Major League Baseball

Unable to muster any offense, Giants swept by Padres

Published Sep. 22, 2014 3:39 a.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

The San Francisco Giants are reeling, having lost six of eight games, a streak in which they've scored only 14 runs.

And yet they're still inching toward a playoff berth, thanks to the fact there are two wild-card spots.

The Giants managed just six hits off Ian Kennedy and three relievers, losing 8-2 to the San Diego Padres on Sunday to fall 4-1/2 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West race.

''It's definitely not ideal. But the bottom line is we need to win some games,'' losing pitcher Ryan Vogelsong said. ''Everybody knows what we're playing for and everybody knows what's at stake. You prepare the best you can and go out and see what happens.''

The Giants' chances of winning the division were dealt a serious blow by the three-game sweep at the hands of the lowly Padres. The Giants open a three-game series at Dodger Stadium on Monday night.

San Francisco is still in good shape to clinch a wild-card berth, although it dropped into a tie with Pittsburgh in the race for the top spot. The Giants and Pirates are 4-1/2 games ahead of Milwaukee. The Giants' magic number for clinching a wild-card spot is three.

The division is ''still there until they clinch, as far as I'm concerned,'' Vogelsong said. ''Until their magic number is zero, there's still a shot. WE need to go in there and play well and have some things go our way.''

Yasmani Grandal had three RBI while Rene Rivera and Cameron Maybin each drove in two runs for the Padres, who improved to 9-6 against the Giants this year. The teams will finish the season with a four-game series in San Francisco starting Thursday night.

Kennedy (12-13) struck out five, giving him a career-high 201 and making him the fourth Padres pitcher to fan 200 in a season. He held the Giants to two runs and five hits in 6-2/3 innings, with one walk.

Kennedy retired the first 11 Giants before Buster Posey beat out an infield single.

''We ran into three really good pitchers who were on top of their game,'' Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. ''You've still got to find a way.''

Kennedy's outing followed strong starts by Odrisamer Despaigne and Andrew Cashner.

''It was a good series,'' manager Bud Black said. ''I thought we played really sound baseball. We pitched really well from Despaigne to Cash to Ian. We had a leg up there. The key was the starting pitching.''

Vogelsong (8-12) held the Padres hitless until Seth Smith doubled into the gap in right-center leading off the fifth. Smith advanced on Rivera's single to left and scored on Amarista's sacrifice fly.

The Padres piled on in the sixth with four runs, three unearned, off three pitchers.

Yangervis Solarte and Will Venable singled opening the sixth and a throwing error by third baseman Pablo Sandoval on Jedd Gyorko's grounder loaded the bases and chased Vogelsong. Javier Lopez allowed a sacrifice fly by Grandal and walked Seth Smith to again load the bases. George Kontos came on and allowed Rivera's RBI groundout. Alexi Amarista was intentionally walked and Maybin hit a two-run single.

Grandal hit a two-run double in the seventh.

Vogelsong allowed four runs, two earned, in five innings while striking out five and walking one.

Giants rookie Chris Dominguez hit a two-run homer to left off Kennedy with two outs in the seventh for his first career big league hit. He was called up from Triple-A Fresno on Sept. 1. Brandon Crawford was aboard on a single.

share

Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

Major League Baseball