SAN FRANCISCO – Before Thursday night’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Hunter Pence had been on a tear. He was 5-for-12 with four RBIs in his last three games. Those performances including two game-tying hits and one lead-taking hit – which came from his first home run of the season.
Pence did not have similar luck on Thursday night in the Giants’ 7-5 loss to the Brewers. He went 0-for-4, hitting into a bases-loaded double play and striking out with a game-tying run at third. When manager Bruce Bochy was asked whether he considered substituting Pence, he defended his player.
“Hunter is getting some pretty big hits,” Bochy said. “You look at what he’s done even yesterday, off a tough pitcher. He got a huge hit there for us. He’s been finding a way to come through when we need him. Even the last three, four starts, he’s gotten big hits there and that’s a tough matchup for anybody.”
Bochy continued to praise Pence for his recent clutch hitting.
“I was fine with Hunter up there, because he seems like he’s been finding a way to do something big at the right time,” Bochy said. “You go back to Oakland, he tied the game in the ninth. There’s three or four (hits) there, where he’s really clutched it up for us.”
It was also a tough night for reliever Mark Melancon, who forced three ground balls which would have normally allowed him to exit the eighth inning unscathed. The opening single of the inning bounced off the chest of Austin Slater – who made his first-ever start for the Giants at first base after being called up earlier in the day.
After picking up an out from the following batter, a hit-and-run allowed what would have been a simple ground ball to Brandon Crawford, to slip into the outfield. Bochy said Melancon was unlucky, but pitched well.
“The ball took a bad hop, just came up, took a bad hop and that started things,” Bochy said. ‘The dribbler got through. Mark gets another ground ball. He just had buzzard’s luck there tonight. So that’s tough luck there for him, because he was throwing the ball well. Not much you can do about that.”
Lastly, Bochy praised his team for a near-comeback in a two-run ninth inning, which ended with a controversial strike three call to Nick Hundley.
“The guys, I tell you what, they came back,” Bochy said. “We had some chances there at the end against some tough pitchers and those guys, I really thought they threw out some tough at-bats. And it’s a tough way to end the game. That’s not a strike. But we made some mistakes too and that came back to get us.”
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