Mercury News
The Giants stumbled into a crucial stretch against contending teams Friday night in a 4-2 loss in which the Milwaukee Brewers provided almost all of the excitement.
The Brewers scored three early runs against starter Matt Cain with good two-strike hitting, took advantage of some Giants juggles in the field and also got the most noise out of a sellout AT&T Park crowd when center fielder Nyjer Morgan got in an animated give-and-take with fans in the bleachers.
Morgan, who was born in San Francisco and grew up in San Jose, woke up the crowd of 42,297 after making a terrific running catch against the wall on a fly ball hit by Nate Schierholtz in the seventh inning.
Morgan got in a jawing match with fans in the bleachers and subsequently appeared to make an obscene gesture at them. At the end of the inning, when fans along the first-base line booed him as well, he made a few more gestures before bouncing into the dugout.
So what was going on out there?
"It was just fans being fans, and me being an entertainer," said the fleet, hyperactive Morgan, who subsequently identified himself as his self-proclaimed alter-ego, Tony Plush.
Morgan -- or Plush, if you prefer -- refused to admit or deny that he made an obscene gesture.
"Whatever you think you saw, that's what it was," he said. "Write about the win."
Morgan made a few nice catches in a game that the Brewers almost seemed blessed to win. The big two-RBI hit in a three-run second was a ball No. 8 hitter Jonathan Lucroy almost golfed off the ground. And to add insult to that, left fielder Cody Ross made a perfect throw to home plate that should have nailed the trailing runner. Instead, the ball skidded off the grass and under catcher Eli Whiteside's glove.
"I thought it was going to be a fairly close play, so I didn't want to give up too much ground or give up my position at the plate," Whiteside said. "I kind of gambled on taking it in between hops right there, and it didn't work out."
Earlier, Pablo Sandoval briefly juggled a hard shot and failed to turn a double play against Casey McGehee, who eventually scored on Lucroy's hit. All of the Brewers' run-scoring hits in the second inning came with two strikes, as did their run in the sixth.
Cain (8-6) said he felt good but was obviously upset by the Lucroy hit that gave the Brewers their second and third runs.
"You can't really do a whole lot when you throw it in the dirt, and the guy still hits it," Cain said. "But those guys can definitely swing it, and they can run as well."
The Brewers, locked in a tight divisional battle with Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Cincinnati, took over the lead in the N.L. Central with their victory. The Giants, despite their loss, maintained a four-game cushion in the N.L. West with Colorado's victory at Arizona.
It was nonetheless an ominous start to this important stretch of games in which the Giants will play 16 of their next 19 games against winning teams -- two against the Brewers, seven against N.L. East leader Philadelphia, three against the team chasing San Francisco, the Diamondbacks, and three against the Pirates.
"We've been playing well since the break," manager Bruce Bochy said. "But we were off a little bit tonight. We didn't hit much, there were plays we didn't quite come up with, and that's the difference in the game. When you don't execute or swing the bats against a good team, you're probably going to get beat."
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