SAN FRANCISCO — With age comes the inevitable physical toll. Bodies don’t bend like they used to. Everything moves a bit slower. Professional athletes, with millions invested in their training regimens, are able to blunt these effects.
But age is undefeated.
Evan Longoria, in his halcyon days as a three-time Gold Glover, probably nabs Tim Anderson at first on his dribbler to lead off the fourth. Brandon Belt, not long ago, never would have allowed Andrew Vaughn’s ground ball to skirt under his glove and through the infield on the following play.
But Longoria is 36 now, reportedly pondering retirement after this season. Belt is 34 and battled physical issues all season. The Giants are the oldest team in the majors and by many metrics, also the league’s worst defensive team.
So, no, neither soft-hit ball resulted in an out. Both runners would score as part of a three-run rally off Logan Webb, who retired the first nine batters of the game with ease, while his defense imploded behind him, sending the Giants to their ninth loss in 12 games, 5-3, to the Chicago White Sox.
“It happens, man,” said Webb, who allowed five runs but only three earned over six innings. “That’s the kind of the (expletive) part of baseball, also. It comes with me throwing the way I do and trying to get ground balls. Sometimes they’re amazing plays, and sometimes it just doesn’t happen.”
For the seventh time this home stand, more than 25,000 fans — 30,804 on Saturday afternoon — paid good money to watch the Giants take on an opponent with a losing record. And for fifth time, they walked away disappointed in their investment.
“It’s been rough,” Webb said. “It’s not what we want to do. … We’re one game out of the playoffs. I think we’ll be all right.”
On the bright side, many of those fans also walked away with a LaMonte Wade Jr. bobblehead.
And, briefly, the day appeared to be on track for an appropriate celebration.
Facing White Sox starter Dylan Cease, who was just named the American League’s starter of the month for June, Wade led off the bottom of the first with a no-doubter into the visitor’s bullpen. With one swing, Wade equaled the number of earned runs Cease had surrendered since May 29 (34⅓ innings).
But the Giants’ loss Saturday, guaranteeing that they won’t win any of the three series on this home stand, acted as a microcosm of the issues that have held them back all season.
Joc Pederson followed Wade’s home run with a well-hit double. But despite reaching second base with no outs, that’s as far as he would advance, and only one other Giant would advance into scoring position until Darin Ruf doubled home Mike Yastrzemski to pull the Giants within 5-2 in the eighth.
Belt made it 5-3 with an RBI single in the ninth, but Yastrzemski grounded out to end the game, stranding Longoria 90 feet away — the 11th runner left on base Saturday by the Giants, who stranded runners in seven innings. Belt’s single and Ruf’s double were their only two hits in nine plate at-bats with runners in scoring position.
“I thought there was some fight shown by our club, particularly there at the end,” Kapler said.
As Kapler would say — because he has, time and time again — the Giants didn’t come up with the one big hit.
Blanked in the series opener Friday night, the Giants also mounted their best scoring chance in the first inning, loading the bases against Lance Lynn, but came up empty. Absent Wade’s homer — their 23rd solo shot in their past 25 dingers — they were nearly shut out for a second straight game.
“Obviously we put together a nice first inning again,” Kapler said. “Drove the pitch count up. Weren’t able to sustain that. Didn’t string together enough good at-bats together to score runs early, and they had a couple big innings. It was the difference in the game.”
In a reversal of the typical pattern around the league, the Giants’ offense has been puzzlingly strong in its first time facing a starting pitcher and progressively weaker as the game goes on. In the first three innings this season, the Giants have scored 137 runs and performed 21% better than the adjusted league average. Innings 4-6: 113 runs, 13% worse than the league average. And innings 7-9: 99 runs, about league average.
Both of the first two runs in the fourth scored when Pederson overcharged a line drive in left field that flew past him and made it all the way to the wall.
Another Giants error — this one by Donovan Walton — led to two more White Sox runs. Webb loaded the bases on the first three hitters of the sixth inning but was set up to get out of it unscathed after striking out A.J. Pollock and inducing a ground ball from Luery Garcia. But Walton threw wide of the first base and Webb fell down while covering the bag, erasing the would-be double play and allowing both runs to score.
Kapler called the all-around defensive effort “not good enough.”
“Tweaks are happening on daily basis,” he said. “We’ll keep working toward being the best defensive group we can be.”
The loss was only the seventh time San Francisco has fallen in Webb’s 29 career starts at Oracle Park and only its 11th defeat in Webb’s 42 total starts since the beginning of last season. However, despite Webb’s 2.48 ERA over his past six starts, the Giants’ record in those games is only 2-4.
Notable
- LaMonte Wade Jr. has a right elbow bruise after crashing hard into the right field wall while tracking down a fly ball in the ninth inning. He was pinch-hit for in the bottom half, and Kapler said Wade was “feeling it” in the immediate aftermath but “doing better” after the game.
- With Anthony DeSclafani (right ankle inflammation) on the injured list, the Giants needed to fill his spot in the rotation when it comes up for the first time in Sunday’s series finale. Kapler said that John Brebbia will start in an opener capacity and 25-year-old Sean Hjelle will be activated before the game. San Francisco will need to subtract a pitcher from its roster to make room for Hjelle.
Source: www.mercurynews.com