SAN DIEGO - Since Major League Baseball created the second wild card, the baseline to get into the National League's play-in game has been 88 wins. The Giants are 81-73 after a lifeless 7-2 loss to the Padres on Friday night, and if you can picture them winning 88 games, you're a special kind of optimist.
This is a team with one three-game winning streak in the second half and just four wins in 12 games since. The thing is, the Giants almost certainly won't need 88 wins, and they might not have to get close. Their loss Friday was matched by the Cardinals. The Mets won, edging a game ahead of the Giants, but they're limping to the finish, too.
Bruce Bochy knows his team might need just four or five wins through next Sunday to get into the postseason. He also knows that playing this way is no way to head into October. Bochy said "it's critical" that his team picks it up.
"What's got to happen is pretty simple: We've got to pitch better, but we've got to get the bats going," he said. "You can't put this kind of pressure on the pitchers."
Albert Suarez faced the onslaught Friday. He gave up a three-run homer in the first that proved to be the game-winner. Suarez had two on for Wil Myers, the Padres' best hitter. He felt he should have thrown a few pitches in the dirt to see if Myers would chase with an open base. Instead, he threw a cutter that was blasted out to right-center. Suarez also gave up his only runs in his last start on a poor cutter.
"I'm thinking about not throwing it anymore," he said, managing a smile.
Suarez settled in and got through four, and Buster Posey sent a jolt through the cramped dugout with a two-run double off the wall. Posey missed a homer by a few feet, but in the dugout, players thought he had done more than enough to get the team on the right track.
San Francisco Giants
"It got everybody fired up," Suarez said.
And then … nothing.
The Giants could not capitalize on five walks from journeyman Edwin Jackson, who entered with a 6.00 ERA. They managed just four hits and never scored after Posey's ball left a dent in the wall.
"We got back in it, you know," Bochy said, shaking his head. "Buster got a big hit. But four hits and two runs - we're down three right away, so obviously that's not going to make it. These bats have been quiet."
It has been beyond quiet. The Giants have scored just 10 runs in five games on this road trip, so the odds were not good that they could win a shootout. That's what the game turned into when Matt Reynolds entered. He was supposed to face two lefties, but when a bunt single and double put two on for Myers, Bochy elected to walk the right-handed hitter and let Myers face the two ensuing lefties.
He walked one, Ryan Schimpf, on four pitches. The next lefty, Alex Dickerson, hit a two-run single. Ballgame.
The Giants went 9-0 against the Padres in the first half. They are 1-7 against them since the All-Star break.
"I wish I could figure it out myself," Bochy said.
