Giants can’t get offense dialed in
Samardzija gives up three solo homers, and blunders derail any chance for win
CHICAGO — Giants replay official Shawon Dunston felt a growing sense of panic. He could not understand why no one was picking up the phone.
It rang and rang through his receiver. Unbeknownst to him, the wall-mounted phone in the visiting dugout at Wrigley Field did not make a sound. By the time Dunston raced through the warren of dim, lime green Astro-Turf-covered tunnels that connect his instant replay lair to daylight, with vital information that a fan might have interfered on Kris Bryant’s home run in the first inning, the game had resumed. The chance to request a crew chief review had passed.
The phone was out of order in a 5-1 loss to the Cubs on Thursday. But hold your grievances. The Giants offense has been out of order all season.
The disputed home run was just one of three solo shots off Jeff Samardzija, which was all it took to strongarm the NL’s
least productive offensive team. Most of the damage the Giants did was self inflicted: Denard Span got picked off first base to destroy a potential uprising in the fifth inning, and Josh Osich threw a wild pitch that resulted in two runs in the eighth.
The Cubs took three of four in the series, and the Giants missed a chance to clinch a winning record on their seven-game trip to Busch Stadium and Wrigley. In retrospect, the Giants were fortunate to go 3-4. Their first two victories in St. Louis could have gone either way and were aided by Cardinals mistakes in the field and on the basepaths.
On sunny afternoons when the Giants make those mistakes, as they did Thursday, they usually cannot outhit them.
“You’d like to think in this ballpark we could score three or four runs, and we couldn’t do it,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, who pointed to Span’s pickoff with runners at the corners and one out as the key play in the game. “We shot ourselves in the foot. You never know what can happen, but the second out does a lot for that pitcher.”
Given the context, then, you can hold the phone controversy. The Giants were able to backchannel through league sources that the home run would’ve stood, anyway. It’s almost impossible for a fan to reach over the wire basket that is designed to prevent interference on home runs, although the blue-shirted bleacher creature with a Go-Go-Gadget arm who gloved the ball came close.
Left fielder Mac Williamson leaped at the ivy and then pointed to the fan. He said he didn’t know if the ball would have been in play, but he thought it was a possibility.
“I know that thing sticks out pretty far,” Williamson said. “I don’t know if it would’ve gone.”
Video evidence was far from conclusive. But Dunston said it was close enough that he would have recommended that Bochy ask umpires to intercede. (Home run calls are not subject to manager challenges but must be initiated by the crew chief.)
“With the basket out there, I didn’t think anyone could’ve reached beyond it,” Bochy said. “They were calling, but it never rang. … We were sitting right by the phone. We all saw the same thing. It’s hard to say they would have changed it, but we definitely would have asked.”
After the inning, Bochy explained the phone situation to umpires — “I had to say, ‘Heads up, I may have to stop the game’ — and the Giants tested the connection each inning after that.
The Cubs were the ones who dialed long distance. Jason Heyward put his home run in the wire basket in the fifth inning and Ben Zobrist added a deeper drive in the sixth as the Cubs interrupted Samardzija’s dominance.
The Giants had the right look to begin the game, when Span hit a leadoff double and scored on Brandon Belt’s double to the wall. Cubs righthander Eddie Butler benefited from three rocketed outs in the inning, too.
“After that, it seemed like we went to the ground attack — just a lot of ground balls,” Bochy said. “We’ve got to find a way to put some runs on the board for our pitchers.”
Samardzija (1-6) held the Cubs to just three other hits while striking out eight in seven innings. In addition to taking a defeat in a quality start, he also walked a batter for the first time in a span of five starts. It was the longest walkless streak by a Giants starter in more than three decades.
“That’s pretty good,” said Samardzija, who had faced 154 batters between an April 28 walk to the Padres’ Jabari Blash and a bases on balls to the Cubs’ Ian Happ in the sixth in- ning. “I used to walk a few back in the day.”
Samardzija, trailing 3-1, tried to start a rally in the fifth when he doubled and advanced on a wild pitch. But after Span drew a oneout walk, he got picked off base by a right-handed pitcher who already had telegraphed that he was paying attention.
“I can’t say he caught me off guard,” said Span, who was called out after the Cubs won a replay challenge. “He just made a better throw than the previous one.”
A dugout phone might be broken for a day. An offense cannot remain broken a third of the way through a season.
Some hangups are too much to overcome.