The Giants have lost seven straight series.
On Saturday afternoon, the Atlanta Braves out-hit, out-pitched and out-ran the Giants, showing again why they’re the best team in baseball.
Wilmer Flores cracked his 19th home run of the season, but the Giants didn’t generate any other runs. In a 7-3 loss, the Giants (66-63) collected just three hits after the fourth inning.
The Giants have won five of their last 19 games.
“It’s just not good enough against these really good teams, who are just playing better baseball than us,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said postgame. “It’s a pitching, it’s a hitting, it’s a defense, it’s a base running — it’s an entire group effort. We lose as a team, and we’ve really lost these games…as a team, there’s not one area in particular.”
From the start, the Giants were working from behind, as former A’s slugger Matt Olson drove in two runs to give the Braves a quick 2-0 lead.
On Olson’s first RBI, Luis Matos — playing his third game at Oracle Park in right field — misplayed a double off the bricks. For the second, Sean Manaea didn’t hold Ronald Acuña Jr., the MLB leader in steals, on second well enough, letting the MVP favorite score easily from third on a bloop single.
But Flores, San Francisco’s clear-cut best hitter, erased Atlanta’s early advantage.
To match his career-high in home runs, Flores connected on a Max Fried slider, sending it 409 feet to straightaway center. Flores has been dialed in for months, and his simple approach has allowed him to thrive as the rest of the lineup has struggled.
Since June 1, only Shohei Ohtani, Corey Seager and Mookie Betts have higher OPSes than Flores. The veteran is on pace to be the first player to lead the Giants in homers while hitting .300 since Buster Posey in 2014.
“I think, to some degree, he is underrated,” Kapler said of Flores. “We appreciate him the most because we see him every single day, but he does kind of fly under the radar.”
But, as the Giants have proven for the past two months, Flores can’t do it alone.
In the fourth inning, San Francisco threatened to build on its lead, but left two men in scoring position — a common theme when the offense struggles. Rookies Casey Schmitt and Luis Matos each collected strong hits against Fried, but Austin Slater struck out on a curveball to leave them at second and third.
Against a team as talented as the Braves, missed opportunities like that are haunting.
A pair of solo home runs — Austin Riley off Sean Manaea and Orlando Arcia off Luke Jackson — put Atlanta up 4-2.
The Giants sprinkled six hits off Fried, but not enough of them came in the right moments. Fried finished with eight strikeouts in six innings.
Eddie Rosario tagged up on a shallow fly ball in right field, scoring with a heads-up play as part of a three-run eighth inning for Atlanta.
After Rosario slid home, a few boos emanated from the Oracle Park crowd. There were 36,798 fans in the park to watch yet another series slip away from the Giants.
