SAN FRANCISCO – With Friday night’s 3-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, the Giants (52-53) have lost three straight games and five of their last six. The team has dropped to below .500 for the first time since June 22 and sits 5 games back of the second Wild Card spot in the National League.
Despite two stellar back-to-back starts from Dereck Rodriguez and Madison Bumgarner, the Giants’ offense has lagged behind. The Giants stranded five of their six runners in scoring position Saturday night.
In the second inning, with one out, Pablo Sandoval grounded out to second and failed to drive home a runner from third. In the next inning, Andrew McCutchen did the same thing with two outs. And in the bottom of the eighth inning, with the bases loaded and two outs, Buster Posey grounded out to third base as the Giants trailed by two runs.
For manager Bruce Bochy, it’s clear where the fourth-oldest team in baseball will need to receive more production.
“It’s going to be up to these veterans,” Bochy said. “They’re professionals and they’re good hitters and you like to think that it’s going to come around, but now you’re at a point where it has to happen now. You can’t keep saying, ‘Well there’s a lot of baseball.’ The margin of error is getting smaller and smaller, so we’re in a win-now position. It’s up to us to bow our necks and find a way to get this done.”
Bochy added that the hitting struggled have been too prolonged for his liking.
“I think it’s gone on a little long, to be honest,” Bochy said. “You look at the lineup, it’s a lineup that should be putting some more runs on the board. Some things are hard to answer, why we’re scuffling so much. But it’s a case where guys are, I know they’re battling, but you know, we have to compete a little bit harder and find a way to get this thing going and get this line moving.”
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