Swept in doubleheader, SF Giants give Rockies their first series win against NL West opponent all season
Giants officially eliminated from NL West contention, fall back to 2½ games out of NL wild card with 5-2 loss
DENVER — There will be two four-game series. Two weaker National League West opponents. Two chances to gain ground in the crowded NL wild card race.
The Giants botched both, and their playoff hopes are on life support with 13 games remaining.
An impressive crowd of 43,885 witnessed their last-place hometown team hand the Giants (75-74) their third loss in 24 hours, 5-2, seriously deflating San Francisco’s playoff hopes during its easiest remaining stretch of the schedule. It was difficult not to draw comparisons to the Giants’ four-game set earlier this month against the fourth-place Padres, who won three of four in a series San Francisco needed to win.
“That was not our best baseball over the course of the last three days,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “It’s not good timing not to be playing good baseball three games in a row.” We’re a tough group. I believe what we should be thinking about right now is how many times we can get back up after being knocked down and continue fighting. There’s still a lot of time.”
Those games at Petco Park, like Saturday night’s at Coors Field, were also played in front of larger and more raucous crowds than the Giants have drawn at their waterfront ballpark for the majority of the summer. Their struggles away from Oracle Park are unfathomable, with the team going 4-23 in their last 27 road games, including the last three at a ballpark where they were 19-10 during Kapler’s tenure.
“Isn’t it simple? “On the road, we’re just not playing well enough,” Kapler said. “The environment is real. It’s a different setting. But we’ve done well in this situation before. We’ve come here for a long time and played good baseball. So, we’ll get back up tomorrow and prepare to play them again, hopefully better.”
While there is still one more game here on Sunday (LHP Sean Manaea vs. RHP Chris Flexen, 12:10 p.m. PT), the series script is already written. The Giants blew a huge opportunity, and the Rockies won their first series against a division rival this season. Prior to this series, they had lost 16 of their previous 17 meetings with the Giants.
Worse, the Marlins defeated the Braves and the Reds defeated the Mets, putting the Giants 212 games behind the third and final NL wild card. Their next two-game series in Arizona, which was still in progress against the Cubs when this game ended, looms large with tiebreaker implications.
FanGraphs has them at 10.8% to win the four-team race, the lowest they’ve ever been, down from 47.5% just three days ago after a 5-1 home stand.
The National League West is officially out of reach. Their loss in the second game on Saturday eliminated them from contention, which had seemed unlikely since mid-summer.
“We haven’t been playing good defense, we haven’t been hitting the ball, and we haven’t been throwing as many strikes as we’d like to,” said rookie catcher Patrick Bailey. “We’ve been on a roll all year.” We’ve played some really good baseball and some really bad baseball. We’re still in the hunt and have a shot at making the playoffs. That is what we must concentrate on.”
The Rockies won more games against the Giants in a single day on Saturday than they had in more than a year, dating back to last August.
In Game 1, the Giants used three relief pitchers. They gave up nine runs, but the “silver lining,” as Kapler put it, was that the bullpen would be fully rested for the second game. However, San Francisco fell behind 2-0 after the first inning and never had a lead to defend.
Alex Cobb was supposed to start for the Giants on Saturday, but due to a hip impingement, he was pushed back until Tuesday in Arizona.
That left the Giants with an opener, Scott Alexander, and Jakob Junis in a bulk role behind him for the nightcap of Saturday’s double header.
The combination gave up four runs in 423 innings, but only one of them was earned.
In the first, Paul DeJong muffed a routine grounder from Ezequiel Tovar, who promptly punished the Giants. He stole second and scored on Kris Bryant’s double, who was driven in a few batters later by Elehuris Montero’s line drive into left field after an eight-pitch battle with Junis.
In a two-run third inning, Tovar’s aggressive base running led to more errors. He singled in Charlie Blackmon after the bearded veteran outfielder tripled to start the inning, then advanced to second on Junis’ first of two wild pitches. Bailey scrambled to catch the ball and rushed a sidearm throw that sailed wide of Thairo Estrada and into center field, allowing Tovar to advance to third. Junis buried another pitch in the dirt, deflecting Bailey’s throw and allowing Tovar to score.
“I wasn’t really expecting him to run, and he took off,” Bailey explained. “You usually try to make a play. Outs are scarce in Colorado. When I have that low three-quarter slot, the ball usually runs arm-side and cuts (the other way).”
Despite being called up in mid-May, Bailey has built a serious Gold Glove case as a rookie, and Kapler suggested that he may be trying too hard to right a 28-man ship. He has thrown out 12 of his last 47 attempted base stealers, a success rate of 25.5%, compared to 12 of the first 31 players who attempted to run on him, a success rate of 38.7%.
“I think he’s just trying to do everything, trying to throw every runner out, trying to backpick everybody, just trying to do something to help us win baseball games,” Kapler said. “If I had to pick one thing going on for us right now, it’s that everyone is working so hard to help us get on the roll that we know we’re capable of.” We can’t do it, and that just makes each individual press that much harder.”
“There’s always a chance,” Bailey said. We’re attempting to make plays and get hits. You can sometimes press too hard and do too much…. At the end of the day, I’m just trying to control what I can control and be consistent.”
The Giants got one back in the second on Mike Yastrzemski’s third straight single, a rare start against a left-hander, and added another run in the sixth after Estrada and Wilmer Flores led off with back-to-back singles.
But two runs at Coors Field, like their two-hit performance Friday night, are rarely enough. Between the two games Saturday, the Giants grounded into five double plays, including one off the bat of Mitch Haniger that ended the third inning, stranding their only extra-base hit of the night, a leadoff double from Austin Slater.
They have scored nine runs on 18 hits in three games in this hitter’s paradise, going 5-for-26 (.192) with runners in scoring position. Yastrzemski struck out with runners on second and third in the bottom of the ninth, and after Brandon Crawford worked a nine-pitch walk to load the bases, Blake Sabol popped out to end the game.
