Photo by Chris Mezzavilla/KNBR
SAN FRANCISCO–It’s been 74 years since the Giants last fell 40 games back in the standings. And after the Los Angeles Dodgers claimed their 89th win of the season on Tuesday evening, the potential of a loss for San Francisco offered the franchise an unfortunate opportunity to rewrite the history books.
On October 3, 1943, the New York Giants dropped the final game of their regular season to the St. Louis Cardinals to fall 49.5 games back in the National League. That was the last time the franchise that moved from New York to San Francisco trailed its division by at least 40 games.
Until Tuesday night.
After reliever Albert Suarez coughed up a seventh inning lead that helped the Milwaukee Brewers to a 4-3 win over the Giants, the club fell 40 games back of a first-place Los Angeles team that’s authoring history in a different type of way this year.
Back in 1943, the New York Giants didn’t fall 40 games back in the eight-team National League until a September 6 loss to those pesky first place Cardinals.
The last time San Francisco dropped 40 games out this early in a season? By my research, it was back in 1902, when a Giants team led by ace Christy Mathewson fell to the Chicago Cubs in an August 16 contest. Back then, the season started in mid-April, so the Giants’ early 20th century decline was even more precipitous.
And if you think the 2017 Dodgers have the division sewed up, those of you who were alive (I’m kidding) back in 1902 surely recall the start the Pittsburgh Pirates enjoyed that year. On August 16, 1902, the Pirates owned a 71-23 record, good for a .755 winning percentage. This year’s Dodgers wouldn’t stand a chance against Honus Wagner’s crew, as Los Angeles’s less than impressive 89-35 record equates to a .718 winning percentage.
So it’s been 115 years since the Giants were 40 games out of first place this early in a season. Hey, at least Mathewson won 14 games that year (he also lost 17), and somehow, all four Giants pitchers who threw at least 150 innings that year sported ERAs below 3.17. But again, I’m probably not qualified to write about what happened nearly three decades prior to the Great Depression.
But I can tell you about the depression that set in on Tuesday. Here’s the play-by-play.
Milwaukee drew first blood against Giants’ right-hander Jeff Samardzija, as a two-out single from center fielder Keon Broxton in the top of the second inning plated right fielder Domingo Santana to give the Brewers a 1-0 advantage.
It wouldn’t last long, though, as Gorkys Hernandez responded with a bases loaded infield single off of Brewers’ starter Jimmy Nelson in the bottom half of the inning that scored catcher Buster Posey to even the score. Hernandez wasn’t penciled into manager Bruce Bochy’s original lineup on Tuesday, but 45 minutes before first pitch, starting right fielder Hunter Pence was scratched with a tight left hamstring which forced Hernandez into duty.
Though Hernandez can cover more ground than Pence, the Giants’ starting right fielder has a better feel for the tricky right field confines at AT&T Park, and on Tuesday, the Giants missed it. In the top of the fourth inning, Broxton launched a deep flyball to right that should have ended the inning, but as Hernandez settled under the ball on thew warning track, the ball tipped off of Hernandez’s glove and produced a three-base error that allowed Eric Sogard to score all the way from first base.
With San Francisco trailing 2-1 in the fifth, Nelson issued a two-out walk to Buster Posey that he ultimately paid the price for. Though facing Crawford is preferable to battling with the Giants’ best hitter, San Francisco’s shortstop launched an offering from Nelson into the arcade to give San Francisco a 3-2 lead and give Samardzija a chance to win the game.
After recording four straight outings with at least 100 pitches, including a season-high 120-pitch performance against the Nationals last weekend, Samardzija dialed it back on Tuesday. The durable right-hander threw 95 pitches in his last outing, and exited Tuesday’s start after hurling just 89 pitches, his fewest since a 4.1 inning stint against the Padres in mid-July.
Suarez replaced Samardzija in the seventh, and promptly gave up a pair of runs after walking the leadoff hitter Eric Thames. A 3-2 lead evaporated and became a 4-3 deficit, and San Francisco didn’t recover, despite having nine outs to scratch across a run. In the bottom of the eighth, Nick Hundley was thrown out at the plate on a Denard Span single, and it wasn’t a particularly close play. That was the closest San Francisco would come to fending off a new mark of futility.
So at 51-77, the Giants are now 40 games back of the first-place Dodgers. Even the Giants’ 1985 team, the only club in franchise history that lost 100 games, finished just 33 back.
Of course, it takes an impossibly good team at the top of the standings to facilitate a gap this wide, but you get the point. I tried my best, but it’s impossible to properly put a 40-game deficit into perspective.