LOS ANGELES — Can Tyler Fitzgerald get some help?
The rookie shortstop is just about the only thing working in the Giants’ beleaguered lineup, and once again Tuesday night he was responsible for the bulk of their offense against the Dodgers. Once again, one man’s superhuman effort wasn’t enough to lift up eight other slackers.
Launching a no-doubter to left field that got the Giants on the board in the second inning, Fitzgerald homered for his fifth game in a row — the first Giants rookie ever to do so — but his teammates weren’t able to muster much else in a 5-2 loss to the Dodgers.
“We still lost the game,” said Fitzgerald, who finished 3-for-3 with a walk, accounting for all but two of the Giants’ hits and both their RBIs. “It’s cool and all, but it would be cooler if we would have one. At the end of the day we come here to win, so everything that I do is cool and all — at the end of the year I’ll look back and smile about it — but we lost the game. So not a whole lot of good came from it.”
The loss was the Giants’ fourth in five games since the All-Star break, and they have failed to crack four runs once. In 17 games this month, they are averaging a paltry 3.47 per game, and it has been five weeks — dating back to June 17 — since they scored five runs, or the number it would have taken to overcome Jordan Hicks second-shortest start of the season.
“It’s frustrating,” Melvin said. “We talked about it today. We need to do a little bit more damage early on, create some traffic, take some pitches, get some guys on base, hopefully do some damage early.”
With six more games until the July 30 trade deadline, the Giants dropped six games below .500 and five games back of the final National League wild card, the furthest they have been from playoff position all season, needing to jump six teams.
They will add Robbie Ray to their rotation Wednesday, but even Melvin is beginning to worry their reinforcements may be arriving too late.
“You can’t help but know where we are (in the standings),” Melvin said. “There’s some other teams separating a little bit. We’re dropping further back. We’ve talked about the cavalry coming, but we need to do it now. We’re going to have to wear this one today and come out and win a game tomorrow because the more we dig a hole for ourselves, the tougher it’s going to be for us.”
Fitzgerald’s home run was his fourth in four games since the All-Star break, and his streak dates back to July 9 for five in a row. In doing so, he joined some exclusive company, becoming only the fifth player in the San Francisco era to homer in five straight games and the first since Barry Bonds homered in seven straight games in 2004.
No rookie in major-league history has homered six games in a row.
“I try not to think about it, to be honest with you,” Fitzgerald said. “Just seeing (the ball) well and swinging at good pitches and doing damage when I get the pitch I want. It’s cool and all but I’m just trying to keep my head down and keep working and not get too caught up in everything that’s going on.”
When he started his first game of the second half Saturday in Colorado, Fitzgerald said it had been 11 days since he faced live pitching. Ever since, Melvin hasn’t been able to take him out of the lineup, moving him up to the seven hole Tuesday night.
“Life comes at you fast,” Fitzgerald said.
In four trips to the plate, he reached base four times. After homering in his first at-bat, he worked a four-pitch walk his second time up and shot a single the opposite way that could have kickstarted a seventh-inning rally. However, the next batter, Mike Yastrzemski, grounded into an inning-ending double play.
After Alex Vesia walked the first two batters of the ninth, Fitzgerald added another hit and RBI to his line, driving home Matt Chapman from second to cut the Dodgers’ lead to 5-2. It brought the potential tying run to the plate with no outs, but Wilmer Flores popped out, Brett Wisely went down swinging and LaMonte Wade Jr. grounded out to end the game.
Excluding Fitzgerald, the rest of the Giants lineup combined to go 2-for-29, with both of their other hits coming courtesy of Heliot Ramos.
Since the start of the second half, Fitzgerald is responsible for six of the Giants’ 11 RBIs while going 7-for-13 with four home runs and a double. The rest of the team has combined to bat .149 (22-for-148) with 42 strikeouts and seven extra-base hits, or only two more than Fitzgerald alone.
“We had our best at-bats off Vesia late in the game,” Melvin said. “We’ve been taking pretty good at-bats against relievers all year, but we need to be able to get some better at-bats early in the game.”
Fitzgerald’s home run in the second inning could only pull the Giants within one run after Hicks spotted the Dodgers two runs in their first trip to the plate, hitting Freddie Freeman, walking Teoscar Hernández and allowing Gavin Lux to double them both home, opening a 2-0 lead.
Making one of his final starts before transitioning to the bullpen, Hicks looked like a pitcher running on fumes. Although he was making only his third start since July 3, the converted reliever has already surpassed his career-high in innings and has “probably one more (start),” Melvin said before first pitch, “and then we have a decision to make.”
Struggling to find the strike zone or record efficient outs, Hicks buried two wild pitches past catcher Patrick Bailey, issued a season-high five walks and hit a batter but had mostly pitched his way out of trouble until the Dodgers lineup turned over for a third time with runners on the corners and one out in the fourth.
After putting away Shohei Ohtani twice, Hicks was unable to do it a third time as the two-time MVP laced a 1-1 slider into right field, extending the Dodgers’ lead to 4-1 with a two-RBI double and putting an end to Hicks’ evening after 3⅔ innings and 92 pitches, only his second time in 20 starts that he failed to complete four innings.
“Today my arm felt better than the last few, but overall the body is still a little worn down,” Hicks said. “I felt like my stuff was there when I did make the pitch and then when I didn’t, it wasn’t even close. It was pretty frustrating because the stuff when it was in the zone was really good. I just don’t think I had my best command.”
With their seventh straight loss at Dodger Stadium, the Giants’ futility in their archrivals’ ballpark is nearing historic proportions. They haven’t gone as long without a win in Chavez Ravine since 1980, when they dropped eight in a row here for the second time in three seasons. Since the start of 2022, they are 5-16 in this venue.
It doesn’t get any easier, as the Dodgers are expected to activate RHP Tyler Glasnow and LHP Clayton Kershaw from the injured list for the final two games of the series. On Wednesday, LHP Robbie Ray will oppose Glasnow while making his club debut and his first start since March 31, 2023, before undergoing surgeries on his ulnar collateral ligament and flexor tendon. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m.
