Losing streak reaches seven
Cueto’s best start of the season wasted as bats silenced by knuckleballer
ATLANTA — The Giants lost 9-0 to the Atlanta Braves Monday night. Johnny Cueto pitched one of his best games of the season.
Sometimes, non-sequiturs can be 100 percent true.
“I went in with a goal to pitch seven innings and try to keep my head up, not down,” Cueto said through Spanish interpreter Erwin Higueros. “That was my goal — give my team a chance to win.
“We have plenty of games left. I know there is a winning streak somewhere. It is just sad the way the season is going.”
Maybe that winning streak for Cueto will come in another uniform. Who knows? The Giants have not begun internal meetings to plot a course for the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, and they do not wish to part ways with a popular and positive right-hander who started for the NL All-Star team last season.
But things have gone so sideways, the front office has to consider every possibility.
Cueto had no shot to win despite one of his finest outings of the season, not that the final score would indicate it. He held
the Braves to two runs on five hits in seven innings. Catcher Buster Posey remarked that his fastball had more life, which made his off-speed pitches and his shoulder shimmying even more effective to disrupt the hitters’ timing.
“I was working the way I wanted to,” Cueto said. “You saw Johnny Cueto pitching today.”
So did special assignment scouts from the Cubs, Cardinals and other teams. This four-game series is a wonderfully rich place to perch for carrion.
It was the Giants’ first game in the suburban sprawl at Sun Trust Park. Maybe next time they will score their first run.
The Giants have lost seven consecutive games and at 26-46, they have matched their worst record through 72 games in the club’s San Francisco era. The 1985 and 1973 teams also won just 26 of their first 72 games.
If these Giants were to scrimmage Jimmy Davenport’s squad or that Charlie Fox-managed team, here’s guessing it wouldn’t go well for them.
The Giants offense returned to sea level and took underwater swings at R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball. Even if they had managed to grab a lead, their bullpen appeared ill equipped to hold it. Josh Osich and Derek Law splintered apart during a sevenrun eighth inning in what became a lopsided loss.
“Sure, we didn’t score, but it’s a ballgame there,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “And we couldn’t get three outs.”
The Braves scored the only one they would require in the third inning, when Ender Inciarte doubled home Johan Camargo from first base. It would have taken a perfect relay to get him. The Giants came close. Center fielder Denard Span cut off the ball in the rightcenter gap, made as strong a throw as he is capable of making to hit the cutoff man, and shortstop Brandon Crawford had time to set himself before his onehopper skipped just a bit too far up the third base line and catcher Buster Posey couldn’t hang onto it.
“Span did a great job there,” Bochy said. “The throw from Craw was accurate but it’s a tough hop for Buster to pick. I’ll take that relay.” Good try. Good effort. Bochy and the players talk of turning around their season by playing cleaner, more fundamentally sound games. It’s the little things, you know.
But their lack of offense is a big thing. It is blotting out everything else.
Dickey gave up hits to the first two batters he faced and the Giants had runners at the corners with no outs. Then their middle-of-the-order hitters followed with this: Crawford popped to short, Posey struck out and Hunter Pence popped to short.
“The first inning was a turning point for us,” Bochy said. “It’s hard to say that in the first inning.”
Dickey pitched seven innings and retired 16 of the last 17 batters he faced, with the only exception coming when a knuckler fluttered Posey’s jersey.
Brandon Belt couldn’t have had an unluckier day if he had been literally snakebit and then the ambulance caught a flat tire on the way to the hospital. A botched replay decision robbed him of a double, and the Braves also made diving plays to take away hits on a blooper to left field and a hard grounder to the right side.
Matt Adams hit a solo home run off Cueto in the fourth inning and the Braves broke it open in their final at-bat.
Osich issued a leadoff walk that started a sevenrun bludgeoning. Six of the runs scored after Law entered the game and … well, also issued a leadoff walk. Then left-handed hitters pummeled him, with Danny Santana launching a threerun pinch homer.
Left-handed hitters have 12 hits in their last 21 at-bats against Law.
The relievers were frustrated by Bochy’s matchup-based strategy last year, and asked that they be trusted to pitch full innings this season. Bochy complied. The relievers have not delivered on their end.
“They have a habit of getting too many deep counts,” Bochy said. “But the walk started everything. That’s something that has hurt us this year, the leadoff walk.”
One of many somethings.
n The league rejected Hunter Strickland’s appeal of his six-game suspension stemming from his pitch that hit Washington’s Bryce Harper on May 29. Strickland began serving his penalty on Monday.