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Is it time to panic?
By Jeremy Harness April 25, 2005 |
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SAN FRANCISCO - If the Giants have any sense of panic after Monday's loss to San Diego, they're sure not showing it. But believe it, there are plenty of reasons to panic if you're a Giants fan. They've lost six of their last eight games, Noah Lowry - Monday's starter - has struggled so far this season after going 7-0 to start his major-league career, and the Giants can't hit with runners in scoring position. In other words, life without Barry Bonds couldn't be any worse than it is right now, and it showed as the Padres beat them, 5-3, in front of 35,655 disappointed fans at SBC Park. After the game, it was apparent that some Giants have different opinions about what should happen next. When asked if the team should have a meeting to try and figure out what's going wrong with an 8-11 ballclub, manager Felipe Alou said that isn't necessary. Meanwhile, shortstop Omar Vizquel said it would "be a good idea" to have one, saying that "obviously, somebody has to speak up, and maybe that can be a good wake-up call." "Everybody knows what they have to do, but it's always good to talk it (over) between us," Vizquel said. "I think guys are taking it for granted because there's a bunch of veteran guys here, and we keep saying, 'We know, we know how to get ready, we know how to do this, we know how to do that.' But we're not doing it." One of the things the team could address is bringing runners home when they're in scoring position. The Giants left nine men on base on Monday compared to 12 for the Padres, but the Giants had a runner on third with two outs twice, and they couldn't cash in. "You've got to be a little patient," Vizquel said. "You're just not going to go up there swinging at the first pitch; you've got to go and get your pitch. "I don't know if we're trying too hard, because everybody wants to hit a bases-loaded home run with nobody on. But we should go back to what makes us a better ball team, like pulling for each other, getting on base and trying to get a base hit, and the little things. "Instead of just sitting back and waiting for a home run, which is what we're trying to do." The starting rotation, which held the Giants together last season, hasn't exactly been firing on all cylinders, either. Lowry, for example looked very shaky in the first two innings, giving up a run in the first inning and then for a two-run homer by Bay Area native Geoff Blum in the second inning. "I tried to go in hard on (Blum), and it was a perfect example of how my day went," Lowry said. "It was a pitch I left right over the middle of the plate, right at the waist." The Giants answered back in the fifth inning with a pair of runs that tied the game, thanks to back-to-back RBI bloop singles by Omar Vizquel and J.T. Snow. But in the next inning, San Diego would get back-to-back RBI singles - Blum and Mark Loretta doing the honors here - of their own to push back ahead by two runs. Loretta continued to frustrate the Giants - he's a career .333 against them at SBC Park - at the plate as well as in the field. He was 2-for-3 with the RBI single on Monday, and the only out he recorded was when Ray Durham leaped to make a sensational catch of a scorched line drive in the eighth inning. "He's one of the best players in our league," Alou said. In the bottom of that inning, after the Giants got two runners on with one out, Loretta helped thwart a one-out rally in the eighth by making a beautiful sliding catch of a blooper that was headed into foul grounds. The next batter, Mike Matheny, had a base hit taken away by third baseman Sean Burroughs, who dove to his left, snared Matheny's hard grounder and fired to second for the inning-ending force play. That was the last gasp for the Giants, who were just about helpless when closer Trevor Hoffman struck out the side to seal the victory for San Diego. |
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