The Giants just lost their eighth game of the month, but things could be worse. At this time last year, the Giants had just lost their 11th game in a row which set a San Francisco era record for longest losing streak. They’ve already won four games this month. A 4-8 record is bad, but it’s a heck of a lot better than 0-11.
Okay, maybe that’s not the best consolation, but there wasn’t a whole lot in this game to be happy about. Andrew Suárez and Burch Smith looked sharp out of the bullpen, and Mauricio Dubón made some nice plays in the field, but that was about it. This was a game where you could have watched the first inning and gotten an idea of how things were going to shake out.
Joe Musgrove, perhaps best known for being one of the players the Pirates received for Gerrit Cole, looked an awful lot like Gerrit Cole against the Giants. Musgrove owns a 4.45 ERA over his career, and he had never struck out more than nine in start before. He could have set a new career-high today—he had struck out 7 in five innings on 72 pitches—but Clint Hurdle took him out. He didn’t appear to be injured.
Hurdle doesn’t seem like the type to pull a guy before the third time through the order. The Pirates still insist that sinkers low in the zone are good despite seeing what Cole can do when he doesn’t pitch to their philosophy, so I wouldn’t expect them to make a move like that when a starter is rolling. Maybe they didn’t want to push him in an ultimately meaningless game at the end of a year where he has already thrown more innings than in any other season of his professional career. He’s had shoulder issues in the past after all.
Regardless, the Giants couldn’t do any damage against Musgrove. Even when they could get something going, they could never get the big hit. The Giants wasted a Brandon Belt triple in the first. The triple itself would have been a home run in 20 of 30 MLB parks. Samardzija and Mike Yastrzemski started a rally in the third, but Posey, Belt, and Longoria couldn’t bring Smarj home.
Musgrove also hurt the Giants at the plate. He tripled off the bricks in his second plate appearance making him the first Pirates pitcher to hit a triple since 2010. He could really do no wrong today.
The Giants wasted no time in scoring against the bullpen. Evan Longoria’s monster homer in the sixth made it a one-run game. It was almost enough to give the Giants hope, but that was all the feck they could muster in one game. But if you’re going to get one big hit, a homer that takes one bounce and lands on the concourse is a good one to get.
4⃣2⃣9⃣ FEET.
— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) September 12, 2019
#SFGiants pic.twitter.com/mctmnv0HqO
Jeff Samardzija pitched nearly as well through the first six innings, but he was a victim of poor sequencing and batted ball luck. Those things will happen when you only strike out two of the 27 batters you face. While Musgrove was pulled too early, Samardzija was perhaps pulled too late. When he began the seventh inning, he was already at 88 pitches, and he was giving up more hard contact as the game went on.
Bruce Bochy probably wanted to squeeze another few innings out of Samardzija to save the bullpen. Usually, a team claiming their bullpen is taxed in September is like those people who take three $6,000 vacations a year and claim they’re broke, but the Giants used six relievers last night and five the night before. They also haven’t had an off-day since September 29 and they won’t have one until Monday.
Mauricio Dubón continues to impress on defense. It’s one thing to look smooth and be rangy, but he demonstrated some high baseball IQ in the fifth inning. With Adam Frazier on first, the Pirates put on a hit and run. Dubón fielded a slow roller and instead of taking the easy play at first and assuming Frazier would stop, he made sure to check. Frazier broke for third and Dubón threw him out easily. He knew how much time he had to get the out at first, so he could wait for Frazier to go. If he throws the ball as soon as he gets it, Frazier takes third rather easily.
I don’t know how much more instruction teams give about defending on an overshift, but I doubt this particular play is something they cover.
That wasn’t all. The tag he laid down on Kevin Kramer in the sixth was downright Báezian. He received a low, off-line throw and applied the tag on Kramer’s back foot without looking at the runner. It was in stark contrast to Brandon Crawford dropping a perfect throw from Posey earlier in the game.
As if another feckless loss to the Pirates wasn’t a bad enough way to spend an afternoon, Jaylin Davis took a fastball off the wrist and came out of the game. The good news is that the x-ray came back negative.
It’s a left wrist contusion for Jaylin Davis. X-ray came back negative.
— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) September 12, 2019
From the way he reacted and how those kinds of injuries can easily lead to IL stints, it looked like Davis’s 2019 season would end there. Davis has been looking to build some confidence at the plate and fortunately, it looks like he’ll get some more opportunities to do that before the year is through.