3 takeaways from Bumgarner's loss to Yanks

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Yankees arrived at Oracle Park for the first time since 2007 on Friday with far less star power than usual. With a Major League-high 13 players on the injured list, they rolled out an offense devoid of recognizable sluggers such as Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge and Miguel Andujar.

But their relatively anonymous lineup got the job done against ace left-hander Madison Bumgarner, who yielded five runs on a career-high-matching 11 hits over 5 2/3 innings in the Giants’ 7-3 loss, snapping the club’s three-game winning streak.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got to go and make pitches regardless of who’s in there,” Bumgarner said. “I can’t expect more of myself than I already do. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing.”

Here are three observations from Friday’s series opener:

1. Bumgarner not as crisp

The Yankees’ injury woes didn’t stop them from wearing down Bumgarner, who was forced to throw 33 pitches in the first inning after surrendering hits to four out of the first five batters he faced. Gleyber Torres opened the scoring with an RBI double, and Cameron Maybin, who spent the bulk of Spring Training unsuccessfully auditioning for an outfield job with the Giants, added an RBI single to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead.

“I threw a lot of strikes, just not a whole lot of quality strikes,” Bumgarner said. “A lot of hittable pitches. I’ve got to do better. I can’t put us in a hole like that.”

The Yankees nicked Bumgarner for another pair of runs in the third and fifth innings before chasing him from the game with three consecutive one-out singles in the sixth. Bumgarner threw a season-high 104 pitches in his shortest outing of the season and departed with the Giants trailing 5-1. The 29-year-old now has a 4.30 ERA over his first six starts of the year.

“Just a touch off with the command, I think that’s fair to say,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “He had trouble hitting spots there at times. Give them credit. They had some decent at-bats off of him and took advantage of when he did miss his spots. His stuff was fine, but his command was not quite as sharp as it normally is.”

2. The Giants finally scored a first-inning run

Entering Friday, the Giants were the lone team in the Majors to have not scored a run in the first inning this season. Their first-inning futility had reached historic levels, as their streak of 25 games to start the season without scoring in the opening frame was the second-longest stretch in Major League history, behind only the 28-game drought of the 1948 White Sox.

Seeking to end that streak, Bochy tinkered with the top of the Giants’ order against Yankees left-hander James Paxton on Friday, placing Kevin Pillar in the leadoff spot ahead of Tyler Austin and Brandon Belt.

Pillar popped out on the first pitch he saw, but Austin singled and advanced to third on a double by Belt. Buster Posey followed with a sacrifice fly to right field, giving the Giants their first first-inning run of the season and cutting the Yankees’ lead to 2-1.

The Giants will still need more production from the top of their lineup moving forward, as they’ve been outscored 18-1 in the first inning this year, a margin that was widened by the Yankees’ first two runs off Bumgarner on Friday.

3. The bullpen mounds continue to pose a safety issue

A scary moment unfolded just minutes into Friday night’s game after right fielder Steven Duggar tripped over the bullpen mounds while chasing a popup off the bat of Yankees leadoff hitter DJ LeMahieu. Duggar appeared to be OK and remained in the game, but the play was reminiscent of the tumble Mac Williamson took over the bullpen mounds last year, which caused him to slam into the left-field wall and sustain a concussion that wrecked his season.

Their problematic location in foul territory has become a renewed topic of conversation following a report from The Athletic that the Giants are considering moving in the fences at Oracle Park and moving the bullpen mounds to an area that poses less risk for players.

“It is dangerous,” Bochy said. “These guys are focused on catching the ball, they’re running full speed and forget about the mounds. It was a scary moment, I’ll be honest. You saw what happened with Williamson. [Duggar] hasn’t been out there a lot, either, in right field, but he’ll get more accustomed to those mounds.”

While Duggar avoided serious injury, his fall still managed to hurt the Giants, as it prevented him from catching the foul ball and kept LeMahieu’s at-bat against Bumgarner alive. On the next pitch, LeMahieu doubled to center field, sparking a two-run inning for the Yankees.