Tag: Jake Peavy

Giants lose at home to the NL-worst Braves, fall two games behind the Dodgers

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By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–The Giants’ opportunity to post a three-game win streak for the first time in six weeks disappeared Saturday night in one swing of the bat.

Matt Kemp, the former Dodger and still a nemesis of the Giants, delivered a three-run homer off Albert Suarez in the fourth inning, and it stood up in the Braves 3-1 win. The Giants lost for the 26th time in 39 games, and fell two games off the pace of the Dodgers in the NL West.

“It’s good to quiet the crowd a little bit,” Kemp said. “They get riled up when they’re up. But if you can get on the board and get them down, they’ll back off you a little bit.”

Kemp homered for the 23rd time against the Giants, and ruined Suarez’ return to the big leagues after he was demoted to make room for the newly acquired Matt Moore on August 2. Suarez replaced Jake Peavy, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a lower back issue. Suarez breezed through three innings, extending the Giants’ pitching staff’s scoreless streak to 25 innings, then ran into trouble in the fourth.

Adonis Garcia singled and Freddy Freeman doubled ahead of Kemp’s homer to center field. That wiped out the Giants’ early 1-0 lead courtesy of Brandon Crawford’s solo shot in the second inning. Braves’ starter Mike Foltynewicz took it from there, pitching into the eighth inning without allowing the Giants another run.

The Braves have split six games with the Giants this season, despite being saddled with the National League’s worst record. Foltynewicz has beaten the Giants twice, also shutting them down May 30, allowing three hits and a run in six innings.

Hunter Pence, Buster Posey and Brandon Belt were all out of the Giants’ lineup, and only Belt made a pinch-hitting appearance, striking out in the eighth. After Belt’s strikeout, a pair of Giants reached base, chasing Foltynewicz. But reliever Mauricio Cabrera came on to retire Joe Panik to end the inning, and preserve the Braves’ two-run lead.

“We just couldn’t get a key hit,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “That’s how you win ballgames, and that was missing tonight.”

The Giants haven’t captured a series since winning two of three in Miami three weeks ago. On Sunday, they’ll look to capture this series with Madison Bumgarner scheduled to start. Aaron Blair will get the ball for the Braves after spending the previous two months with AAA Gwinett. Blair pitched against the Giants on June 2, allowing three two-run homers in the Braves’ 6-5 loss.

The Giants did receive some good new Saturday. The Marlins and Cardinals, their closest pursuers in the wide-open wild card race both lost at home, allowing the Giants to remain three games ahead of the Marlins and Pirates.

 

 

Giant problems: NL West lead down to 2 1/2 games after 7-5 loss to the Reds

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Bruce loose

By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–For Brandon Belt, the cool ocean air and adoring fans along McCovey Cove made all the difference. Stuck in a nasty post All-Star Game slump, the first baseman responded upon returning to AT&T Park with three hits, including a seemingly effortless, two-run homer.

For the rest of the Giants, Monday’s narrow 7-5 loss to the Reds was maddening, a rerun of most of the issues that plagued them on the just-concluded 1-7 road trip that’s all but eroded their comfortable lead in the NL West.

Balls flying over the fence? Three of them, all charged to starter Jake Peavy. Poor defense? Defender extraordinaire Brandon Crawford fumbled a ground ball, then threw wide to first, his improbable fifth error in the last seven games. Heads up play? Not enough of that either: Ramiro Pena wandered too far from first base and was picked off when Cincinnati’s Brandon Phillips wormed his way between Pena and the bag as catcher Tyler Barnhart’s throw arrived.

The home team’s fans were off their game too. A guy wearing a Giants’ jersey and armed with a glove reached over the rim of the right field arcade and snagged Jay Bruce’s first of two homers, a two-run shot that likely would have gone for three bases, not four, had the fan shown restraint.

So what’s it going to take for the Giants—21-7 before the break, and now 1-8 after it, to reignite their engines?

“Right now, we just need a quality start,” manager Bruce Bochy admitted.

Peavy seemed capable of giving the Giants what they needed, but didn’t have it on Monday. The veteran starter has won twice as much after the break than before over the last three seasons, and had never lost to a visiting Cincinnati ball club in his career (4-0 with 50 strikeouts in seven starts). But capturing that synergy would have first required that the Reds forget how pleasurable it was seeing Peavy at Great American Ballpark in May.

In that one, Peavy went six innings, departing after allowing four home runs, and leaving the Giants in a 7-2 hole. On Monday, Peavy gave up three home runs, the last one to Bruce, allowing the Reds to regain the lead after the Giants had scored four times to go ahead 5-4.

