San Francisco Giants Shoot Selves in Foot, Fall to Padres

The only thing more hideous than the mistakes the San Francisco Giants made tonight, was the uniforms the Padres wore. Their vile throwback jerseys were the color of something you might find in your toilet a few hours from now.

The San Francisco Giants couldn’t get out of their own way on Friday night. A bunch of mistakes, from everyone, helped the Padres to a 5-1 win. Ty Blach had held the Padres hitless going into the fifth inning, and from there it all went down hill.

Charlie Villanueva got a base hit to start the inning, and then Freddy Galvis grounded into a fielders choice where the Giants got Villanueva. Sounds fine. After that, it was a hit parade. Carlos Asuaje looked to ground out into what would’ve been a double play, but Belt couldn’t handle the grounder, and kicked the ball around.

They probably would’ve had Asuaje had Belt not channeled the spirit of his 46-year-old, beer league softball self and underhanded a looping throw to Blach at first. They at least would’ve had two outs with the pitcher coming up. Nope! Bases loaded for Tyson Ross instead, who of course got a base hit to open the scoring even more.

Then, in the seventh inning, Belt went blet again. After the Giants had got a run across and seemed to be building something, Belt went up to the plate and took a close strike call, fouled a ball, then took a clear strike three and proceeded to yell at the ump. About what? Not sure. Hopefully he was telling the ump how mad he was at himself for not swinging the bat on a close pitch with two strikes. Doubt it though.

On the very next pitch Andrew McCutchen hit into a rally killing double play. Franchy Cordero added the Padres fifth run with a solo blast in the seventh off the ever struggling Sam Dyson.

Three Things

• Hunter Pence and Evan Longoria need to get it together at the plate. A large number of strikeouts with little to no production is going to eventually wear on even the most positive of fans.
• Bruce Bochy left Blach in for too long. This is becoming an annoying trend with Bochy, where he waits until they’re completely shot in the foot to pull the pitcher. There was no reason Blach should’ve gone out for the sixth, but he did, and it put them in an even deeper hole.
• Brandon Crawford was scuffling heading into today, and his three very hard hits should be a nice building block going forward. However, with this team, every single time it looks like someone is turning a corner, they revert back, so stay tuned for his stinker of a game tomorrow!

Next: Can the Giants Hang on?

Tomorrows game will be a 5:40 pm PT first pitch. Derek Holland will take the mound against Clayton Richard.