Giants leave brooms at home on Father’s Day, fail to complete sweep of Brewers
SAN FRANCISCO — Among all the potential Father’s Day gifts out there, a broom ranks among the tackiest.
It’s exactly the present manager Bruce Bochy wanted anyway, but Oracle Park remains a sweep-free zone in series of at least three games for the Giants.
After taking the first two games of a three-game weekend set from the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, the Giants failed to break out the brooms in a 5-3 loss on Sunday.
“We would have loved to finish it off today and we could have, we had our chances,” Bochy said.
The defeat halted the Giants’ longest win streak of the season at four and prevented them from earning their first sweep in a three-game series this year. Bochy’s club hasn’t earned a three-game sweep since taking three from Arizona from June 29-July 1, 2018 and hasn’t picked one up at home in over a calendar year.
Is a broom really a good Father’s Day gift? Probably not, but it’s practical, functional and for the 2019 Giants, an item they’d like to be using a lot more.
“I like the way we’re pitching, we’re keeping it close and we are creating those chances, that’s what you need to do,” Bochy said. “If you do enough of it, the odds are, somebody is going to come through for you.”
Giants starter Jeff Samardzija gave up a run in the first, second, fourth and fifth innings and his offense failed in its best opportunity to complete another dramatic comeback win. The Giants overcame a four-run deficit to win 8-7 on Saturday, but scored just once after loading the bases with no outs in the fifth inning of Sunday’s loss.
Catcher Buster Posey struck out against Brewers reliever Matt Albers with the bases loaded before Brandon Belt drove in pinch-hitter Pablo Sandoval with a sacrifice fly. A walk by Evan Longoria loaded the bases again for the Giants, but one of Satuday’s heroes, Brandon Crawford, popped out in foul territory to end the scoring threat.
The only thing swept away in Sunday’s game was Belt’s 18-game on-base streak, which began on May 23 and featured 17 walks.
Bochy said prior to Sunday’s game that closer Will Smith would not pitch after appearing in four consecutive games and six total on the team’s first winning homestand since the club won five of nine from August 24-September 2, 2018. The Giants didn’t have a save situation for Smith, but Bochy did find two innings of work for both Derek Holland and Dereck Rodríguez after neither had pitched since June 8.
The first batter Holland faced, pinch-hitter Jesus Augilar, launched a 412-foot home run halfway up the left field bleachers to extend the Brewers’ lead to 5-3. Rodríguez finished the game for the Giants and tossed two perfect innings in relief, rebounding from a disastrous outing against the Dodgers in which he allowed two hits and two walks without recording an out.
“I liked the way he put that behind him and went out there against some good hitters and made some great pitches,” Bochy said. “I thought that was important for him.”
Samardzija needed to labor to finish off five innings Sunday as he threw 113 pitches while giving up nine hits and four earned runs. The right-hander did strike out five Brewers hitters, but had trouble missing bats for much of the day as he only induced nine whiffs.
“I know my numbers against some of those guys aren’t too great,” Samardzija. “So I knew I was going to have to go out there and have to battle and that we did, but that was about it.”
Milwaukee hitters consistently ran long counts and racked up 22 foul balls against Samardzija, who has had trouble pitching deep into games this season. The veteran starter owns a respectable 3.96 ERA, but he’s completed six innings in just three of his 14 outings in 2019.
“It was a gutty effort, he ended up giving up four, a lot of pitches and he had to work hard to get through it,” Bochy said. “But he kept us there and gave us a chance. We just didn’t cash in enough.”
Despite only earning one All-Star nod in his career, Samardzija was generally considered valuable during his prime seasons because of his efficiency and durability on the mound.
After throwing 200 innings in five straight seasons from 2013-2017, diminished velocity and a shift in the Giants’ pitching philosophy has forced Samardzija to change his approach. Through 14 starts this year, Samardzija has now thrown 73 2/3 innings, putting him on pace to finish with roughly 160-to-170 innings in the penultimate season of a five-year contract he signed in December, 2015.