SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle
It must have been a quiet afternoon in Lake Woe-be-Giants if Todd Wellemeyer was the top-trending Twitter topic in United States on Wednesday.
Fans ground Wellemeyer into tweet-meat after he served up a first-inning homer to Adrian Gonzalez on an awful 3-1 pitch, then walked four consecutive Padres in the second for another run. Again, however, a team-wide failure to hit was worthy of discussion, too.
The Giants scored 68 runs in their first 100 innings. Since then, including Wednesday's 5-2 loss that concluded a San Diego sweep, they struggled to score six runs in the 37 innings that overlay a four-game losing streak.
"Tough series for us. Tough road trip," manager Bruce Bochy said after a 1-5 journey. "We went through this last year and came out of this one even better than last year, which isn't saying much. "
Bochy was referring to the Giants' first trip last season, when they went 0-6 in Los Angeles and San Diego to fall to 2-7. At least they started 7-2 ahead of this year's trip down the rabbit hole.
Actually, the just-concluded series felt more like last May at Petco Park, when the Giants were swept 2-1, 2-1 and 3-2. The next night in Seattle they reached their season nadir, at 19-22, then went 69-52 to finish 14 games above .500.
The near-term schedule will not facilitate a bounceback. On Friday night, the Giants begin a nine-game homestand against three 2009 playoff teams: St. Louis, Philadelphia and Colorado. The struggling bats face three Cardinals starters, Jaime Garcia, Adam Wainwright and Brad Penny, who will carry ERAs of 0.69, 1.50 and 1.29 into China Basin.
"We know who we're facing," Wellemeyer said. "I think we know we're going to have to bring some game. We know we're going to have to hit and pitch our butts off the next nine games."
What an odd year for Wellemeyer. He was rock solid for six innings in his first game against Atlanta. Then he got hammered for three homers and seven runs in two innings at Los Angeles before Wednesday's game, when he could not throw a strike to save his life in the second inning.
At various times, he welcomed pitching coach Dave Righetti, catcher Bengie Molina, second baseman Mark DeRosa and shortstop Juan Uribe to the mound for pick-me-up chats.
Still, Wellemeyer gritted through four innings and handed a 2-1 deficit to Dan Runzler, who surrendered a two-out, two-run homer to Nick Hundley in the fifth that sealed the loss and underscored how poorly the middle relievers have done keeping small deficits small.
Bochy called Wellemeyer's struggles a "hiccup" and gave no indication he plans to yank his fifth starter from the rotation.
Meanwhile, the offense grounded into its 19th and 20th double plays (Nate Schierholtz and Molina), putting the Giants on pace for a team-record 216. Even a line rocket off Eugenio Velez's bat with two on and nobody out in the eighth found the glove of omnipresent second baseman David Eckstein, who started a third double play.
Pablo Sandoval jolted what was left of a tiny crowd with a monster homer to center in the ninth, a 421-foot dose of happy for the Giants that hardly could cure four days of sad.
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