SF Giants drop fourth straight game as offense goes quiet vs. Cardinals

The Giants entered their series against the San Diego Padres last week with an opportunity to win four games in a row for the first time all season, a feat every other team in the majors has long since accomplished. Since then, they’ve been absent from the win column.

San Francisco went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and lost 2-1 to the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday evening at Busch Stadium, the eighth time this season the Giants have had a losing streak of at least four games. At 62-89, they are still searching for the one win to ensure they avoid losing 100 games this season.

Landen Roupp tossed six scoreless innings against these same Cardinals last week but had an uneven start this time around, allowing two runs over 4 1/3 innings with four strikeouts to three walks.

Manager Tony Vitello said on Sunday that the Giants would have a conversation about shutting down Logan Webb for the rest of the season, and it’s fair to wonder whether San Francisco will have that same conversation about Roupp.

Including Monday’s outing, Roupp has tossed 155 innings this season, blowing past his previous career high of 106 2/3 innings from last season. Roupp hasn’t cracked the 90-pitch mark in each of his last three outings, a sign that the Giants appear to be monitoring the 28-year-old’s workload as the season comes to a close.

The Giants didn’t get their first hit of the day off the Cardinals’ Quinn Mathews until Grant McCray led off the top of the sixth inning with a double to the right-center field gap. Two batters later, Jonah Cox generated San Francisco’s first run on a sharp single to center field, scoring McCray with ease and cutting the deficit to 2-1.

Cox tried to put himself in scoring position by trying to steal second base, but St. Louis’ Masyn Winn made an incredibly athletic catch and tag to nail Cox at second. Catcher Leo Bernal’s throw was well up the line, but Wynn followed the throw, made the off-balance catch, then applied his glove to Cox’s right leg all in one swift motion.

The Giants had an opportunity to tie in the top of the seventh when they got the tying run in scoring position with one out, but failed to capitalize and ended the inning still trailing by one run.

Up next

Blade Tidwell (0-2, 4.82 ERA) will take the mound against the Cardinals after allowing five runs (four earned) over four innings against them last week.