At the end of the top of the sixth inning in Saturday’s game, Chris Stratton was cruising. His one major miscue – a two-run home run in the second inning – was in the past. He’d allowed just one hit – a single – since the home run and retired his last 11 batters while only throwing 75 pitches. But in the bottom half of the inning, Stratton was gone.
Hunter Pence pinch-hit for Stratton, struck out, and then top two hitters in the lineup both grounded out to first. While Ray Black pitched a shutout inning in the seventh after giving up a double and a walk, Sam Dyson gave up three hits and two runs in the eighth. The Giants fell behind 4-1 and couldn’t mount any offense after that.
Manager Bruce Bochy was asked after the game whether Stratton – who had the Giants’ lone RBI on Saturday with a sacrifice fly – was pulled due to an injury.
“He’s fine, threw a nice ballgame,” Bochy said. “You know, leading off there in the sixth, we were having trouble scoring a run so I put the hitter up there to lead things off against a tough pitcher to see if we could get a run. We worked Stratton pretty hard last game: eight innings, 117 pitches. He could have kept going, but you have to try to find a way to score. It doesn’t do us any good to sit on one run, so that’s why he was taken out.”
Bochy credited the opposing pitching for a tough series. The Giants mustered just three runs off the three Mets starters they faced in Zach Wheeler, Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard. Each starter added an inning in succession, with Wheeler going seven, Matz going eight and Syndergaard going nine, for his first career complete game – a two-hitter. Both Matz and Syndergaard struck out 11 while Wheeler struck out nine.
“I think you have to look at the pitching we did face in this series,” Bochy said. “We faced some really big arms. (Syndergaard) has done that to a lot of clubs. You throw 99 with a good slider and a changeup, two-seamer, you got your hands full. You have to hope your pitching keeps you in the game, which we did.”
The skipper said it hurt to see the Mets score two runs in the eighth, but that the team needs to produce more offensively regardless of the opposing pitching.
“I think you do have to look at who’s on the hill,” Bochy said. “You don’t expect to score a lot. But with that said, you like to think you’ll get more than two hits.”
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