SAN FRANCISCO — The outfielders had already made it back to the infield dirt. The infielders were gathered at third, ready to cross over to the grass and head to the dugout. The man who thought he had ended the top of the ninth inning was already standing alongside the dugout rail.
And then a nameless umpire in New York ruled that the Giants were seeing everything wrong.
The Giants' 11th straight loss came with controversy, a call in the ninth that brought the game-winning run across for the Braves. With the go-ahead run on third and two outs, Tyler Flowers hit a grounder to deep third and was ruled safe at first, with umpire Jeremie Rehak telling Brandon Belt that he took his toe off the bag. Belt disagreed, but it didn’t matter. The Giants lost the run and the game, 2-1.
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“I was pretty confident,” Belt said. “I’m pretty good at keeping that toe on there. Usually if I come off it’s pretty obvious. It’s just unfortunate they didn’t see it that way.”
Manager Bruce Bochy saw it the way Belt did. So, too, did the pitcher. Will Smith turned and yelled at the umpires after ending the inning. But it didn’t matter, and Bochy was clear after the game that it was not the reason the Giants lost an 11th straight game for the first time since 1951.
“You make your luck,” he said. “Somebody has got to knock in a run. You can’t be in a better position to score some runs and win a ballgame. Somebody has got to come through.”
The Giants loaded the bases in the first but Brandon Crawford bounced into a double play. Joe Panik hit into a bases-loaded double play two innings later. Evan Longoria’s double in the fifth led to nothing. Nick Hundley reached third in the sixth but was not brought home. The biggest mistake came in the seventh, when Alen Hanson made a move towards second on a throw down the right field line. The Giants would have had runners at the corners with no outs and Longoria at the plate. Instead they had one out, and they did not score.
San Francisco Giants
“Your guys have got to come through,” Bochy reiterated. “It’s pretty simple. This game is not that complicated. Somebody has got to knock in a run.”
The Giants have not done so for most of the season. They have been especially inept the last two weeks. They scored three runs in three games against the Braves, wasting three quality starts.
When the 11th consecutive loss was over, the Giants could look forward to just one thing. They are off Thursday, so they cannot lose. Perhaps they can clear their heads enough to end this streak over the weekend.
“It’s never fun,” Belt said of the losing streak. “We’re trying to do everything we can to win a ballgame. We just haven’t been doing enough.”