Giants' bats go cold as four-game streak ends

SAN FRANCISCO -- On Sunday afternoon, Giants first baseman Brandon Belt approached manager Gabe Kapler in the dugout and told him that he felt like the offense was close to turning a corner.

But the Giants’ bats remained dormant on Monday night, when they were held to two hits in a 3-0 shutout loss to the Reds at Oracle Park, which snapped the club’s four-game winning streak.

The Giants stacked their lineup with right-handed bats against Cincinnati left-hander Wade Miley, but they mustered only a pair of singles from Buster Posey and Donovan Solano over his five scoreless innings. Right-handers Tejay Antone and Lucas Sims combined to pitch four hitless innings to complete the Reds’ shutout.

“I think this is the right time to give credit to two pretty dominant opposing pitchers in Miley and Antone,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “Both of them were executing their location and had good stuff and both worked at a pretty crisp pace. I think it was more about the execution from Miley, particularly with the cutter down-and-in to righties. Our righties were having a hard time getting those balls in the air.”

San Francisco’s offense was a strength in 2020, but the lineup has not been clicking as expected so far this season. The Giants are averaging 3.1 runs per game and batting only .192 over their first 10 games of the year, the second-lowest mark in the Majors, a troubling trend that had been partially obscured by the starting rotation’s dominance.

Only five of the Giants’ 14 position players are currently hitting over .200. Austin Slater (.143), Wilmer Flores (.136) and Mauricio Dubón (.111) are expected to be key weapons against left-handed pitching this year, but they’ve each endured slow starts and went a combined 0-for-6 with two walks on Monday.

Mike Yastrzemski, who placed eighth in National League MVP voting after his breakout '20 campaign, received a scheduled day off against Miley and grounded out in a pinch-hit appearance in the eighth inning, sinking his batting average to .121 over his first 10 games of the year.

Evan Longoria produced three hard-hit balls on Monday, including a deep fly ball to left-center field that died at the warning track, but he finished 0-for-4 and struck out against Sims to end the game.

“I think overall we’ve gotten some big hits, but I don’t think this is the type of offense that we are,” Kapler said. “I think we’re the type of offense that sees a lot of pitches, gets pitchers on the ropes, gets big hits and produces big innings. We haven’t seen that consistently from our offense this year, but I believe that’s in there with this group.”

Right-hander Aaron Sanchez was saddled with the loss after giving up two runs over five innings in his second start of the year. The lone blemish for Sanchez came in the third, when he threw a fastball down the middle to Jesse Winker, who crushed it out to center field for a two-run home run.

“When you fall behind, you kind of get pushed back into a corner,” Sanchez said. “I’ve got to, in a sense, go to them and give them something to hit. That’s what you saw, just a 3-1 pitch over the middle. Off the bat, I didn’t think it was a homer, and it ended up being a homer. It is what it is. It’s the big leagues. You’ve got to stay ahead and get ahead.”

Sanchez ended the fifth with his pitch count at 66, but Kapler opted to have Tommy La Stella pinch-hit for him after Dubón reached on an error in the bottom of the fifth.

“I think he had a little more in the tank,” Kapler said of Sanchez. “I think he could have given us another inning at that point in the game. As you know, you have to find a way to score some runs. You have to score runs to win a baseball game. We had some weapons on the bench, so we decided to go to the bench right at that moment. I think Sanchez understood that decision, even though he was prepared to go back out for us if we didn’t get to that spot.”

After La Stella grounded out to end the inning, left-hander Jarlín García took over in the top of the sixth and promptly surrendered a leadoff home run to Joey Votto that landed in McCovey Cove and extended the Reds’ lead to 3-0.

Sanchez’s outing marked the 10th consecutive game in which Giants starters have pitched at least five innings and given up no more than three runs, matching the 1937 club for the second-longest streak to start a season in franchise history. The 2002 Giants currently hold the record with 12 straight, according to Stats, LLC.