A trip to the dentist’s office. Trying to find a parking spot in a full garage. Jamming into a packed subway.
All are reasonably uncomfortable experiences, yet all are scenarios that might be preferable to watching the Giants when Matt Moore has pitched of late.
Five days after allowing a career-high six walks in a come-from-behind Giants’ win in Pittsburgh, Moore matched his career high by surrendering 12 hits in 3 and 1/3 innings in the Giants’ 6-1 loss to the Marlins on Friday.
“He (Moore) threw a lot of strikes, almost too much, he was wild in the strike zone,” Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy said. “He got ahead in the count and he just had trouble with the put away pitches. He made some mistakes there when he was in a good count and I think six or seven of those hits were to left-handed batters. They did a good job against him, albeit, some of them were pretty lucky hits. But that’s a lot of hits there in 3 and ⅓ and just one of those nights where it wasn’t going well for him.”
Moore entered his 18th start of the season with the second-highest earned run average of any qualifying pitcher in the Major Leagues, and allowed at least five earned runs on Friday for the sixth time this season.
While the game was decided before the sun had even set, a bad night turned worse for the Giants in the bottom of the eighth inning when rookie left fielder Austin Slater pulled up shy of first base with a lower body injury when he was running out a groundball. Slater needed assistance walking off the field, and looked like he could have re-aggravated a hip flexor issue that kept him out of the lineup a few times two weeks ago. After the game, Bochy said Slater will be placed on the disabled list.
“We’ll see how the MRI goes tomorrow and get a game plan from there with Groesch (Giants’ trainer Dave Groeschner) and Bochy,” Slater said.
Before Moore recorded an out on Friday evening, Miami right fielder Giancarlo Stanton had already become the right-handed hitter in nearly two calendar years to homer over the right field wall at AT&T Park. Stanton’s two-run blast in the top of the first inning gave the Marlins an early 2-0 edge, and set the tone for the type of outing that Moore has endured nearly every other time he’s taken the mound this season.
“The changeup to Stanton there, that just stayed up on him (Moore), but really the first hitter gets a ground ball and can’t quite get him,” Bochy said. “He had a little bad luck to go with that but still, 12 hits are 12 hits and it’s time to make a move.”
By the time the first inning concluded, Moore had already thrown 35 of the 72 pitches he’d offer on the night, and Miami had already staked out a 4-0 lead that proved insurmountable. After retiring Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna in the top of the first, four straight Miami hitters recorded singles before Moore finally set down opposing pitcher Dan Straily on strikes to end the frame.
Speaking of Straily, the Marlins’ right-hander was sensational against the Giants on Friday, as he tossed 8 and 1/3 innings of one-run ball and retired 16 straight batters after a single off the bat of Brandon Belt in the second inning.
Belt actually ran into an out trying to stretch a single into a double, so Straily worked from the windup from the bottom of the second inning until Giants’ catcher Buster Posey roped a two-out single to right field in the bottom of the seventh.
The Giants were headed for their ninth shutout loss of the season, but on Straily’s 113th pitch of the night, Giants’ center fielder Denard Span launched the third splash hit of his career into McCovey Cove to put San Francisco on the board.
After the Giants fell behind 4-0 in the first inning, Miami added to the lead on an RBI single from first baseman Justin Bour in the top of the second, and chased Moore from the game after Stanton and Yelich recorded back-to-back hits with one out in the top of the fourth.
At the time Bochy pulled Moore, the Marlins were averaging better than one hit for every six pitches the left-hander threw.
When Bochy yanked Moore, a fan base with a reputation built on congeniality actually offered a few boos for its starting pitcher, who dropped to 3-9 with the defeat.
The 12 hits Moore allowed marked the third different outing in which he’s surrendered a double-digit hit total this season, and were the most hits he’s given up since June 9, 2013, when Moore’s former team, Tampa Bay, lost to Baltimore.
After San Francisco snapped off six straight victories last week, the Giants have now lost three of their last four games and have dropped back to 20 games below .500.