Giants reach a season-high in futility levels

Every team, no matter how talented, has rough patches. This is something else.

The Giants (57-39) remained zero for the “second half” with another mind-numbingly inept loss, their season-high sixth straight, falling 3-2 Friday night to the Yankees in New York. Fortunately Matt Adams played semi-hero as his 16th inning walk-off shot for the Cardinals set second-place Los Angeles down 4-3 at St. Louis. Still the Giants’ once-commanding (and fairly-recent) eight-game lead in the NL West is down to a paltry four games. It’s now a race, and the Giants are leaking oil.

Right now the season feels kinda like this.

It was the second time in the skid the Giants failed to get a win out of ace Madison Bumgarner, who struggled early one while pitching in the New York sauna. But this time around the lefty pitched well enough to win, only to have the defense and the bullpen let him down.

That should fail to surprise Giants fans; bad relief has been a theme all year. On Friday some really bad defense from an unlikely source was added to the mix as this witches brew of ill-will and karmic blackness threatened to envelop a season that seemed a dream through 90 contests. It’s as though all the good fortune a team can expect over 162 games was crammed into 90, and now the cosmic scales are being balanced in horrific fashion.

All-Star Brandon Crawford entered Friday’s game having committed five errors all season. He was charged three on Friday, all on throws, for the first time in his big league career. And while the first two weren’t costly, number three hammered the final nail into the coffin.

Down 2-0 thanks to single runs in the first two innings, the Giants spent the entire night trying to dig out of a hole.  And son of a gun they did it, only to have the pen and Crawford let it slip away. Not that the Giants didn’t have chances to make their own lives easier.

We have the same look; pure bewilderment. (SF Giants via Twitter)

Two on with none out in the second yielded nothing against Masahiro Tanaka…unless you count the foul ball off his foot that forced Buster Posey from the game (x-rays were negative; he’s day to day). They did the same thing in the third (sans the injury) only to see Gregor Blanco thrown out at the plate trying to score on Angel Pagan’s short fly to right. The Giants challenged the call, in which ruled Blanco was ruled to have avoided the initial tag but missed the plate. Did you really think replay was gonna help? The last crucial vid that went their way was Game 7 in Kansas City.

And still they had a chance; cue Jim Carrey. Like Bumgarner (7 IP, 2ER, 7H, 6K, BB), Tanaka settled in and he’d go a full six. That’s been the goal for Yankees starters: hand a lead to the unholy trinity of Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman. The Giants continued tilting at windmills, and they succeeded in knocking one down. Betances uncorked a wild pitch to score Jarrett Parker in the seventh, and Mac Williamson’s pinch-hit RBI double off Miller capped a three-hit outburst in the eighth to tie the score at 2-2. It was only the second time this season a team had dented both hurlers, and the runs snapped a streak of 31 scoreless innings for the Yankees bullpen.

The Giants bullpen barely went 31 seconds.

This guy deserved better. Nothing new there. (SF Giants via Twitter).

Josh Osich allowed an infield single to start the home eighth, then walked the go-ahead run into scoring position. Crawford fielded Austin Romine’s grounder behind the bag at second and went for the 360-spin, step-and-throw double play. The toss to Brandon Belt at first base was quick enough to nab Romine but was reachable only if an actual giraffe had been manning the bag. Belt could only deflect the wild throw as Chase Headley scored the eventual game-winner from second. The lead was gone and a ball  hadn’t left the infield.

That defense thing is becoming a trend even more infuriating that the bullpen meltdowns. The Giants have committed 10 errors during the current skid. So much for pitching and defense, eh?

Back in April when Detroit got to Betances and Miller, the Tigers dented Chapman as well. The Giants had a chance to do likewise when Blanco led off the ninth with a double off the glove of a sliding Brett Gardner in left, but he died at second. Denard Span grounded out, Pagan hit a soft liner to second base and Belt struck out.

That should come as little surprise. Since last winning a game back on July 10, San Francisco is 7-for-53 (.132) with runners in scoring position, including 1-for-12 on Friday.

On a night where there’s plenty to tick us off, here’s one more item: it was the third time during the losing streak that the Giants out-hit the opposition. Span had two hits and seven other G-men had a hit apiece as the Giants won that battle 9-8. They get nothing for winning that battle.

The next chance to dent the win column come Saturday at Jeff Samardzija (9-5, 4.05 ERA) tries to snap bot the team’s funk and his own against Ivan Nova (7-5, 4.92).

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