SAN FRANCISCO–For weeks, it looked like the Giants would avoid making history.
After winning 10 games in the first 18 days of August, San Francisco reached the 50-win plateau, and appeared to be in the clear. Only one Giants’ team in franchise history has lost 100 games –the 1985 team that finished exactly 62-100– and in the middle of August, a 2017 club that has been nothing short of awful looked like it would avoid that fate.
Now, it’s September 2, and despite the record hot temperatures at AT&T Park, the outlook is not as bright.
Yes, the Giants rallied from a 1-0 deficit to shock the St. Louis Cardinals in a 2-1 walkoff win on a Nick Hundley opposite field home run, but entering the ninth inning, San Francisco had mustered just one hit all game.
“He’s (Hundley) got good power, he gets good carry on the ball too, especially in right field,” Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy said. “That area where he hit that one, it carries pretty good too if you get it up in the air. I thought when he hit it, I said it’s going out because I’ve seen him do it before. I’ve seen right-handed hitters take that type of swing. It just seems like it keeps carrying.”
Armed with a 54-84 record, the Giants must still finish the year with nine wins in their final 24 games to avoid hitting the century mark in the loss column. A 9-15 record would require San Francisco to play .375 ball the rest of the way. To date, their winning percentage is .391.
Like they did on Saturday, they must scratch and claw to avoid the embarrassing distinction of losing 100, and after nearly returning to the lowly pace, the Giants made a last-ditch effort to climb out from beneath the surface. Hundley provided the heroics, and he left the yard pumping his fist after his second walkoff hit of the season.
“Obviously the season hasn’t gone the way we wanted it to go, but there’s a lot of pride in this clubhouse,” Hundley said. “There’s a lot of fight, there’s a lot of guys that have won championships in here and to play a team like the Cardinals that is still fighting for the playoff race, so to come out and get a win against them is really important. It’s important for us and it’s important for the rest of the league. The rest of the league deserves our best shot too, so that’s kind of where we’re at.”
After right-hander Jeff Samardzija turned in a brilliant seven-inning, two-hit outing and left in line for the loss, Buster Posey blooped in a one-out single in the ninth inning to plate Hunter Pence with the game-tying run.
It was 95 degrees at first pitch on Saturday, but make no mistake, times are dark. A Giants team that has now scored two runs or fewer in seven of its last 13 games began its contest against the Cardinals with a lineup that called for Pablo Sandoval to hit fifth. It didn’t matter that Sandoval was hitless in his last 23 at-bats entering Saturday, manager Bruce Bochy didn’t have more enticing options.
To put the Giants’ offensive woes into perspective, Brandon Crawford provided the team with more highlights at the plate than any of his teammates on Saturday. He finished 0-for-2 with two walks.
It wasn’t as if Cardinals’ starter Lance Lynn overpowered San Francisco, either. Samardzija notched nine strikeouts. Lynn tallied just one in his first seven innings (He finished with four).
“Actually, its ends up being a little bit easier because the rhythm of the game is going at a certain pace. He’s not out there long and I wasn’t out there too long. As a pitcher, in a way that’s ideal. If you could have it your way, it would be a bunch of solo home runs by your own squad so you just stay in a rhythm and keep going and stick to the game plan. He (Lynn) did that too and he pitched a heck of a game and I thought they were going to run him back out there for the ninth.”
San Francisco’s inability to take advantage of Samardzija’s near-spotless outing was certain to frustrate a pitcher who’s now thrown 16 innings while giving up just one run over his last two outings. It took 10 innings but eventually, Hundley bailed him out.
On Saturday, the Giants’ right-hander followed up a three-hit shutout against the Padres with seven innings of two-hit ball against the Cardinals, but it just so happens that both of the hits Samardzija gave up came in the same inning.
In the top of the fourth, Cardinals’ first baseman Jose Martinez led off with a single, and took second base on a Samardzija wild pitch. St. Louis cleanup hitter Dexter Fowler then hit a sharp grounder through the right side of the infield that skipped right under the glove of the normally sure-handed Buster Posey to plate Martinez. It didn’t matter that the Giants completed a 9-6-5-6 putout to cut Fowler down on the base paths and end another scoring threat. It appeared as though the Cardinals had done enough damage. But then, St. Louis manager Mike Matheny pulled Lynn after eight one-hit innings, and watched his lead disappear.
After a Joe Panik one-out single in the bottom of the first, the Giants didn’t record another hit until Pence led off the bottom of the ninth with a pinch hit single. Lynn gave up four walks, but that hardly mattered. He left the Giants grasping at straws, and if not for Matheny’s decision to remove Lynn from the game, San Francisco probably would have suffered its 11th shutout loss of the season.
“When those two starters are on, Lance Lynn, I don’t think he threw a ball over the middle of the plate,” Hundley said. “He was throwing the fastball both sides of the plate, executing and he made it really tough and I thought he did an outstanding job and I thought Shark, he might have been better today than he was in his complete game shutout in San Diego.”
Even with the win, San Francisco is still 30 games under .500 and now sits 39.5 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. While the Giants watch their NL West foes, Los Angeles, Arizona and Colorado, jockey for playoff positioning, San Francisco is in a race against itself.
The Giants will still be watching the scoreboard this September, but they’ll be watching their own. 100 losses is still within reach, and it’s up to the players to do what they did in the late innings on Saturday, and avoid collapsing to that degree.