Despite another dud, SF Giants squeak by MLB-worst A’s to snap losing streak

SAN FRANCISCO — All it took, apparently, to snap the Giants’ season-long losing streak was to keep going down the list of MLB’s biggest losers. They lost two of three to the reeling Pittsburgh Pirates. Swept by the woeful Washington Nationals.

Couldn’t beat the dreadful Detroit Tigers. The Giants must have been thrilled to return home to meet the one roster constructed to drive fans away, not win ballgames. Still, it took a heroic effort from Alex Cobb and, at long last, a piece of timely hitting from Mike Yastrzemski to snap their six-game losing streak, squeaking by the MLB-worst A’s, 2-1, on Tuesday in the first game of the Bay Bridge series.

And those Oakland diehards? Not dead yet. Many of the 40,014 fans in attendance broke out in “Sell-the-team!” chants throughout the fifth inning. But rejoice, for the Giants’ losing streak is.

With two outs in the eighth inning, Yastrzemski did something no Giants hitter had done in nearly week: He delivered a hit with runners in scoring position. After coming up empty in 27 straight at-bats since Wednesday, Yastrzemski ripped a double down the right field line that scored Luis Matos from second and broke a 1-1 tie. Despite finally getting back in the win column, the Giants can’t be happy about another clunker of an offensive effort, this time against the worst team with the worst pitching staff in the majors.

They haven’t scored more than three runs or recorded more than six hits in a game since last Tuesday, the last time they won. After a self-described “clunker” of a start leading to the second loss of the streak, Cobb pitched like a man determined not to let it happen again. Aided by a lineup that has produced the fewest runs and lowest OPS of any offense in the majors this season, the 35-year-old right-hander breezed through six shutout innings and was in line for the win until was in line for the win until Tyler Rogers coughed up the lead in the eighth.

To be fair, he didn’t have much wiggle room to work with. Cobb struck out seven of the first nine batters he faced and finished with a season-high nine punchouts, five coming on a splitter that was working as well as ever. For as bad as the A’s hitters have been, their pitchers have been even worse.

Second-year lefty Ken Waldichuk, a product of St. Mary’s College (Moraga), took a 6. 75 ERA into Tuesday’s game but faced little resistance from a Giants lineup on fumes.

Upon entering in the second inning, Waldichuk retired the first nine hitters he faced and struck out six while allowing only one hit over 4⅔ innings. Related Articles Even the Giants’ lone runs were only an effect of the A’s doing. It took a walk to J.

D. Davis to put Matos in scoring position in the eighth. They loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth inning and managed to score only one — unearned — run.

Wilmer Flores, who drew a walk to lead off the inning, should have been out at third on a poor bunt from Brett Wisely. The ball rolled directly back to the mound, giving Waldichuk a force-play on the lead runner, Flores, at third. Waldichuk’s throw, however, sailed wide, pulling third baseman Jace Peterson off the bag.

Flores scored on a sac fly from Casey Schmitt, which otherwise would have been the third out of the inning. .