Talk about an extension of the road trip: the Giants’ pitchers have allowed 19 home runs in the last nine games.  And that four-run comeback might be all the offense the team can muster right now: over the final four innings Monday, the Giants had one hit and stuck out five times.

After the game, Bochy remained upbeat, finding a silver lining.

“Jake gives up six runs. He only gave up four hits, three of them left the park. That’s what power will do for you. They played hard, I loved the vibe in the dugout. Good comeback off a tough pitcher who’s been throwing the ball well. We just couldn’t hold ‘em,” Bochy said.

Belt’s home run answered the four-spot the Reds posted in the fourth. The slugger’s bust out night came after he went 2 for 33 on the road trip, and was dropped to sixth in the batting order on Monday in hopes that he would feel less pressure to carry the club offensively, according to Bochy.

Angel Pagan’s two-run shot in the fifth briefly gave the Giants a 5-4 lead, but Peavy’s final pitch of the evening was deposited over the left field fence by Bruce. The Cincinnati outfielder has been mentioned as a trade target of the Giants, and his latest stretch explains why. Bruce has 10 hits, 13 RBIs and four homers in his last seven games, that despite the persistent trade rumors that have him moving who knows where before the August 1 deadline.

“I feel like personally I have been pretty good at keeping things in their own little boxes,” Bruce said. “The last thing you want to do is let things creep in that affect performance or preparation or execution or focus.”

On Tuesday, the Giants will take aim at 23-year old Cody Reed, the Reds’ starter who is 0-4 in six starts. Matt Cain will go for the Giants, looking to have a far better outing than he did in Boston last week, where he was lifted in the third inning of an 11-7 loss.

 

 

Giants don’t hit, pitch or catch the ball in meltdown loss to the A’s

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Pena hurt

By Morris Phillips

OAKLAND–The whole process of going from red hot to hot under the collar took 6 2/3 innings for the Giants. At the conclusion, the team’s ability to execute the basics, starting with catching the ball, were in question.

Talk about a precipitous drop.

On Tuesday, the Giants led 4-1 in the 6th inning, and were in position to even their series with their Bay rival, the A’s, and capture their 14th win in their last 17 contests. Instead, the Giants’ bullpen imploded in what would become a 13-11 loss. Then the defense folded its’ tents in the first three plus innings on Wednesday, as the Giants went on to lose 7-1.

Along the way, Wednesday’s starter, Jake Peavy could be seen asking anyone capable of forming an answer, “What just happened?”

Well, what happened was the Giants allowed the A’s 19 runs—on just 14 hits—while contributing seven walks and four errors. A streak where that many guys cross the plate in such a short period doesn’t happen once a season, maybe once every couple of seasons. Somehow, given all that went wrong, a bunch of the focus landed on the leaky defense.

“That’s one thing we were doing well—catching the ball,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “You deal with streaks where you have trouble scoring runs, but one thing we have to do is consistently catch the ball.”

The first of the errors came with the Giants leading 4-3 on Tuesday. Marcus Semien’s ground ball to third could have been the final out of the inning, and preserved the Giants’ lead. But Conor Gillaspie air mailed his throw to first allowing Semien to reach, and baserunner Stephen Vogt to advance to third. Two batters later, the A’s would take their first lead of the night on Billy Butler’s two RBI single.

On Wednesday, the defense got so bad, Peavy could be seen cursing and muttering almost until Bochy relieved him with the Giants trailing 7-0. In that inning, Angel Pagan had a bead on Semien’s drive to the left field warning track, but then the ball glanced off Pagan’s glove and Semien ended up at third. Peavy lost it at that point, then allowed an RBI double to Billy Burns and a RBI single to Coco Crisp before he was relieved.

At that point, the Giants had already suffered a collision between infielder Ramiro Pena and outfielder Mac Williamson on a ball that dropped for a three-base error, and put Pena on the disabled list with the former Yankee expected to be unavailable for at least a week. Two batters later, Williamson appeared to have Jed Lowrie’s home run ball in his glove, but saw the ball go out when it bounced out of the outfielder’s glove.

New addition, Reuben Tejada, got the start at third in place of the injured Matt Duffy, and he then muffed Josh Reddick’s foul pop. Reddick then drew a walk to extend the inning.

“We didn’t handle a popup, no question it changed the game. It made Jake work a lot harder. He was in a good groove there. Then we drop another popup. We just got to clean it up. That’s the one thing we were doing very well,” Bochy said.

