SAN FRANCISCO — Seemingly with each passing day the Giants find a new way to lose. On Wednesday against the Dodgers, that meant finding a new way to leave the bases loaded.
Facing Giant-killer Julio Urías, San Francisco couldn’t muster more than three base runners through the first six innings. But the first three batters of the seventh reached base, finally forcing Urías from the game. What followed was nothing short of disaster.
Light-hitting fill-in shortstop Dixon Machado struck out on three pitches, setting up a baserunning blunder for the ages by Luis González. On second base after the second of three singles to lead off the inning, González was doubled off for the final out of the inning after pinch-hitter Mike Yastrzemski flew out softly to right fielder Mookie Betts.
That was the Giants’ best chance in a 3-0 loss to their division rivals as their postseason hopes continue to fade by the day. Their seventh straight loss to the Dodgers dropped them a season-high 20.5 games back of the NL West and further back of the wild card than any point this season, too, now 5.5 games behind Philadelphia.
The Giants’ seven consecutive losses to the Dodgers matched their longest single-season losing streak to Los Angeles since 1980 (April 21-June 27), a stretch of baseball Wednesday’s tough-luck loser Alex Cobb said was “really unimaginable a couple months ago.”
“If we had the answer we would’ve called a team meeting and made a quick fix and it’d be all over,” said Cobb, who allowed three runs over 6⅓ innings but took the loss. “It just hasn’t been great baseball.”
No team in the majors has driven in more runs with the bases loaded this season, but for the second straight night, the Giants failed to get a single run out of a bases-loaded, no-outs opportunity.
They loaded them again with one down in the ninth against Los Angeles closer Craig Kimbrel, but Yastrzemski popped up and Austin Slater took strike three to end the game.
Machado, a career .227 hitter who recently came over from the Cubs with Brandon Crawford and Thairo Estrada both out, would have likely been lifted for a pinch-hitter in the seventh, but the Giants had nobody else who could capably finish the game at shortstop. He came up again with the bases loaded in the ninth and was lifted for LaMonte Wade Jr., who was hit by a pitch, but it proved to be too little, too late.
“It just compromises us too much,” manager Gabe Kapler said of the possibility of subbing for Machado in the seventh. “We made the disciplined decision to wait until (the ninth).”
Urías has faced the Giants four times this season and blanked them in three of those outings. In 24 innings against them this season, he has allowed two earned runs, a 0.75 ERA.
Cobb left the game trailing 2-0 with one out in the seventh and a runner on first. He let out his frustration by pounding his fist into the dugout railing after the runner he put on, James Outman, scored the Dodgers’ third run on a sac fly from Mookie Betts.
“Pure frustration,” Cobb said of the moment captured on camera. “I felt like I had a pretty good game plan against (Outman) and I just didn’t execute that pitch (a 1-1 splitter) that got me knocked out of the game.”
Cobb frustrated pic.twitter.com/aRbFPOfZgo
— Evan Webeck (@EvanWebeck) August 4, 2022
After striking out a season-high 11 Cubs in his last start, Cobb began Wednesday’s game by recording five of his first six outs via K and finished with eight punchouts in 6⅓ innings, his second-longest outing of the season.
Urías retired the first 14 Giants hitters until Brandon Belt laced a two-out double down the right-field line in the fourth. Belt, the only Giant with multiple hits, also set up San Francisco’s only other scoring chance until the seventh with a line-drive single to right in the sixth that advanced Wilmer Flores to second.
González’s miscue that ended the seventh was the third out he’s made on the bases in the past two weeks. He was also doubled off second and picked off first in the same game last week against the D-backs.
“Very similar to when he got picked off the other day,” Kapler said. “Essentially, we really want Luis to understand the game state and the value of his out on the bases relative to the score. It’s the second run. He’s not the third run.”
Betts had to charge to make the catch on Yastrzemski’s fast-fading fly, and González said he thought there was “no chance” Betts could make the play. While Kapler said it could have been a “challenging read” for González, “you have to assume Mookie Betts is going to get to that baseball.”
“It ended up staying up in the air a lot longer than I thought,” González said. “As soon as the crack of the bat happened, I was thinking four all the way. … By the time I decided to go back, it was a little late.”
In his first game since being acquired from the Mets, J.D. Davis was left standing on third base — the closest a San Francisco runner would come to scoring — after singling to left for his first hit in a Giants uniform.
Rookie outfielder Bryce Johnson, also playing his first game for the Giants, went 0-for-2 in his MLB debut before being lifted for Yastrzemski in the pivotal bases-loaded chance in the seventh.
A rookie making his debut on the other side, the highly touted Miguel Vargas, drove in the Dodgers’ first two runs, doubling home Trayce Thompson in the second and singling home Max Muncy in the fourth.
Source: www.mercurynews.com