By Ben Leonard

SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants made history Friday night. But not the type of ground you’re usually looking to break. On a hard line drive to first off Brandon Crawford’s bat, San Francisco became the first eighth inning L3-3-5 triple play in major league history.

That kind of play would devastate a lot of teams. When you’ve won two games in as many weeks, an unlucky, bizarre play like that could be crippling to most clubs. But not the Giants.

One of the most resilient teams in recent years has pledged to keep fighting after another soul-crushing loss.

“These guys are fighting,” Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy said Friday. “They’ll be fine. We’ll keep grinding through this thing and we’ll come out of it.”

This isn’t your average press conference mumbo jumbo. When it came out of the players’ mouths, it sounded like they believed it. You should believe it. Brandon Crawford looked reporters in the eye, asserting that, yes, it would turn around. He didn’t have to convince himself.

Neither did starter Jeff Samardzija, who took taking the streak cooly and with veteran savvy. Just a little downturn, nothing more.

A lot of it has just come down to poor luck, something that’s particularly devastating when you’re running out a 4-A type of bottom half of the order.

Sure, some of it has been sloppy play — like Gregor Blanco’s slow throw that cost Samardzija a run in the fourth — but you notice those things more when a team has lost eleven of thirteen games.

But largely, this has come down to a lack of clutch hitting, a smidge of poor luck, and inevitable regression from a team that was held together by a string. Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto couldn’t keep pitching like Greek gods, and a team without three regulars was due to fall off offensively.

Most of the time, they’ve been competitive and feel they can wriggle their way out of this deepening rut.

“We’re right there,” Samardzija said after the Giants’ fifth loss in his last six outings. “We’re in all these games. It’s not like these things are out of reach… You just keep working hard and eventually those bounces will go your way.”

They wouldn’t have had the chance to be right there had they not been resilient. Down 4-1, the Giants stood up and rallied in the eighth to load the bases with no outs, when they made broke infamous, silencing ground.

 

This team has proven that it has what it takes when it matters — a one-game lead in the NL West should be motivation enough for this crew. They didn’t fall down when Hunter Pence did earlier in the season. They didn’t fall down in 2012 when down 2-0 and 3-1 in the playoffs. Why would they now? It’s not in their DNA.

Plus, the silver lining to all of this is that it could force management’s hand with the trade deadline rapidly approaching. There’s certainly pressure on general manager Bobby Evans to make another move — Eduardo Nunez probably isn’t going to be the second coming of Mike Trout — and a move could inspire this club. Marco Scutaro was the catalyst in 2010, Pence inspired this club in 2012, and Jake Peavy gave the club a lift in 2014. Even a mid-level name could fit right in in this welcoming, laidback California club house

Even a mid-level name could fit right in in this welcoming, laidback California clubhouse and help the club take off. The public acknowledgement that this team needs to do more inherent in such a move would put more pressure — the good kind — on this club.

As they’ve proven time and time again, pressure is nothing but motivation for the Giants. Don’t expect them to press like this for much longer.