SAN FRANCISCO — The box score doesn’t come with a narrative. It provides only a set of numbers and a few added tangents of the game. It doesn’t tell you that Jake Peavy was brilliant until he wasn’t. It doesn’t tell you the common thread in his second-half struggles.
It doesn’t tell you how badly the Giants needed a quality start on a night they couldn’t get one.
“To have four 1-2-3 innings of a five-inning start is bizarre,” Peavy said. “To give up four hits and three of them be homers, it’s just not typical. But that’s just the way things have been going for the San Francisco Giants.”
Peavy was spot on. The Giants (58-41) lost for the eighth time in nine games, this time 7-5 to the Reds (39-60), and the veteran right-hander turned in one of his oddest line scores in the process. He carried a no-hitter into the fourth inning, and seven batters later doubled his pitch count and sunk the Giants into a three-run hole.
The home run ball got to Peavy for a second straight start. He allowed a pair of two-run homers to Jay Bruce and another two-run shot to Eugenio Suarez. Those were three of the four hits Peavy allowed. He’s now been tagged for five home runs in two-second-half starts after allowing only 10 before the All-Star break.
He’s aware of only one trend regarding the power surge against him. All but one of the five home runs allowed have come in the stretch, which has been damaging in all sorts of ways. Four multi-run homers have only magnified the Giants’ deficits, and a comeback win is the last kind of win the team can bank on right now.
“You can just be too fast,” Peavy said of pitching out of the stretch. “Being too quick and not letting your arm catch up to finish pitches. There was no doubt about it that’s what got me in Boston … tonight I don’t know how much that played a part.”
Another trend for Peavy is when he’s getting hit. Ten of the 15 home runs he’s allowed have come in opponent’s second plate appearance against him. That was the case with Bruce and Suarez stepped up in the fourth inning.
The Giants have now allowed more home runs in the second half than any other team. It wasn’t a complete surprise to see the Reds light up Peavy. They did it earlier this season by clubbing four home runs off the right-hander in May. Peavy’s two walks in the fourth inning was the surprise.
He’s one of the Giants better strike throwers, but as the Giants’ last 10 days would have it, both fourth-inning walks came around to score on the two-run home runs.
“We have to find a way to get a quality start,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We haven’t had too many since the (All-Star) break.”
Of course not all the burden falls on the starting pitcher. The Giants flailed at the opportunity to stake a bigger lead in the early innings by going 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position. Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt reached base to start the second inning, and Conor Gillaspie, Ramiro Peña and Peavy all made unproductive outs afterward.
Because Angel Pagan and Belt’s home runs came with a runner on first base, Buster Posey knocked the only hit with a runner in scoring position. The Giants’ .125 average in the second half with runners in scoring position actually bumped up to .128 with the 1-for-6 night.
That inflation wasn’t nearly enough, but Peavy’s ERA and home runs spike was. Because that’s the way things have been going for the San Francisco Giants.
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Belt entered Monday’s game entrenched in a 2-for-33 slump, but bounced back against the Reds with a 3-for-4 game. He surmised that his funk could’ve stemmed from a stomach virus he experienced the night before the All-Star Game.
Whatever the cause, he worked out of it on Monday night in the sixth spot in the lineup. He’s hit third for the past several weeks, but Bochy wanted to take some pressure off the lefty and drop him in the order. The manager said he plans to keep him there, despite Belt’s reservations.
“(The No. 3 spot) is where I feel most comfortable,” Belt said, “and I’m looking to get back in that spot.”
