Over the past few weeks, it looked like a huge door opened up for the San Francisco Giants in the playoff race. The New York Mets were floundering, and the Giants have been playing much better baseball as of late — even taking care of business against good teams such as the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs. But their playoff hopes are dwindling by the second now that they've returned to playing poor baseball.
On Tuesday, the Giants lost yet another crucial game against another playoff hopeful in the Arizona Diamondbacks, this time suffering a 6-5 defeat courtesy of a walk-off infield single from Jordan Lawlar — giving San Francisco its fourth consecutive defeat and their seventh in the past 10 games.
Giants manager Bob Melvin couldn't do anything else but express his frustrations regarding the way his team lost the game, as they were shut out of the game by the Diamondbacks from the fourth inning onwards.
“It's frustrating. It's frustrating. All these games we lose like that are frustrating, especially against a lefty we've had trouble against, and had a tough time with him last time. To be able to score four in the first, get another one in the third. After that, [it] didn't even feel like we got a baserunner,” Melvin said, per Angelina Martin of NBC Sports Bay Area.
“To lose like that where a ball doesn't … even leave the infield, it's really frustrating. We've got to step on the bag at first. Got to make a cleaner play.”
From the fourth to ninth inning, the Giants could muster all of one baserunner. That baserunner ended up being out on second base anyway after the subsequent batter proceeded to ground into a double play.
That inexcusable drought from the plate is unrecoverable from for most teams, and this is the exact kind of offensive ineptitude that the Giants cannot afford especially as they watch their playoff dreams slip away from their fingertips.
Bob Melvin and the Giants are falling off the pace
Following their latest defeat, the Giants now find themselves three games back of the Mets for the third and final NL Wild Card spot, with the Diamondbacks being the Mets' stiffest competition. With 11 games to go, that is not insurmountable, but considering the Giants' play as of late, that may as well be impossible to recover from.
Crazier things have happened in the past; but do the Giants have one last gasp left in them?
