SF Gate/San Francisco Chronicle
The Giants' second-half start has the feel of May, when they scored five runs over a four-game losing streak in San Diego and Seattle and elicited general manager Brian Sabean's first declaration that he was searching for a bat.
After wasting a Tim Lincecum gem Friday, the Giants got a fine start from Barry Zito on Saturday night and squandered that, too. They lost 2-0 and have scored one run - on an error - over the first two games of this trip.
In 23 innings at PNC Park, the Giants have no RBIs, one extra-base hit and three runners who have reached third base against a Pirates team that was 38-50 at the break after losing nine of its last 11 first-half games, a Pirates team that has beaten the Giants 18 times in their last 23 encounters.
"It's tough coming in here and losing the first two close games," Zito said. "We've got to come out and take one tomorrow. It's big."
So is the number in Zito's loss column. He fell to 5-10, and though he has had his share of bad games, he also is victim to the worst run support of any pitcher in the National League. During that losing streak in May, he lost 2-1 in San Diego. On Saturday, he retired 15 Pirates in a row in one stretch.
"I think without question his record is not indicative of how he's thrown," manager Bruce Bochy said.
The May example offers hope for the Giants. They were 19-22 at the end of the losing streak. Even without finding another bat, the Giants, starting with the game they won in Seattle on Juan Uribe's three-run double, embarked on a 30-17 run to the break.
Like they say on those ads for brokerage products, however, past results do not guarantee future success.
An Uribe single in the ninth probably would have tied the game. John Bowker and Pablo Sandoval singled to start the inning against Matt Capps, but Nate Schierholtz grounded out, advancing the runners, and Travis Ishikawa struck out before Uribe's grounder ended the game and sealed Charlie Morton's sixth big-league win. He blanked the Giants on three hits for seven innings.
This loss underscored one distressing issue for the Giants, the inability of some young hitters, such as Bowker and Ishikawa, to carry their wild minor-league success to the majors.
They are swinging aggressively at bad pitches, mostly breaking balls, in their zeal to make something happen. Ishikawa did that in the ninth. With two runners in scoring position and one out, he batted as if he, not Capps, were in trouble and struck out for the third time.
"I definitely needed to have a better plan at the plate," Ishikawa said. "I didn't feel good today. I tried to be aggressive early, but that was not the kind of situation that calls for that kind of approach. I'm definitely going to try to work on that and make the adjustment so next time in that situation I'll be more successful."
Bochy stacked his lineup with lefties against Morton. He also had Eli Whiteside catch Zito, a nod to Zito's struggles throwing to Bengie Molina. But that removed one of the Giants' two top RBI men from the lineup.
Lefties were hitting .354 off Morton. Five Giants lefties (or switch-hitters batting left-handed) combined for one single in 15 at-bats.
From: MLB.com
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