SAN FRANCISCO–The Giants have lost 89 games this season, but manager Bruce Bochy thinks the two contests San Francisco dropped in Chicago this weekend may outdo the rest.
“Our motivation right now is to get on track ourselves,” Bochy said Monday. “We just played two back-to-back games that could have been our worst all year. We’ve had a rough year but those games were tough games. We just looked flat. We didn’t swing the bats at all. We had two good starters going out their trying to win that series and we couldn’t do it. We’re more concerned with how we play the game.”
Bochy is right. The consecutive blowouts the Giants lost at the hands of the worst team in the American League, the Chicago White Sox, were a brutal display, even by the standards San Francisco has set this season.
Though the White Sox are scuffling en route to a last-place finish in the AL Central, Chicago has a sense of direction as a franchise. Many of the team’s intriguing young talents crushed the Giants’ pitching staff over the weekend, while San Francisco struggled to hit at all against James Shields and Carson Fulmer.
Bochy responded to the disappointment with a lineup shakeup on Monday, inserting right fielder Hunter Pence into the leadoff spot and moving center fielder Denard Span back to the three-hole.
“Need to see if we can shake this thing up a little bit,” Bochy said. “It’s something, we need to get this offense going. We’re stagnant right now, the last couple of games. So just break things up, see if we can get some runs on the board.”
Bochy wasn’t the only manager attempting to initiate change. Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts set his rotation for the remainder of the series on Monday, as right-hander Yu Darvish was reportedly informed that he’ll start the finale on Wednesday against Giants’ lefty Matt Moore.
Over the weekend, Roberts announced that his ace, Clayton Kershaw, would pitch on Tuesday against Johnny Cueto, and it certainly appears as if he’s setting his staff up to capture as many wins as possible against a Giants team that still has a chance to lose 100 games this year.
Though the Dodgers have lost 15 of their last 16 and need wins any way they can get them, using Darvish on Wednesday will allow him to throw before the team squares off with the National League East champion Washington Nationals this weekend. Darvish hasn’t faced the Nationals since 2014, and a potential playoff start against Dusty Baker’s club is certainly on Roberts’ mind.
Darvish said he starts Wednesday. That means Nationals won’t see him this weekend. Nats never have faced him.
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) September 11, 2017
Even though there’s a 37-game gap in the standings between the first-place Dodgers and the last-place Giants, both managers are still playing to win in this series.
“What happened the last couple of days is not going to work,” Bochy said.
Vogelsong goes out as a Giant
On Monday afternoon, San Francisco announced that Ryan Vogelsong will retire as a member of the San Francisco Giants.
Vogelsong pitched 12 seasons in the Major Leagues after being selected in the fifth round of the 1998 MLB Draft by the Giants, and spent parts of seven seasons in San Francisco.
The right-hander won two World Series with the Giants after returning to the club on a Minor League deal prior to the 2011 season, and his ability to hold down the back end of San Francisco’s rotation was critical to those two championships.
“There’s certain players that you have a special place or spot for and really, great memories and he’s just one of those guys that’s well-liked by everybody,” Bochy said. “All the guys in the clubhouse, the staff, very professional. Of course what he did for us on the field too.”
There’s a possibility that as part of his retirement, Vogelsong will appear in the game, but Bochy said the Giants are still working out those details.
:”Yeah, I know they’re working on it. I don’t know exactly how it’s going to work. It’s going to be good to see Vogey, and he’s done some great things for us. For the Giants and so we’re trying to do something special for him. But I don’t know all the details yet.”