The Giants have dropped three straight to the A’s after winning 13 of 15. Clearly, part of the problem was a stressful, laborious, but successful series over the weekend with the Phillies. That definitely took a lot out of the Giants. Another factor is the A’s are having their best stretch of the season, after falling into last place in the AL West and more than 10 games below .500. The A’s have won six of seven and seen their offense pick up dramatically during the streak.

A’s starter Sean Manaea came off the disabled list and pitched into the sixth inning on Wednesday, shutting the Giants down by scattering six hits and a walk allowed. Manaea is one of three rookie starters the Giants will face in this series, with Dillon Overton scheduled to start for Oakland on Thursday.

Madison Bumgarner, poised to become the first starter to hit in an American League Park since Ken Brett in 1976, will get the start for the Giants.

Peavy OK, but the offense disappears again in Giants’ 3-1 loss to Toronto

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Toronto flex

By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–Verbal and uncommonly animated, you could hear Jake Peavy after he got ahead of reigning AL MVP Josh Donaldson, the second batter of Monday’s game, one ball, two strikes.

Of Peavy’s next four pitches to Donaldson, only the third could be considered effective, a slower than slow breaking pitch that had the slugger hopping across the plate to control his bat just enough to foul off the nasty offering. The other three pitches? Hardly impactful; first Peavy missed inside, then outside, and after Donaldson stayed alive by barely getting his bat on what would have been a called strike three, another ball outside, like the first two, not close enough to tempt the keen-eyed MVP.

Donaldson drew a walk, and Peavy’s signature grunt—for this batter, more of a groan—grew more intense on each pitch.   But on Monday, as it has more often than not thus far this season—intensity didn’t equal a win.

Peavy would go on to throw 27 pitches in a laborious first inning, allowing just one run, despite giving up two hits, two walks and uncorking a wild pitch. But fearless damage control wouldn’t be enough against the favorites in the AL East, as Peavy would go on to allow three runs in a 3-1 loss in which the Giants’ offense was again missing in action, and provided little support for their starting pitcher.

“We just ran into a well-pitched game,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We saw a great arm tonight. He’s been throwing the ball well and he just shut us down but they battled hard. It’s a good sign for Jake, to battle and compete the way he did, to hold them to three there.”

No matter the degree of scuffling, as Bochy described, Peavy was ultimately effective. He went five innings, kept his team in the ballgame, and never gave in. But he couldn’t locate his pitches, walked five guys, creating constant stress, and needed 112 pitches to record 15 outs.

That 112th pitch induced Russell Martin to pop out with the bases loaded, and the game in the balance. Talk about trust between manager and player.

“I just appreciate him showing that confidence in me to make that pitch,” Peavy said.

Offensively, the Giants were stymied again, this the third straight day they saw an upcoming starter displaying his best stuff and being consistent with it. Aaron Sanchez allowed the Giants just three hits and a run, despite having a lot of screwy stuff happen around him.

Sanchez went seven innings and lowered his ERA on the road in four starts thus far to 0.96.

Both teams exited with identical 17-17 records, and despite being near consensus picks to win their divisions, both the Blue Jays and Giants have a lot to work to do. The Giants came in having scored just 2 runs in 22 innings, and did little to reverse that trend. The Jays have their big bats hitting 2 through 6 with Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and Troy Tulowitzki, but their entire lineup can’t seem to get the batting averages where they need to be, while reducing the strike outs.

Encarnacion homered off Peavy in third, with Bautista on with a walk, giving the Jays all the offense they would need. Peavy’s only consolation there? He struck out Encarnacion in the fifth, the equivalent of winning the battle, losing the war.

The Giants turn to Matt Cain on Tuesday, in a matchup with the revived J.A. Happ at 7:15pm.

NOTES: With Encarnacion’s two-run shot in the third, he and Bautista share the lead in home runs in interleague games since 2010 with 34. Houston’s Colby Rasmus is next with 33…. Angel Pagan inches closer to a return from that tweak in his knee suffered rounding the bases in New York two Sundays ago. The Giants didn’t disclose a timetable, but sometime this week appears likely. Pagan was available to pinch hit Monday, but would not have stayed in the game to run the bases. George Kontos, out since April 18, is doing a rehab stint with Triple A Sacramento, and pitched a scoreless inning on Sunday. Albert Suarez followed Peavy Monday, pitching two innings in relief as the follow-up to his major league debut on Saturday.