An observation on the hitting and pitching side of things following the San Francisco Giants' latest loss.
The San Francisco Giants fell to the Minnesota Twins, 3-2, setting up a winner-take-all series finale.
San Francisco is one of those odd teams where they have Thursday, Sept. 24, as their final day off in the regular season.
A good chunk of teams had off on Monday, Sept. 21, but that's when the Giants snapped a three-game losing streak by taking down the Twins, 5-2.
Here in game two, things didn't go so smoothly. Twins ace Taj Bradley improved to 12-6 on the year with a strong six-inning performance.
Both teams finished the game with six hits, but the Giants' late rally wasn't enough to overcome a rough sixth and seventh frame.
Giants pitching staff continues to struggle late in games
It's not like these are high-leverage situations with the season on the line, but it sure would be nice to see some of these problems fixed going into next season.
The Giants jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second, only for the Twins to score a pair of runs in the top of the sixth and add another in the seventh.
This could've been a case of them asking one inning too much out of Anthony Molina, but if there was ever a chance to take a risk on how deep he could go into ballgames, now is certainly the time.
Molina threw five scoreless innings before going to the sixth, when he allowed a pair of runs. He still had a rock-solid start, one that saw him go six innings, allowing just two earned runs on four hits.
Molina fell to 3-2 on the year in an outing where he struck out six batters and only walked one. Of the four hits he gave up, three of those came in the sixth.
The only other hit the Twins had against him came in the fourth inning, but he shut that down three pitches later with a double play.
Duncan Davitt relieved him in the seventh inning and allowed a solo homer to rookie Walker Jenkins.
The top of the Giants lineup didn't pull its weight
This is a Giants lineup that's missing all of its heavy hitters, but there's no world where they are going to consistently win games when the one through four hitters are a combined 1-for-16.
Sure, they drew three walks, but that's nothing compared to Drew Gilbert providing the only hit and the five strikeouts they had between them.
Jonah Cox's fielder's choice RBI in the bottom of the ninth didn't get the job done, nor did Victor Bericoto's seven-pitch strikeout, which left runners stranded to end the game.
