The past week of San Francisco Giants baseball was like watching your dog dart out into the street in front of a speeding truck, dodge out of the way only to be hit by a car coming the other direction. This recent span has been one swift kick in the nuts after another.

First for our viewing pleasure, we were offered an epic come-from-behind attempt that turned into a heartbreaking 12-11, 12-inning fiasco loss at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds. That was followed by the Arizona D’backs going all slow-pitch softball on Tim Lincecum, who’s on a five-start losing streak, and Barry Zito

The Giants call it ‘magic’ while Duane Kuiper calls it ‘torture.’

Monday night’s 2-1 loss to the Rockies brought out a rare kind of furor, but the outcome of an MLB game can’t be assigned to one or two moves out of the hundreds that occur over the nine or more innings.

In the forefront of this, the two Giants most available to recent criticisms are waiver-wire-refugee Cody Ross and manager Bruce Bochy. Bochy has been a popular whipping boy for the Giants’ fan base the past few seasons but after Ross botched a broken-bat fly ball by the Rockies’ Carlos Gonzalez, Ross is now a familiar name, too.

The common perception is Bochy should have inserted defensive specialist — and apparent Roberto Clemente clone — Nate Schierholtz, which would have prevented the gaffe.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Henry Schulman came to Ross’ defense in his game story:

“The first thing that must be said is that any right fielder in the majors would have charged the ball as Cody Ross did in the ninth inning Monday night, in a disastrous moment for the Giants that turned a game of beauty on the mound into a 2-1 loss to the Rockies.”

Schulman is a venerable baseball writer and someone who understands the game better than some who did; right Tim McCarver?

Then comes Bochy’s handling of the ninth.

Giants starter Jonathan Sanchez was excellent, throwing eight shut-out innings while allowing just five hits. With 102 pitches on the night, Sanchez was allowed to come to the plate to begin the bottom of the eighth and was scheduled to face the heart of the Rockies’ order in the ninth.

Sanchez ran the count to 0-2 on Dexter Fowler before losing his control and throwing four straight pitches for balls, issuing the lead-off walk. Bochy summoned closer Brian Wilson even though the next batter, Gonzales, was hitless in three trips to the plate against Sanchez and 0-for-10 against him lifetime.

There are two prevailing schools of thought here. Wilson should have been allowed to start a clean ninth inning and Sanchez should have been allowed to face Gonzales.

Clearly, no matter what Bochy elected to do, a large contingency would second guess, provided the end results turned out to be as disappointing as Thursday’s game. Bochy could have traded for Mariano Rivera and sent out three extra rovers to patrol the outfield and some would still say it was the skipper’s fault. But this one can’t be blamed on one man.

The questions the Giants’ faithful will be asking themselves is, ‘Was Thursday’s loss the direct result of one man, and who?’ and ‘Are these the type of inexplicable losses that just happen over the course of a 162-game schedule?’

Used with permission of the author.

Theo is a staff reporter and feature writer for the Marin Independent Journal where he covers local prep and college sports. As an Associate Production Manager for ESPN, he helped produce Sunday Night Baseball among other national ESPN and ABC Sports telecasts. In addition to his contributions to Sports Climax, he is a columnist for Examiner.com and is the play-by-play voice for Sonoma State University baseball and softball.

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