St. Louis creeps closer to wild card
With little in the way of offense Sunday, the Giants didn’t have to worry about their bullpen — they didn’t have a lead.
The Cardinals got a two-out, two-run homer from Aledmys Diaz off Albert Suarez in the third inning and grabbed a 3-0 win at AT&T Park, splitting the four-game series to slide just one game behind the Giants for the second wild-card spot. In addition, St. Louis
took the season series four games to three to claim homefield advantage over San Francisco in any potential wildcard tiebreaker.
The gut-punch was the Cardinals’ late comeback win Saturday evening to at least temporarily push Santiago Casilla out of the closer role.
“The one game, that’s a big swing, there’s no getting around it. That hurt, not holding on,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “It’s a fight from here on out. They did what they needed to do, they came back on us.
“We’ve got to focus forward, now we’ve got L.A. They have a really good team, good pitching, and we’ve got to come out ready to go.”
Ah, yes, the first-place Dodgers, who remain five games up on San Francisco after also losing Sunday. The Giants have won five of their seven home games against the Dodgers, but have dropped four of six in Los Angeles, where they head next for three games.
“They’re going to be good games, they’re going to be tough — we’re going to give them all we’ve got,” Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford said. “I think we’re ready for them.”
The Giants, shut out Sunday for the 12th time this season, didn’t have a ton of opportunities and did nothing when they did, going 0-for-6 with men in scoring position.
“We need those timely hits and just left guys on base today,” Bochy said.
The team has not had batting practice the past four days, which some players had thought was helpful in getting them going in taking the first two games against the Cardinals, and Bochy didn’t believe the subsequent lack of BP hurt the team any Sunday.
“They’ve been hitting every day, getting their usual work in the cage, getting their swings,” Bochy said, noting that the team wouldn’t have hit before a Sunday day game, anyway. “We have seen some pretty good pitching. I don’t think it had anything to do with it. It’s not like they’re coming here and not doing anything, trust me. They’re still doing the work, even if they’re not on the field.”
Suarez, making his first career appearance against St. Louis, went five innings and didn’t have a clean one in the bunch, but he did work out of trouble well, including in the fifth, when, with Randal Grichuk at third, he struck out Matt Carpenter to end the inning. In all, Suarez allowed five hits and a walk and he struck out two.
Carpenter had doubled with two outs in the third to set up Diaz’s 16th homer of the season, on the first pitch from Suarez.
“I feel like every time I miss a pitch, it’s a home run,” said Suarez, who has allowed 10 homers in 80 innings. “It should be a double, but it’s the big leagues, so it’s a home run. I just have to make sure I don’t do it again.”
Suarez is the first Giants pitcher to hold opponents to no more than three runs in each of his first 11 career starts since 2001, when Ryan Jensen did so.
The Giants’ best chance to score against Alex Reyes was abetted by … Reyes. Denard Span led off the sixth with a base hit and with one out, Brandon Crawford hit a tapper toward third that Reyes fielded, then, with next to zero chance to get Crawford, threw the ball way over first base.
That wild throw put men at second and third, but Hunter Pence struck out, and after Brandon Belt walked to load the bases, Eduardo Nuñez flied to left on the first pitch he saw. Pence’s hitting streak ended at 11 games as he went 0-for-4.
Reyes, making his third career big-league start, went seven innings and gave up four hits and walked two. He struck out six.
The Giants’ performance of the day came from right-hander Cory Gearrin, who faced six batters and struck out five.
Home-plate umpire Brian O’Nora departed in the second inning after taking a foul tip by Pence off his mask. Laz Diaz took O’Nora’s spot behind the plate, and the game featured a three-man crew the rest of the way.
O’Nora was diagnosed with a concussion and he told a pool reporter, “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and that’s the hardest I’ve ever been hit.”