PHOENIX -- If you’re keeping track at home (if you are, I hope you’re using the board game Operation) the Giants have now lost their right fielder, their No. 3 starter and their top pinch-hitter to the disabled list and could soon add their starting first baseman and their No. 2 starter.
Despite all that, they could have started the season 2-0. Ryan Vogelsong felt they should have started 2-0.
The Giants scored six runs against Rubby De La Rosa and the Diamondbacks, adding keep-the-line-moving rallies to homers by Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford. But they lost 7-6 to the Diamondbacks on the second night of the season, all seven runs going on Vogelsong’s line.
“Basically, I wasted a good offensive night for my team,” he said, shaking his head. “Anytime we score six runs, we should get the win. Those guys deserve a win.”
Vogelsong paid dearly for two mistakes: A fastball down the middle to David Peralta and a hanging curveball to Jake Lamb. The latter was his 99th and final pitch. He lasted 4 2/3 and gave up the seven runs on six hits and four walks.
[INSTANT REPLAY: Vogelsong rocked by D-Backs, Giants lose 7-6]
“It stinks because I feel like I threw the ball a lot better than the result,” he said. “I just didn’t make good enough pitches in big situations there.”
Vogelsong did have a crackling fastball early, but his off-speed stuff failed him and the Diamondbacks caught on. Peralta’s homer came after an eight-pitch battle between Vogelsong and Paul Goldschmidt that could have gone either way when the righty threw a 3-2 fastball on the edge of the plate. It was called a ball and Goldschmidt took his base. Two pitches later, Peralta got a heater down the middle and blasted it two-thirds of the way up the seats in right.
Lamb was Vogelsong’s last hitter, and with two on and two outs, he fouled off four pitches to work the count full. The eighth pitch of the at-bat was a curveball that hung right over the plate and left the park nearly as quickly as Peralta’s homer.
“I pretty much had to throw him everything I had,” Vogelsong said. “I don’t want to walk the bases loaded. The curveball, I knew it would be a strike, and he hit it.”
— The rest of tonight was spent asking one player after another about injuries. If you missed it, here’s the latest on Brandon Belt and here’s the latest on Jake Peavy. The Giants will really be scrambling if Peavy joins Cain on the DL. If Belt hits the DL, they’ll have to get creative. Adam Duvall is one option, but the best might be to just go with three catchers and play Buster Posey at first the majority of the time. Hector Sanchez and Andrew Susac have some experience playing first, and they could probably “ham and egg it” as Bochy says.
The Giants will hope for good news tomorrow, both with Belt and Peavy. Bochy said he can’t remember ever starting a season with a flood of injuries like this.
“It’s really probably something that’s difficult to do, to lose three players,” he said. “We’re going through a rash of them right now. Some things you can’t explain, but I haven’t been through what we’re going through right now.”
At least they're not getting totally Texas Rangered.
—- Just something to file away for the next time there’s a discussion about athletes being available to the media: Belt saw reporters in a hallway near the clubhouse and walked over with his infant son to give us an update (cute little Greyson sucked on his hand the entire time). This isn’t difficult, Marshawn.
