Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
PHILADELPHIA – The Giants appeared to escape the fog that had hung over their at-bats for a week, exploding for seven runs Sunday.
A game later, it was again difficult to see.
After the final game before Farhan Zaidi makes his trade-deadline decisions, he has to determine who the real Giants are. The team that was 35-47 on June 29? The team that roared to a 19-6 record since? The team that, yet again, found a way to win a one-run game Sunday? Or the team that immediately reverted to April and May form Tuesday?
Is this a dip or a part of a nosedive? That’s up to Zaidi after the Giants’ 4-2 series-opening loss to the Phillies in front of 32,217 sweaty fans.
San Francisco (54-53) fell to 2 ½ games back of the second NL wild card in their last attempt to persuade the boss the team needs some further construction, not deconstruction. At a time when Zaidi is searching for any indicators he can to predict up- and downturns, they have lost three of five and scored 13 runs in the span.
The offense that was missing in San Diego was not found in Philly. The Giants managed six hits against Phillies pitchers, including allowing Drew Smyly, who entered with a 7.69 ERA, to dominate over seven innings. No Giants had multiple hits, and they were silent until pinch-hit, back-to-back homers by Brandon Belt and Stephen Vogt in the eighth.
The offense is a concern. The rotation, quite suddenly, may be a more pressing one. Shortly after the Giants announced one rookie starter in Shaun Anderson would not make his scheduled start Thursday – they’re giving him at least one extra day amid a poor month – Tyler Beede was subpar for a second straight outing.
Beede, who had been dependable since an inauspicious start to his major league season in early May, lasted just five innings while allowing four runs on 10 hits. In his past two starts, he’s given up 20 hits in 10 2/3 innings. His control, which had been his bugaboo, is improved; he walked two Tuesday. But opposing batters have begun to figure him out and bumped his ERA back to 5.01.
Rhys Hoskins was the final significant blow for Beede, hitting his 23rd home of the season, a two-run shot, in the fifth that made it 4-0. J.T. Realmuto, Maikel Franco and Adam Haseley followed with singles to load the bases before Smyly got thrown out on a swinging bunt.
As encouraging as the Giants’ play has been, they are not a team that can shrug off mistakes. Beede cannot afford to be this hittable, and the defense behind him cannot afford to be this shaky, as two outfield mistakes contributed to the Phillies’ first two runs.
Realmuto opened the bottom of the fourth with a clean single to left-center before Cesar Hernandez singled to center. Kevin Pillar came up throwing – and looping – to third, and the late throw allowed Hernandez to take second. Franco’s bounce-out accounted for the inning’s first out and the game’s first run. Haseley followed with a liner to right field that Austin Slater misplayed, going for a double and giving the Phillies a 2-0 lead.
Beede had danced into and out of trouble successfully for the first three innings, in which he allowed a hit in each but not a run. He got into the most trouble in the third, when Jean Segura hit a one-out double off the top of the center-field wall, which would have been more if not for a nice cutoff by Pillar. But Beede got Bryce Harper to fly out and Rhys Hoskins on a strikeout to escape damage.
It was not the start the Giants wanted on the deadline’s eve, and it was not the result, either. Their sprint toward this finish line is over. Will Zaidi give them relief or bad news upon their catching their breath?
