SAN FRANCISCO — With all the misery that’s accompanied 11 losses in two weeks, Bruce Bochy managed a smile in one fleeting moment. A reporter asked him that after Friday night, Bochy has to hope, if nothing else, that the Giants’ fortunes can’t turn any worse than a bases-loaded triple play, right?
The manager agreed. And by the end of the press conference, Bochy was left to lean on one of his classic lines to try and summon a victory out of the struggling Giants.
“You gotta be big boys and get your big boy pants on and come out here tomorrow,” he said.
Whatever it takes, the Giants will do it. Friday’s 4-1 loss to the Nationals followed the same narrative as the previous 10 until Brandon Crawford stepped up in the eighth inning with the bases loaded. The Giants have punctuated their losing stretch with a major league-worst average when runners are in scoring position, but they never imploded as quickly as they did on Crawford’s 0-1 swing.
The shortstop lined out sharply to first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who then stepped on first to get the second out and completed the triple play with a throw to third base. Denard Span and Buster Posey were the runners picked off on first and third, and you can hardly blame them. Zimmerman caught a low line drive that Span thought hit the ground, so he took off for home. Posey was blocked by Zimmerman trying to get back to first.
It was the first 3-3-5 triple play in major league history, the first triple play in Nationals history, and the first Giants triple play since Aaron Rowand hit into one in 2009.
“(It’s) one of the last things you expect when you’re in that situation,” Crawford said, “…It sucks.”
Nationals left-hander Sammy Solis pulled off one the greatest feats he likely ever will. He faced one batter and earned an inning’s worth of work in the box score. The Nationals headed back into their dugout to greet a giddy Dusty Baker, while Bruce Bochy leaned silently on the railing in his dugout.
He didn’t throw his cap or fire off a wad of gum. In many ways it was a reflective moment, a culmination of so many negative factors the Giants have kept in tow since the All-Star break. On top of the losing, it was the ultimate unproductive at-bat with runners in scoring position.
“When you get in these funks,” Bochy said, “what can go wrong goes wrong. When you’re in a winning streak, the ball bounces your way and everything goes your way.
“Right now it’s not going our way.”
Jeff Samardzija had already pitted the Giants in a three-run deficit at that point. They were going to be hard-pressed to tie the game or even take the lead with Crawford’s at-bat, but the right-hander sure wouldn’t have minded getting off the record for a seventh loss.
He allowed four runs over six innings, letting the Nationals to score in three separate frames. Samardzija’s success has gone down with the team’s, and his ERA has ballooned over six since June.
But Crawford’s misfortune was just the latest line of punches to be thrown at the Giants.
“That about sums it up right there,” Samardzija said of the triple play. “It wasn’t like it was a ground ball … He hit it on the screws. That’s just where we’re at right now.”