Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate)
The Giants' pathological relationship with their own ballpark reached a new low Monday night in the waning moments of a 9-2 loss to the Cubs.
By the time Chicago starter Ted Lilly came to bat in the ninth, most of the Giants fans among the announced crowd of 35,311 had left, and the remaining army of Cubs fans gave Lilly an ovation so loud you looked up to make sure there was no ivy on the outfield walls.
Lilly struck out for the fifth time and got another ovation walking back. Maybe someday Barry Zito will feel that kind of love at China Basin. Monday was not the night. He fell to 0-8 at home this year while the Giants, fresh off their third consecutive winning trip, lost for the 15th time in their last 18 home games.
If Dr. Phil can tear himself away from the singing Spears family, perhaps he could give the Giants a call. There has to be a deep-seated psychological reason they can play decent baseball away from home, then look so weak in their own yard.
Manager Bruce Bochy's take: Stop yakking about it.
"We're done talking about struggling here at home," Bochy said in the same voice a father would use to tell his 15-year-old kid, "No, you and your sister cannot ride motorcycles to Alaska, and don't ask me again."
Bochy promised the Giants would be fine at home, saying, "We've just got to execute better and get the bats going."
Nobody needs to cross the psychological and performance barriers in San Francisco more than Zito, who seemed to backslide after his breakthrough game in Cleveland on Wednesday. In that game, he walked nobody and took a shutout into the seventh inning. Against the Cubs, he walked four by the third inning and allowed five runs (four earned) in five innings.
The killer hits were Matt Murton's two-run double in the third, on an 0-2 hanging curveball, and Mark DeRosa's two-run homer in the fifth on a misplaced fastball. DeRosa added his first career grand slam in the eighth, after Billy Sadler walked the bases loaded, to tie his career high with six RBIs.
The Giants' best development was Keiichi Yabu's two shutout innings. He had allowed hits to eight straight batters before this outing.
Zito would argue with anyone who suggested he fell into his familiar funk. To the contrary, he said his stuff was just as good as it was in Cleveland and "night and day" compared to some of his worst games as a Giant, but he failed to attack the strike zone as urgently as he did against the Indians.
"It's real frustrating," he said of the loss. "There are no excuses. I had good s-. That's encouraging tonight. My stuff is better. I felt like my old self. It's just every hitter, not letting down, being aggressive. What killed me were walks, not going after them like I did last time."
Zito added he was "fired up" for his next start against the Dodgers on Saturday.
"Tonight was a bad one," he said. "It's going to be a tough sleep tonight, but I've got that feeling back. I know what I can do. It's only a matter of time."
The Giants offense managed nothing until the ninth against Lilly, who entered with a 4.74 ERA yet fell three outs short of his first shutout and complete game since 2004 as he guided Chicago to its 50th win.
Jose Castillo, whose defense on the road was superb, let an easy double-play ball slide through his legs to extend the second inning, when the Cubs scored first.
The Giants ruined Lilly's shutout in the ninth when Rich Aurilia completed a monster June with a two-run double against Kerry Wood.
A Giants victory would have meant their first winning month since August. Instead, they completed a 13-14 June, still their best of the season.
No comments:
Post a Comment