« Giants Notebook: Williams Headed to Fresno For More Work | Main | Prayers Answered, A's Use Bats to Club Hot White Sox, 9-3 »
April 25, 2005
Padres Lord Over Punchless Giants, 5-3
SAN FRANCISCO – The Giants aren’t doing much to reverse all that talk about a Barry-less lineup being a powerless lineup. They’ve scored three or fewer runs in seven games – all of them losses – and are near the bottom of the league in home runs and hits when the hometown fans are cheering.
The hitting, or lack of it, makes for good banter because Barry Bonds is spending more time on crutches than he is with a bat in his hands. But at what point does all this unsettling chatter turn its attention to the starting pitching?
It might be sooner than you think.
Noah Lowry struggled through his second straight defeat in a 5-3 loss to the Padres last night at SBC Park. After the untouchable kid from Ventura won his first seven big-league decisions, he has seen his earned run average climb as fast as the Dodgers’ lead in the division.
And that’s just the beginning. Fellow starters Brett Tomko and Kirk Reuter look lost and the rotation’s kid terrific, Jerome Williams, woke up this morning in Fresno on a minor league quest to find his fastball.
Manager Felipe Alou brushed away suggestions that it’s time to start flipping over chairs or calling meetings. Like baseball veterans tend to do, he refused to make any kind of sweeping indictment against his team or his starting pitcher.
"He’s got weapons, he’s healthy, he’s a tough kid," Alou said.
"Where I come from, we don’t panic," he added later with a smile.
Lowry felt the same way, insisting there’s no pattern to be found within the rotation’s struggles.
"Every guy’s their own man," he said. "You just try to stay focused on your game plan and what you need to do. It’s not contagious."
But it is a pattern. The loss was the Giants’ sixth in their last eight games and marked the 11th time they’ve allowed five or more runs. The lineup certainly isn’t helping, scattering eight hits but never quite figuring out Woody Williams, the Padres’ starter who held onto one lead after another.
"I wish I could do something about that, not having to play catch-up," Alou said.
Geoff Blum’s two-run homer in the second gave San Diego a 3-1 lead. After RBI singles by Omar Vizquel and J.T. Snow tied it for the Giants in the fifth, the Padres took back the lead for good in the sixth on back-to-back singles by Blum and Mark Loretta.
The Giants had runners in scoring position in both the sixth and eighth innings, but couldn’t close the gap – a gap created by the pitching.
"What would be the recipe?" Alou asked. "I don’t believe in meetings … I don’t want it to get to that."
Posted April 25, 2005 10:45 AM