Road slump deepens amid 2 blown leads
DENVER — The Giants have way too many issues for one Bunyanesque left-hander from North Carolina to fix. Maybe everyone is looking at Madison Bumgarner’s pending return the wrong way.
Maybe he is not a savior. Maybe the Giants need to tighten their play, stop walking hitters at key junctures, catch the ball better, get down bunts, capitalize on great scoring opportunities and be the type of team that can ride a horse like Bumgarner into contention.
The Giants are definitely not that. They gamely clung close to .500 amid a sea of injuries but now are tumbling amid a 1-5 trip that continued with their first walk-off loss of the season Monday night.
The Giants blew two leads, one in the eighth inning, in their 6-5, 10-inning loss to the Rockies. Colorado won on Chris Iannetta’s one-out, bases-loaded single off Hunter Strickland, who started the inning by walking Nolan Arenado.
Bumgarner’s return might take a bit longer than everyone hoped and expected after his gangbusters rehab start in Sacramento on Saturday night.
After the Giants reached the one-third point of the season at 25-29, manager Bruce Bochy said they plan to have Bumgarner throw one more minorleague game at San Jose on Thursday to extend his pitch count.
Bochy left a lot of wiggle room, saying that is the plan “for now,” further adding, “We’ll talk about it some more. We’ll see where we’re at.”
Andrew Suarez, one of the youngsters in the rotation because of injuries to Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto, did a creditable job in his first Coors Field foray, clamping down after he allowed Trevor Story’s threerun homer in the first inning.
Suarez lasted five, did not allow another earned run, struck out six of his final eight hitters and said that pitching at Coors did not faze him.
“It kind of reminded me of some of the places I pitched in the Pacific Coast League,” he said.
Suarez even stood to earn a win when the Giants came from behind and took a 5-4 lead in the sixth on Evan Longoria’s RBI double and Pablo Sandoval’s pinch, tie-breaking single with two outs. Longoria had three RBIs.
Bochy needed four shutout innings from his bullpen to prevent the Giants’ 11th loss in their past 12 games at Coors, but got only two before the Rockies tied it 5-5 in the eighth on two singles and Ian Desmond’s sacrifice fly off Tony Watson.
The Giants then stranded five runners in the ninth and 10th innings. In the 10th, Austin Jackson’s failure to bunt with two on and nobody out was a factor. Lack of execution and clutch hits have been a theme all season.
“We did what we were hoping to do and create situations you like,” Bochy said. “But you’ve got to finish it off and we couldn’t do it.”
Strickland then issued the leadoff walk to Arenado. The Rockies’ third baseman will get you one way or the other.
“I can’t walk him there,” Strickland said. “That’s been an issue. I’ve got to be better than that.”
With two on and one out, Andrew McCutchen seemed to make a sliding catch on Desmond’s sinking liner, but the ball popped out of his glove. Desmond had a single that loaded the bases ahead of Iannetta’s decisive, nice-and-easy single up the middle that ended it.
Now, the Giants need to win Tuesday night or fall five games out of first, creating a bigger hill to climb for Bumgarner and all the returning injured to climb in the near future.
“I think we still have confidence in ourselves,” Gregor Blanco said. “We’ve got to try to find a way and keep hanging in there. It’s not going to be easy, but we’ve got to do it.”