SAN FRANCISCO — All it took, apparently, to snap the Giants’ season-long losing streak was to keep going down the list of MLB’s biggest losers.
They lost two of three to the reeling Pittsburgh Pirates. Swept by the woeful Washington Nationals. Couldn’t beat the dreadful Detroit Tigers.
The Giants must have been thrilled to return home after two weeks on the road to meet the one roster constructed to drive fans away, not win ballgames.
Still, it required a stellar effort from Alex Cobb and, at long last, a piece of timely hitting from Mike Yastrzemski to snap their six-game losing streak, squeaking by the MLB-worst A’s, 2-1, on Tuesday in the first game of the Bay Bridge series.
With two outs in the eighth inning, Yastrzemski did something no Giants batter had done in nearly a week: He delivered a hit with runners in scoring position. They had come up empty in 27 straight at-bats in scoring situations since Wednesday, but Yastrzemski ended two streaks by ripping a double down the right field line that scored Luis Matos from second and broke a 1-1 tie.
“Honestly, it was just so nice to hear some fans cheering for us that it made it a lot easier,” Yastrzemski said. “It’s been a long time. A lot of guys are gassed and beat up, so it was nice to feel some positive energy in the air.”
The Giants, though, mustered only three hits besides Yastrzemski’s. The four-hit effort did nothing to improve a .154 team batting average over the past week, and they are still averaging just 1.6 runs per game since their last win.
“We won, so that’s the positive outcome,” Yastrzemski said. “That can change everything. It can change your mindset. It can change a feeling. It can change anything. So, to scratch one out was nice. Hopefully we’ll keep things rolling.”
Manager Gabe Kapler, while thankful for the win, wasn’t so optimistic.
“I still think we’re gonna need to get more than a few hits here and there,” Kapler said. “For our team to be successful, we’re going to have to have some more consistently productive at-bats. We’re not where we want to be, but we came away with a win tonight, and that’s all that matters.”
And those Oakland diehards? Not dead yet. Many of the 40,014 fans in attendance broke out in “Sell-the-team!” chants throughout the fifth inning. (So loud, Cobb said, that he misheard the PitchCom system and threw the wrong pitch.)
The Giants’ offense, however, is still on life support.
Despite finally getting back in the win column, they turned in a seventh straight dud of an offensive effort, this time against the worst team with the worst pitching staff in the majors. They haven’t scored more than three runs or recorded more than six hits in a game since last Tuesday, the last time they won.
Yastrzemski had only four hits in his previous 47 at-bats before his eighth-inning double.
“He’s been having really quality at-bats,” Kapler said. “He hasn’t been rewarded when he’s hit the ball on the screws. And when he hasn’t hit the ball on the screws, he hasn’t been rewarded for that, either. … You expect to get some of those once in a while, but Yaz hasn’t really gotten those. But he’s taking good swings. That was a really good example of how when Yaz is locked in from the beginning of an at-bat, it can end like that.”
After a self-described “clunker” of a start leading to the second loss of the streak, Cobb pitched like a man determined not to let it happen again. Aided by a lineup that has produced the fewest runs and lowest OPS of any offense in the majors this season, the 35-year-old right-hander breezed through six shutout innings and was in line for the win until was in line for the win until Tyler Rogers coughed up the lead in the eighth.
To be fair, he didn’t have much wiggle room to work with.
“We wanted to get home and just end right there and start a new streak in the right direction,” Cobb said. “The travel schedule, it’s been a little bit of a grind. Guys are obviously a little bit fatigued. I’m not playing everyday and I’m tired just from doing the travel. It’s a real thing. Guys are giving everything they’ve got every single night. Obviously the offense isn’t exactly where they want it to be … you do have a lot of motivation.”
Avoiding the gnarliest of the travel by flying back ahead of the team, Cobb struck out seven of the first nine batters he faced and finished with a season-high nine punchouts, five coming on a splitter that was working as well as ever. He lowered his ERA at Oracle Park this season to 1.09 versus 4.63 on the road.
“I think you saw Cobb at his best tonight with the split,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “The split was really effective. The fastball has enough velo on it to get you sped up a bit, but the split was really his pitch tonight. He dominated with the split down in the zone, got a lot of swing and miss. We’ve seen him that way in the past and tonight was a really good night for him.”
For as bad as the A’s hitters have been, their pitchers have been even worse.
Second-year lefty Ken Waldichuk, a product of St. Mary’s College (Moraga), took a 6.75 ERA into Tuesday’s game but faced little resistance from a Giants lineup on fumes. Upon entering in the second inning, Waldichuk retired the first nine hitters he faced and struck out six while allowing only one hit over 4⅔ innings.
Even the Giants’ lone runs were only an effect of the A’s doing.
It took a walk to J.D. Davis to put Matos in scoring position in the eighth.
They loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth inning and managed to score only one — unearned — run.
Wilmer Flores, who drew a walk to lead off the inning, should have been out at third on a poor bunt from Brett Wisely. The ball rolled directly back to the mound, giving Waldichuk a force-play on the lead runner, Flores, at third. Waldichuk’s throw, however, sailed wide, pulling third baseman Jace Peterson off the bag.
Flores scored on a sac fly from Casey Schmitt, which otherwise would have been the third out of the inning.