Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports
If each victory has made the majority of the incumbent Giants safer at the trade deadline, that bit of logic doesn’t exactly hold true for Shaun Anderson.
Each win – and each outing of his own that does not impress – puts his job further in jeopardy.
In his final chance to show management he’s worthy of being relied upon every fifth day for a contender, Anderson was not able to nail down the spot. He was merely OK, and the Giants’ offense didn’t even hit that low bar in a 5-1 loss at Petco Park in San Diego on Saturday night.
Anderson’s final statline was not fully illustrative of how he pitched – Trevor Gott did him no favors – but he lasted just five-plus innings and allowed four runs on seven hits and two walks with seven strikeouts. In his past five outings, his ERA is 7.71 (20 runs in 23 1/3 innings). Anderson looked like a cog for the future at the end of June, when he had made nine starts and pitched to a 3.86 ERA.
In five July starts – as the Giants have soared – Anderson has fallen, and that ERA has risen to 5.06. Farhan Zaidi has indicated the starting rotation is a place to possibly upgrade as the Giants find themselves in a playoff race, and Anderson’s job is at stake.
With the loss, the Giants (53-52) fell to 2 ½ games back of the second wild card with just two more games before the trade deadline. It appears Zaidi’s decisions will go down to the wire.
Anderson’s stuff was not the problem for most of the night. His slider was his weapon of choice, and it was the best it looked all year. He got 12 swinging strikes on the pitch and began promisingly, with three scoreless innings. But in the fourth, Wil Myers doubled with Hunter Renfroe on first, and Alex Dickerson was slow coming up with the ball, and Renfroe scored easily.
The next inning, a pitch after Anderson dusted Fernando Tatis Jr. off the plate, the rookie slugger drilled a slider 414 feet to center to make it 3-0. Letting up a homer to a thrilling young player may be more forgivable than the batter before, when Anderson walked Cal Quantrill, the starting pitcher.
Anderson gave up a leadoff double to Myers in the sixth, and that would be his final mistake, with Gott allowing the inherited runner to score.
Anderson was not great. The Giants offense was not good. They managed just five hits while going 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position. An offense that had awakened in Milwaukee and Colorado has fallen back to sleep first in San Francisco and now in San Diego. They have now scored four runs in three games.
Their only run Saturday came with a dash of luck, as Mike Yastrzemski opened the sixth with a liner that Manuel Margot gambled on, and it got by the center fielder and went for a double. Pablo Sandoval followed with an RBI single, but it was as much action as the Giants would generate.
If Zaidi has been looking for a signal for what they need, the Giants put it fully on display: a more dependable starting pitcher and a bat to energize this offense.