Bochy on tonight's loss: "The pitching has been there, we just have to get this [offense] clicking" pic.twitter.com/AIBketrkst
— KNBR (@KNBR) April 10, 2018
SAN FRANCISCO — In an early season of drastic offensive highs and lows, the Giants performance Monday night featured the latter.
The Giants produced five hits in a 2-1 loss to the visiting Diamondbacks. Monday night’s defeat continued San Francisco’s ongoing offensive struggles, namely an inability produce runs in favorable opportunities.
Three of the four times the Giants started an inning with a hit, they failed to knock in a run.
The best scoring opportunity came with two outs in the bottom of the 5th inning. Outfielder Gregor Blanco grounded out with runners on second and third, keeping Arizona’s lead at 2-0.
It wasn’t until the 8th inning that San Francisco capitalized on a hit to start an inning, courtesy of Brandon Crawford’s double. Hunter Pence moved him to third with a sacrifice fly, and Blanco’s groundout to second base scored Crawford to make the score 2-1. The 9th inning yielded three unsuccessful at-bats, however, and the Giants dropped their second straight game.
After going 0-4 with runners in scoring position Monday night, the Giants are now 7-61 in such situations this season.
“Really as much as anything, we had a couple of chances,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said postgame. “We just got to start doing a better job with runners on base, as far as getting a hit, driving some guys in.”
Arizona’s starting pitcher, Zack Godley, fooled the Giants all night with his vanishing curveball. He struck out nine Giants hitters and allowed only three hits, only one of which came off his curveball.
One day after facing four-time Cy Young Award-winner Clayton Kershaw, Blanco had high praise for Godley.
“He has one of the best curveballs I have ever seen,” Blanco said postgame. “It looks like a cutter, and all of a sudden it disappears.”
Blanco on Godley: "He's got one of the best curveballs I've ever seen" pic.twitter.com/2bYheOk0ry
— KNBR (@KNBR) April 10, 2018
In nine regular season games, the Giants have scored one run or fewer six times. They started the season with two runs in the first four games before scoring 21 runs over the next three games. The Giants’ offensive struggles have resurfaced recently, however, after consecutive one-run performances.
San Francisco’s 25 runs are the second-fewest in the majors. The team’s .247 average is the 10th-best, however, but the hits haven’t come at opportune times.
“The pitching has been there,” Bochy said. “We just got to get this thing clicking. We have had a couple really nice games offensively, but we’re getting shut down a little bit more than we should I think. You always tip your cap if it’s a well-thrown game, which it was tonight, but still, we got to find a way to get more than one run across the board.”
Considering all of the above points, let’s revisit the trajectory of the Giants’ 2018 campaign.
Late in Spring Training, they lost Jeff Samardzija for the majority of the first month. Then Madison Bumgarner went down with a broken left pinky, which should sideline him into June.
As a result, they have been forced to depend on mostly young, inexperienced pitchers, while deploying the majority of a 2017 hitting lineup that struggled mightily. Then they faced Kershaw twice in the first eight games of the season.
Mix all of that in a blender, add their offensive struggles, and what is the final result?
A 4-5 record.
It could be worse.