If the Giants end up missing the playoffs, this is the one that will keep them up at night during the offseason.
After scoring a season-high 12 runs at AT&T Park yesterday, the San Francisco offense was a no-show on Wednesday, failing to score a single run, and spoiling a breathtaking, 11 strikeout performance by Jeff Samardzija, in a 2-0 loss to the Colorado Rockies.
It gets worse. With the St. Louis Cardinals also losing, the Giants failed to capitalize on a prime opportunity to take a two game lead in the second spot of the NL Wild Card, with just four games remaining. The Giants loss also means the Mets have increased their first place lead to two games, following their win over Miami. The Giants remain one game ahead of St. Louis, who close their season against a 78-80 Pirates team with nothing to play for. The Giants close their season against a Los Angeles Dodgers team still fighting for home field advantage in the first round.
On a frigid San Francisco evening, the Giants were dominated by Colorado starter Tyler Chatwood, which isn’t a total surprise considering the right-hander has the best road ERA baseball this season, and also notched his league-leading ninth win away from home. San Francisco managed just three hits and were struck out nine times by the 26-year-old. Chatwood also three-hit the Giants in his last appearance against them on July 5th.
Even so, Chatwood did his best to breath some life into the Giants offense, walking the leadoff hitter to open the seventh and eighth innings. Both times the Giants responded promptly by hitting into double plays.
It was that kind of game. It’s been that kind of second half.
After tossing seven shutout innings against San Diego last Thursday, Samardzija picked up right where he left off, striking out 11, nine swinging, in six innings of work, while allowing two runs. Samardzija looked to have some of his best stuff of the season Wednesday night, alternating between a nasty split-finger and a Bumgarner-esque 95 MPH high heater, that made the Colorado hitters look foolish from the get-go. The Giants ended the third inning with an impressive strike ’em out, throw ’em out, with Smardzija getting Charlie Blackmon to whiff at a splitter before a Posey rocket caught Tony Wolters trying to take second.
Smardzija didn’t have a hiccup until Nolan Arenado collected his 23rd RBI of the season against the Giants, on a broken bat single in the fourth inning. To say Arenado is a Giant killer would be an understatement. As first noticed by Andrew Baggarly, only one other time in the last 13 years has a single player hit that many RBIs in a season against San Francisco. That player? Arenado, last year, when he hit 24 against the Giants.
With that in mind, you can understand the shock when Arenado came up in the sixth inning and hit into an inning ending double play with runners on the corners.
The performance was either an encouraging sign for the postseason, or a bittersweet end to 2016 for Samardzija. Should the Giants not make a tiebreaker game, Samardzija finished his first season in San Francisco with a 3.81 ERA in 203.1 innings pitched. He has pitched over 200 innings in five consecutive seasons.
Gerardo Parra added an insurance run in the seventh inning on an RBI single to right. The hit ended the evening for a noticeably frustrated Samardzija.
The Giants made things interesting in the ninth inning, when Buster Posey came up to the plate with two outs and runners on the corners. Posey ended a forgettable night in forgettable fashion, grounding out to third base to end the game, and an 0-for-4 evening.
Johnny Cueto (ERA 2.79) makes his final start of the season for the Giants tomorrow, and his first since injuring his groin on September 20th, facing off against Colorado’s Jon Grey (ERA 4.45) in the final game of the series. First pitch is scheduled for 7:15 pm on KNBR 680.
Notes
– With his walk on Wednesday, Brandon Belt became the first Giant to draw 100 walks since Barry Bonds had 132 in 2007.