Dubón shoulders blame as Giants fall short

Gabe Kapler sat down to have a talk with Mauricio Dubón following the Giants’ disappointing 6-5 loss to the D-backs on Friday night at Oracle Park, but the club’s first-year manager knew there wasn’t much of a need to rehash the costly mental mistake that undermined a potential bases-loaded rally in the eighth inning.

“There's really no need to tell him anything,” Kapler said. “He takes plays like that harder than anybody.”

After the red-hot Brandon Belt bounced a solo shot into McCovey Cove to cut the D-backs’ lead to 6-5 in the seventh, the Giants generated a prime scoring opportunity after loading the bases with no outs in the eighth. Alex Dickerson followed with a fly ball to shallow right field that was caught by Kole Calhoun, prompting pinch-runner Steven Duggar to feign running toward home before retreating to third base.

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But Dubón, fooled by Duggar’s bluff, began sprinting to third on the play and was subsequently doubled off at second. Evan Longoria then grounded out to end the inning.

“I cost us the game,” Dubón said. “I cost the game. That’s a stupid mistake that didn’t give us a chance to to win the game. I stay at second and we’ve got the bases loaded with one out and we’ve got our cleanup guy coming up to the plate. ... That can’t happen for me. I hold myself to a high standard, and that's unacceptable.”

The Giants, who fell to 18-21 with 21 games left to play, finished 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on base, but their offense has been one of the most potent units in the Majors this year, and Dubón noted that his mistake robbed them of a chance to keep pressuring the D-backs at a crucial point in the game.

“I thought [Duggar] was going,” Dubón said. “My mistake was I ran with my head down. I put my head down to try to get to third. That can’t happen in an inning like that and how we've been swinging the bats.”

Kapler said he used his conversation with Dubón mostly to reassure the 26-year-old super utility player that the Giants continue to believe in him despite the baserunning blunder. Kapler praised the work Dubón, a natural middle infielder, has done to turn himself into a proficient center fielder for the Giants this year, and the adjustments he’s made at the plate, where he’s hitting .370 (17-for-46) over his last 16 contests.

Still, Friday night also served as a reminder that young players will be susceptible to growing pains as they assimilate to the Majors. The Giants remain committed to giving potentially long-term pieces like Dubón plenty of opportunities to establish themselves this year, but they can ill afford these types of missteps if they want to sustain their push for a playoff spot over the final three weeks of the regular season.

“That's just a play that he'd like to have back,” Kapler said. “He said it to me. He said, ‘That can't happen.’ Correct. It's a play that hurt us tonight. He knows it. We all know it. There’s no real technique to talking to him about it. He knows he needs to keep his head up and make sure that he's seeing what's happening in front of him.

“There are a couple of different ways that play can go where that hustle, that aggressiveness works out well, but his run wasn't the most important one in that particular case. He's well aware of the situation. It's been addressed, but it really didn't need to be addressed because he's a really smart baseball player that just made a mistake that really mattered.”