Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
In honor of Labor Day, the Giants made the Cardinals’ job easy.
It took until the eighth inning for San Francisco to record an offensive highlight, but Mauricio Dubon’s first big-league home run was the only meaningful moment in a 3-1 loss to the NL Central-leading Cardinals in St. Louis.
The Giants, fresh off a flight from the Bay Area, did not look fully awake for a game that started 11:15 locally and became their 10th loss in 13 games, plunging out of the wild-card hunt. And while they made solid contact on Adam Wainwright for much of the matinee – they hit nine balls at least 95 mph off the bat – little found gaps and grass and only Dubon’s shot found seats.
Dubon, the 25-year-old rookie who already is carving out a niche as a fan favorite, had shown a smooth glove up the middle, but his bat is more in question. He wanted to answer that question against Gio Gallegos, one of the top relievers in baseball.
A righty-on-righty matchup, Gallegos tried a fourth-pitch slider that hung. Dubon jumped on it, pulling it 386 feet down the left-field line and arriving back in the dugout to chants of, “Dubi, Dubi!”
.@Mauriciodubon10's first Major League home run. ?
#SFGiants pic.twitter.com/SydWtYEX5M— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) September 2, 2019
It was memorable. It also was solo, narrowing the gap to two. And Dubon was followed by a pinch-hitting Chris Shaw, eager to show he’s a changed batter since his failed debut last season. He will need more time to display that, as Gallegos struck him out in his first at-bat this year.
There was little for Giants fans to cheer on a day that went south virtually once the Giants’ plane landed. Tyler Beede got into his patented first-inning trouble, a Dexter Fowler single, Kolten Wang triple and Paul Goldschmidt ground out making it 2-0 Cardinals, an immediate divot the Giants never would escape. Beede has pitched 18 first innings and allowed 18 earned runs.
Beede allowed another run in the second but was markedly better, appearing to get into the flow of the game when Bruce Bochy lifted him for a pinch-hitter (Stephen Vogt) in the fifth after 72 pitches. Bochy chose trying to infuse offensive potential for a victory over seeing what his young pitcher could do. He got neither, as Vogt flew out. Beede’s day ended with four innings, three runs, five hits, a walk and two strikeouts.
With a post-Sept. 1 roster, there were more young/new pitchers to get a look at, including Kyle Barraclough, the former Marlins star reliever whose velocity and effectiveness was so down for the Nationals, he was DFA’d. The Giants picked him up and brought him up Monday. He threw a very fortunately scoreless seventh inning.
His second pitch was rifled into left-center for a Tommy Edman double. Barraclough walked Matt Carpenter, and with runners on second and third and two outs, Wong knocked what looked to be an extra-base hit into center. But that’s Kevin Pillar territory, and he laid out to keep Barraclough’s scoreline clean and the Giants in the game. He has been everything he was supposed to be defensively, and probably more than the Giants could have asked for with a bat.
Still, a rally never came.