SAN FRANCISCO — Carlos Rodón could only do so much.
He shook off a headache and became the first Giants pitcher since Tim Lincecum to strikeout more than 10 batters for a seventh time in a season. He breezed through innings and escaped some jams, working his four-seam fastball and a good slider to generate plenty of swings and misses against a Diamondbacks team that’s given him fits all season.
Rodón was great. Pulled after six innings, he was on the books for his 12th win. One bad bullpen inning flipped the script. In the eighth, a struggling Dominic Leone couldn’t keep his slider down. Arizona’s Jake McCarthy hit a go-ahead two-run RBI single to hand the Giants a 3-2 loss on Wednesday night.
The loss snapped the Giants’ win streak at five galvanizing games and pushed them back 5 1/2 games back of a hotly contested third wild card spot. With August winding down soon, every half game counts.
Leone’s troublesome inning snowballed with hot-hitting Christian Walker’s one-out single followed by new call-up Stone Garrett’s double on a first-pitch slider, his second big league hit. McCarthy hit a slider into shallow right field to score the go-ahead runs easily.
“In this particular game he had a hard time executing his slider below the zone,” manager Gabe Kapler said.
Leone has had a few rough games of late, now allowing five runs on nine hits over his last seven appearances.
“I focus on tonight’s outing because I thought overall he threw more strikes, but he was unable to execute his slider where he wanted to go, as a result two guys put good swings on him,” Kapler said.
Kapler and the staff considered tapping Camilo Doval — dominating lately with a new sinker — to pitch with two outs and two on. But Doval is a few days off a stretch of pitching in three straight games.
“It was one of those things where we need to have confidence in everyone in our bullpen,” Kapler said. “Camilo Doval can’t handle the work for the entire bullpen all the time. We have to have everyone contribute and we trust these guys to do so.”
The eighth inning blunder wasted a gem from Rodón, who had impressive moments. He went to his slider in the sixth inning to escape a big jam from a walk, catcher’s interference, and hit batsman. He got his 11th strikeout of the game getting Jordan Luplow swinging on a slider to the roar of a smaller Oracle Park crowd. Rodón got the Diamondbacks to swing-and-miss on 11 four-seam fastball pitches.
“I thought Austin (Wynns) and I worked really well today,” Rodón said. “The slider was good. It’s a pretty patient team from facing them in the past, they usually lay off the spin a lot. We presented a little better today to get more swings on it and it worked effectively.”
Rodón exited having given up one run on an RBI double from Garrett on his first MLB hit, one of two hits he would allow. It erased an early lead earned on LaMonte Wade Jr.’s solo home run in the fourth inning.
J.D. Davis took that lead back with a solo home run after Rodón’s departure. Davis has hit four home runs in 12 games since acquired from the Mets at the deadline.
Offensively, the Giants couldn’t widen the margin of error for the pitching staff. They went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and had some mental lapses. With two on in the seventh inning, Mike Yastrzemski was picked off second base as a pinch runner for Wynns.
“I think Yaz knows he can’t get picked off there,” Kapler said. “Simple.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com