By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s impossible to dislike Bruce Bochy. He never belittles his players, never gives the press the slightest chance to find something wrong with the Giants.
Even when there is something wrong with the Giants.
They’re not hitting. Other than Angel Pagan (.377), Brandon Crawford (.311) and the new guy, Michael Morse (.306).
And since Pagan and Crawford didn’t start on Thursday, their day of rest after two night games and ahead of a trip to San Diego, the Giants couldn’t hit.
At least not well enough to beat the Dodgers, who won 2-1 Thursday before the usual sellout at AT&T Park after the Giants had taken the first two games of the series.
“Win two out every three,” said Madison Bumgarner, “you’re doing OK.” Absolutely. Win three out of three, you’re doing better.
Someone had the temerity to ask Bochy if this Giants team, as Giant teams of the past few years, was strictly dependent on pitching — which, of course it is.
“I don’t think so,” was Bochy’s answer. “I think we saw great pitching in this series (against the Giants).”
Is that why Hunter Pence is hitting .206, Pablo Sandoval .175?
“We’re not swinging the bats right now,” said the manager. “It’s hard to put runs on the board.”
Hasn’t it always been the last five years? A week ago Matt Cain held Colorado to one run. And lost, 1-0. Nightmares of the past, when Tim Lincecum went through the same problems.
Every game becomes agony, the bite-your-cuticles, hold-your-heart complications that Mike Krukow, the pitcher turned TV announcer, labeled “sweet torture.”
Sweet if you win, that is. And how can the Giants win if they keep leaving men on base and Sandoval literally isn’t hitting his weight?
Three times he came to the plate with Pence on base Thursday and never got a ball out of the infield.
In the last five games, the Giants scored a total 11 runs. That they won three of those is attributable to Sergio Romo, Jean Machi and others on the pitching staff.
Bumgarner started Thursday and made it only into the fifth before Bochy decided to change — even though Mad Bum had given up only one run. Then again, there were Dodgers on first and second when he was relieved by Yusmeiro Petit.
“The outside corner was hard to get today,” said Bochy of Bumgarner, who walked three and gave up six hits. Whether that was Bumgarner’s fault or the fault of home place ump Seth Buckminster can be debated.
Unarguable is the fact that Sandoval, the third-place hitter, is having a miserable time, most likely because this is the last year of his contract and he’s trying to make a big-dollar impression on whomever (Giants or any team) would sign him.
Bochy said that Sandoval should be thinking of hitting, that his agents are the ones who ought to be concerned with salaries and the like. It’s human nature, however, for a man to let the situation control his life.
“It’s got to be in his mind,” said a former Giants player.
Bochy said Sandoval, with only 11 hits, two homers and six RBI in 63 at bats is “really pressing. But it’s his job to play and not let anything else be a distraction.”
Dodgers starter Hyun-Jin Ryu was distracting enough for the Giants. He pitched a shutout for seven innings before leaving the game for a pinch hitter in the top of the eighth.
“We had the right guys up,” said Bochy, referring to when the Giants scored a run and had two more runners on, in the ninth against Kenley Jansen.
That would be Ehire Adrianza, who, taking over at second on a double-switch in the fifth, had three hits, one of those driving in Brandon Belt with San Francisco’s only run.
That would be Crawford, who pinch-hit for Joaquin Arias and flied out to end the game.
Bochy was not distraught. “The pitching,” he said about the series, “was really good for us.”
It had to be. Because the hitting was really bad for them.
“There’s not a guy out there I don’t have confidence in,” said Bochy, the general in support of his troops.
Statements such as that always are appreciated and admirable. A single at the proper time would be just as appreciated.