Saturday night was a death by a million singles for the San Francisco Giants.
With an ineffective pitching performance from Alex Cobb and a disasterclass at the plate with runners on base, San Francisco dropped its fourth-straight game, a 9-3 loss to the visiting Texas Rangers.
The three-inning stretch from the bottom of the second inning through the top of the fifth told the Giants’ story.
The second frame began knotted at one run apiece. The scoring on either side was courtesy of a Corey Seager solo shot to center and a Patrick Bailey RBI single to bring home Wilmer Flores. Bailey, by the way, is off to a much more promising August — batting .308 so far — than his dismal .165 mark in July.
But where the Giants had made use of a baserunner in the first, they came miles short of doing in the second.
Rangers starter Andrew Heaney could not seem to find the plate, and would go on to last just 1 2/3 innings. But he and Texas avoided disaster because the Giants don’t seem to fully comprehend the concept of “scoring runs.”
Heaney walked Luis Matos, allowed a single to Michael Conforto, then walked Heliot Ramos after having a 1-2 lead in the count to load the bases.
Despite a mound visit, Heaney looked ready to walk in a run. With his sixth-straight ball, Heaney fell behind 3-0 to Mark Mathias.
Bases loaded. 3-0 count. No outs.
It would seem an enticing opportunity to drive in a run. “Seem” is the operative word there.
The Giants, though, are masters of wasted opportunities.
3-0 became 3-1… then 3-2. And, whiff. Mathias slinks back to the dugout. The crowd goes mild.
But hey, it was still a bases-loaded, one-out scenario. That’s still a great chance to make something happen, right?
… right?
Bruce Bochy made the decision then to pull Heaney for Grant Anderson.
Up stepped Austin Slater, who, to his credit, at least put the ball in play. That ball, though, was a routine grounder to second, setting up a 4-6-3 double play to put an abrupt, sad end to a once-promising inning.
The Rangers responded with a lesson in how to put the ball in play.
Over the fourth and fifth innings, Texas brought about Cobb’s removal from the game with a small-ball brigade of hits that was simultaneously impressive and yawn-inducing in its repetition. It was as effective for scoring runs as a Zyrtec is for inducing naps.
Cobb allowed four-straight singles to open the fourth inning. After a sac fly to center brought home the second run of the inning, Cobb walked a batter, then allowed yet another single for the third run of the inning. A 6-4-3 double play brought a merciful end to the Rangers paper-cutting approach, but only briefly.
In the fifth, Cobb opened with a walk, followed by a strikeout. The brief glimmer of hope was not long-lived. Two singles followed. Cobb was finally relieved by Alex Wood, having gone 4 1/3 innings, allowing nine hits — somehow all singles aside from Seager’s first-inning homer — while striking out three.
Cobb allowed a sacrifice fly, then — you guessed it — another single. That brought home the second run of the fifth for the Rangers, putting them up 6-1, before Wood ended the inning on a groundout. It was Cobb’s sixth earned run of the night.
The remaining offensive output for San Francisco came from this arcade shot by Michael Conforto.
There were a few of those hold-your-breath, deep fly balls for the Giants late in the night, but most hung up a bit too long in that Bay Area wind. Only Heliot Ramos had the juice to get one over the wall in the ninth for his first career home run.
It turned an embarrassing, seven-run deficit into a slightly less embarrassing, six-run deficit.
The defense unraveled a bit at that stage. In the ninth, Joc Pederson — injected as a pinch-hitting in the eighth — had seemingly every pitch hit his way.
On the first play of the ninth, Pederson went stumbling and bumbling into the right field corner in a comical, failed search of a fly ball, leading to a Marcus Semien triple.
A batter later, Seager scorched an RBI single to center. More bad defense followed. Nathaniel Lowe dribbled a swinging bunt to the right of Wood, who channeled his inner Cody Bellinger and overthrew Wilmer Flores with a ball that reportedly scraped the roof of Chase Center.
Pederson at least made up for his goof by saving a run a play later, throwing a dart home to Bailey. It elicited some head-scratching “he can do that?” cheers from the crowd.
Of course, none of that mattered.
A 2-RBI Mitch Garver single off the wall in right added insult to the insult that was the Giants’ performance.
Texas had 12 singles (five for RBIs), a pair of triples, a double and a home run on Saturday night. They stranded six runners. San Francisco had nine hits, leaving seven on base.
They’ll have an opportunity to at least grab one game from the Rangers on Sunday, with a 1:05 p.m. matinee.
