Johnny Cueto called it sad. Brandon Belt said nobody expected it to be this way. Bruce Bochy said it can be embarrassing.
The Giants are still two weeks shy of the All-Star break, and on Saturday, San Francisco lost its 50th game of the season.
At 27-50, Bochy’s ballclub was 23 games under .500, had lost 20 of its last 25 contests, and entered a series finale hoping to avoid being swept by a New York Mets club that began the day in fourth place in a non-competitive National League East.
“It is hard to believe,” Bochy said after falling 5-2 on Saturday evening. “I don’t think anyone saw this coming and it’s hard to make sense of it really to be honest. We do have a lot of talent here and it just shows you, every year can be different than the year before.”
Was 50 losses the turning point? Bochy, Cueto and Belt all expressed hope that the Giants had bottomed out. Then Sunday happened.
With left-hander Matt Moore on the hill, the Giants were routed in an 8-2 blowout, as the pitching staff allowed four home runs and allowed the Mets to make AT&T Park look as lively as the Little League World Series diamond in Willamsport.
The Giants’ fall from grace is perplexing, and has been covered ad nauseam. A day doesn’t go by when I check social media after posting another piece about a Giants loss and receive requests –demands, really– to just cover the Warriors. At this point, I’m starting to wonder when fans are going to ask me to write more about a 49ers team that finished 2-14 last season.
On Friday, I opined that if the Giants lose 100 games this season, they’ll be the biggest disappointment in baseball in the last decade. One of the reasons I wrote the piece, to be completely honest, is because I thought the Giants would turn things around against the Mets this weekend and improve their pace. I had to take advantage of the moment, because with Ty Blach and Johnny Cueto pitching the first two games of the series, I thought San Francisco would take advantage of another struggling ballclub at home.
I was sorely mistaken.
On Friday, Blach wasn’t competitive and the Mets’ lineup looked like the National League All-Star team. On Saturday, the Giants’ lineup ran into Mets starter Jacob deGrom, who is perhaps the hottest starting pitcher in baseball right now. After helping the Mets recover from the four-game losing streak they carried into China Basin, the Giants are on pace to lose 105 games. The franchise record is 100, set back in 1985.
On Sunday, another disastrous start from Moore, who has allowed 24 earned runs over 24 and 1/3 innings in the month of June pushed the Giants 24.5 games back of the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers. According to ESPN’s Buster Olney, the difference in winning percentage between the rival clubs has never been this great this early in the season.
Moore’s struggles have paralleled the Giants’ troubles, as his ERA in the month of June is hovering just below 9.00, while the club he pitches for has won just five games in the last four weeks. At some point, this has to end, right?
“I’m sitting on a six (ERA) right now with not a lot of wins and not a lot of team wins when I’m throwing the ball so it’s been enough for me,” Moore said. “Over the last couple of months it’s been nothing that I’m happy with.”
Time and again, Bochy has reiterated that no one expected or predicted the Giants to be such a dramatic disappointment. Over the past few weeks, the Giants’ skipper –and many of the team’s key veteran pieces– have said they’ll play through this stretch with the belief that slowly, they’ll begin to string some wins together.
That hasn’t happened.
So after a series sweep at the hands of a subpar (is it fair to say bad?) Mets team, Bochy’s message was simple: Enough is enough.
“It’s not that they’re not coming out here ready or trying, but enough is enough and at some point, we’ve got to find a way to get this thing turned around,” Bochy said. “I talked to a few players before the game here and we’ll keep working. That’s all you can do but with what’s happened here, I don’t think anybody expected or predicted.”
On Friday, I tried to seize the moment and outline what a historic disappointment the Giants have been before it’s too late. With a favorable schedule –15 of the Giants’ next 18 games were expected to come against sub .500 clubs– I thought Blach, Cueto and even Moore might inject some optimism into the clubhouse this weekend.
Now, I’m wondering if I jumped the gun.
After three lifeless games against New York, San Francisco will welcome a Colorado Rockies team to town that has defeated the Giants in 10 of the 11 contests the teams have played this season.
It’s been 32 years since the Giants lost 100 games, and that 1985 season was the only time San Francisco produced a 100-loss team. Is there still time to avoid writing a new chapter in a history book no one wants to read? Of course.
But after taking in these last three games from the press box at AT&T Park, I know my eyes don’t deceive me. It’s time to fire up the printing press.