ninth, and their first run came on a doubleplay grounder.
Steven Duggar then smoked an RBI double to center, necessitating an Oakland pitching change. Melvin turned to closer Lou Trivino, who struck out pinchhitter Brandon Crawford to end the game.
“I thought it was nice to see our guys fight at the very end,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “It was good to have the crowd on their feet at the end and get Craw up there with a meaningful atbat with (Alex Dickerson) on deck to potentially turn the lineup over and give us a chance to win that game . ... We’re better than we showed in the first couple of innings, but also Cole Irvin deserves a lot of credit for pitching a great game.”
Catcher Buster Posey was back in the lineup after missing two games with lower back tightness, and he provided two of the team’s six hits. “Just one of those things that pops up every now and then,” Posey said of his back issue. “I feel good now.”
San Francisco heads to Los Angeles for games Monday and Tuesday and then plays four at lastplace Arizona. Even with Sunday’s loss, the Giants have won 10 of their past 12, and they’ve won or split each of their past 10 series, tied with the Yankees for the longest streak this season.
The Giants have not lost two games in a row in more than a month — when they dropped three straight to the Dodgers at Oracle Park from May 2123.
“We’ve faced those guys twice already this year, and you know you’re going to have a battle on your hands,” Posey said. “We’ll try to have a good approach and do what we can to try to come out on top.”