The Implosion Continues Against the Cubs

Sep 6, 2023 | 2023 Season, Latest Post

by
Greek Giant

Once again, the Giants lost to the Cubs, 11-8 on a night when the bats came alive but the relief corps along with shoddy defensive play gave the Giants only their second loss in 75 games when scoring eight runs in a game, in their entire history. That’s hard to do and that’s a pretty incredible stat. Last night the Giants had leads of 3-0 and 6-4.

Nope.

The Cubs fought back as the Giants kicked the ball around, especially in the outfield. If you want to have a chuckle, maybe even a belly laugh, watch the play Joc Pederson made on a fly ball in left. First he ran hard. Then he over-ran it. Then he turned (in his Oh Shit moment), then he fell down as the ball landed two feet from him.

To be fair, there was, in all likelihood, a ton of Chicago wind on that play and it may not have been all Pederson’s fault but the futility and comedy of the moment were hard to miss, same goes for the symbolism.

There was also a costly throwing error by Casey Schmitt and a misplay in center by Austin Slater. In sum, it was not a good night for the Giants on the field.

This Giants team is still unwatchable, except when it comes to providing a few laughs on defense.

The Giants bullpen had no answer for the extra outs and the Cubs hitting attack, especially Seiya Suzuki (remember him?) and Christopher Morel.

Despite all those errors the Cubs only had one of their eleven runs in the “unearned” category. That’s because Alexander, Junis, Jackson, Rogers and Rogers were all victimized by the Cubs bats. It’s a shame because J. D. Davis hit a dramatic two-run homer in a two-run sixth inning that gave the Giants the lead. Wilmer Flores, Joc, Wade Jr, and Yaz also homered for the Giants.

It just wasn’t their night, again.

After their loss on Monday afternoon there were colorful comments made by Logan Webb, Yaz and others, including Gabe Kapler. There was also an extraordinary team meeting between a few players and the Manager, the contents of which were undisclosed, thankfully.

The bottom line is this: The Giants are imploding at the worst possible time. After not hitting for more than two months (see yesterday’s posts for the numbers) the team is now just plain awful and playing awfully. There’s no way to sugarcoat this mess. Who knows how much of it is mental and physical fatigue? Who knows how much of it is players tired of the Zaidi-Kapler computerized baseball video game system?

Whatever the cause, the Giants keep stinking. The Giants’ playoff hopes keep sinking.

With the loss the Giants have a record of 70-69. They are two games out of the final Wild Card spot but there are three teams (Reds, DBacks, and Marlins) ahead of them for that same spot, so, it does not look good.

Surely if the Giants collapse continues to the end of the season and the team finished under .500, a regime change, maybe even an ownership-change, will be in order and heartily called for by the Giants faithful, including. yours truly. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Zaidi said yesterday, “There are no excuses.”

Bailey Hurt

To make matters much worse, Patrick Bailey collided with a Cub on a plate at the plate in the bottom of the seventh. It appears he suffered a concussion and the Giants have announced he is undergoing concussion protocols, which is a lame way to say he suffered a concussion.

I think it is safe to say Joey Bart will be called up. I wonder why that call-up has not happened already?

Today’s Game

The Giants play the final game of the series at Wrigley this afternoon. It will be Wood vs Wicks at 1:20 PM, Windy City time.