© Stan Szeto | 2018 Aug 31
The San Francisco Giants are in a free fall. The Orange & Black dropped their ninth straight on Monday night, managing just three hits in a listless 4-1 loss to the Braves. The losing streak is the club’s worst skid in the Bruce Bochy era.
Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper joined Murph & Mac on Tuesday morning, and said he’s never seen the skipper this beside himself.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen our manager as down as he is right now,” Kuip said. “Not down to the point where we’re worried about him, but he just doesn’t know what to do. Any time you’re the boss and you know you’re the guy filling out the lineup card, when you reach a point where you’re just not sure how to get this thing turned around, it’s really frustrating, for him and for the coaches. So you’ve got 17 games left and you’ve got to grind them out. You’ve got to play as hard as you can for a lot of reasons.”
The Giants are slated to miss the postseason in consecutive years for the first time since 2009, the year before San Francisco began their incredible run of three World Series titles in five years.
“I will tell you this,” Kuiper continued. “If you walk into his office before the game he’s just not as chipper and as lively as he usually is, but he’s still the same guy. He’s still obviously really cares about what’s going on in the clubhouse and what’s going on on the field. I don’t think there’s much you and I or anybody can do for him. I think it’s going to be up to the offense to see if they can do something for him, because they are just not scoring. They hit one ball hard yesterday, and that was the ball (Brandon) Belt hit that was caught. That’s the only ball that was hit hard. They had three soft hits, and you know what, that’s not acceptable.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Kuiper on Bochy, start from the beginning.