Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
If the season now revolves around signs of progress for next season, there were things to be inspired by.
Dereck Rodriguez showed the flashes that put him on the map last season. Mauricio Dubon’s steady infield glove is getting more noticeable by the day. Mike Yastrzemski, uh, hit two singles.
That was what qualified as offensive success for the Giants, whose only two hits were by Yastrzemski, as they were shut out by the Cardinals in St. Louis on Tuesday, losing 1-0 and dropping their 11th in 14 games.
The Giants could do nothing against Jack Flaherty, the Burbank native who entered play with a 1.01 ERA in his past 10 starts and somehow lowered it.
Not only could the Giants muster no offense against him — Yastrzemski’s sixth-inning hit was their first, his ninth-inning one off Carlos Martinez their last — there weren’t even possibilities. The hardest ball hit against Flaherty was by Alex Dickerson, and it went for an out. Nothing else qualified as hard-hit.
The Cardinals got the only run they would need on a Marcell Ozuna shot to the moon with two outs in the sixth. It was s slugged 09 mph off the bat, a bomb to left that Rodriguez knew was gone off the bat.
Rodriguez, fighting with Tyler Beede to keep his rotation spot when Johnny Cueto returns, has shown little consistency, but boy can he dazzle when he’s on. He lasted seven innings and allowed a single run on five hits, a walk and seven strikeouts. It hearkened back to his Aug. 15 return to the rotation, when he blanked the Diamondbacks for seven innings and inspired hope that he was the 2018 Rodriguez again. But two middling starts sandwiched these two outings, and if Rodriguez remains in the rotation, it would be because Beede lost the battle.
Rodriguez’s night did not seem promising from the start. After setting down Dexter Fowler and Kolten Wong on strikeouts, Rodriguez walked Paul Goldschmidt, before Ozuna reached on an infield single. And that’s when it got weird.
Paul DeJong traded his bat for a pool cue, poking one that seemed destined for the dugout, but it had a lot of English on it. It took a left turn back into play and went for a bizarre single that loaded the bases. Rodriguez buckled down, though, and got Yadier Molina to fly out.
Gonna need someone to explain how this is even possible ? pic.twitter.com/rWLiLeOpry
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) September 4, 2019
Perhaps the biggest concern of the Giants’ night — far greater than the loss — was Dickerson’s fifth-inning strikeout. He chased a pitch outside and grimaced after taking the swing. Dickerson has said that reaching for pitches bothered his oblique, which began his injury troubles with the Giants this year. Dickerson didn’t look fully comfortable in his seventh-inning strikeout, either, but remained in the game.