SF Giants’ scuffle continues against Tigers, return home on six-game losing streak
Giants held to one run on four hits, batting .165 over six-game losing streak, their longest skid of the season.
The Giants got superb defense. They got a strong pitching performance.
Once again, the bats failed them.
Bringing a once-promising road trip to a nightmarish end in a Monday matinee, the Giants were humbled, 5-1, by the Tigers, their sixth straight loss to end a road trip that began with five wins in a row. After being swept over the weekend for the first time this season by the Nationals, they managed to be swept again only a day later, in the makeup game of a questionably postponed series finale from their second road trip of the season (Detroit won the first two games in April).
The starting pitcher with the fortune to face a badly scuffling group, playing its 11th game in its fourth city since the All-Star break, was Hayward’s own Tarik Skubal, a 26-year-old lefty making his fourth start back since elbow surgery. He struck out nine over five innings before handing off to the Tigers’ bullpen, who brought the total number of victims to 15, in only the Giants’ latest dismal offensive effort.
Wilmer Flores, their one hot hitter, provided the lone run with a solo homer in the sixth — his fifth of the road trip, upping his July OPS to 1.216 — but the Giants were otherwise held to three hits, one on a dribbler from Patrick Bailey that didn’t even reach the infield dirt. Over the six-game skid, they have scored nine runs (1.3 per game) while allowing 34 and mustered 27 hits (4.5 per game) versus 60 by their opponents.
The six-game losing streak marks a season-long, with all six coming against teams with losing records. Once alone in the top wild card spot and within two games of the division, the Giants will wake up Tuesday morning, a week away from the trade deadline, four or five games back of the Dodgers in the NL West and in a virtual tie with three other teams for the final two wild card slots.
Over the final six games of the road trip, the Giants batted .165 and went 1-for-24 with runners in scoring position. Their only opportunity Monday came with two outs in the ninth inning, and Blake Sabol went down swinging.
Manager Gabe Kapler inserted LaMonte Wade Jr. into the No. 9 hole, a rare start against a lefty, hoping to provide a boost to the bottom of the order. Wade went hitless with two strikeouts in three trips to the plate, and Giants’ 7-9 hitters finished the trip 2-for-47 (.043) over the final six games.
The Giants have led at the conclusion of one inning since the start of the losing streak, though it was at least close Monday until Ryan Walker surrendered a two-run homer in the eighth inning. Ross Stripling scattered 10 hits while holding the Tigers to three runs over six innings in his second straight quality start.
Amid uncertainty in roles of Alex Wood, Sean Manaea and Anthony DeSclafani, Stripling has asserted himself into the No. 3 spot since returning to the rotation. He has a 4.03 ERA in five starts since the start of July.
The Giants wasted a quality start from Stripling and a couple of defensive web gems. Left fielder Austin Slater charged and laid out to record the final out of the third inning, preventing at least a run, while Michael Conforto robbed Zach McKinstry of a home run with a leaping catch at the right field wall in the fifth.
In one bright spot, rookie Casey Schmitt, who has struggled more than anyone of late, put together the Giants’ two longest at-bats of the game, forcing Skubal to throw 10 pitches in their first meeting and nine in their second. However, both at-bats ended in Schmitt swinging through the final pitch for strike three.