DENVER — Alex Wood tossed his glove in the air as Brian Serven’s ground ball snuck through the middle of the infield for a second-inning single. When Connor Joe’s home run left the yard in the fourth, Wood lifted his head and took a deep sigh, before returning to the mound and kicking the rubber.
As Elehuris Montero rounded the bases in the fifth, after slugging his second homer of the night, all the emotion Wood could muster was to pull his cap and hang his head as he summoned for another baseball from home plate umpire Chris Conroy.
Coors Field has been Wood’s personal house of horrors for his entire career, and Friday night’s series opener was no exception. Wood allowed more runs (seven) on more home runs (three) than any start this season as the Giants stumbled to their third straight loss, 7-4, to the Rockies and fell back under .500 (59-60).
“Just frustrated,” Wood said of his reactions. “They were all frustrating. This place hasn’t been kind to me over the years. But this time of year, a start like that can’t happen. … I just got my ass kicked.”
The ball Wood was given after Montero’s home run was promptly placed in the palm of manager Gabe Kapler. Few words were exchanged as the manager came out to get his starter with two outs in the fifth inning.
For the second straight game, the Giants failed to get five innings out of their starter.
Even before Friday’s defeat, the Giants had lost two straight but were still 5-2 over their past seven games, using a string of excellent pitching to breathe life into their postseason hopes. San Francisco had pulled within 4.5 games of the Padres for the third National League wild card spot but fell 6.0 back after Friday’s loss (with San Diego still playing).
Giants pitchers had a 2.43 ERA over that seven-game stretch, and their starters had completed at least six innings in six straight games before Logan Webb’s start Sunday.
The mile-high setting provided an added degree of difficulty.
In 12 career games here (11 starts), including Friday, Wood has allowed 44 earned runs in 45 innings, an 8.80 ERA. Pitching at altitude can change how pitches move, and Wood went until the fourth inning without recording a swinging strike with his slider, typically his go-to out pitch.
“He’s a pitcher that’s reliant on movement, and the ball moves a little bit less in this ballpark,” Kapler said. “He just missed a few times up in the zone and that was enough. That was the difference in the game.”
The venue also ensures that no lead is safe until the 27th out, which the Giants took advantage of Friday night, even if they weren’t ever able to fully dig out of their initial 7-0 hole.
Joc Pederson was the only player able to hit Colorado starter José Ureña, who exited to a standing ovation from the Friday night crowd of 31,604, despite taking a 7.77 ERA over his past five starts into this one.
Pederson lined a 107-mph single in his first at-bat, then manufactured the Giants’ first run with a home run off Ureña in the sixth inning. The opposite-field shot to left was Pederson’s first home run since June 25, a stretch of 36 games that was one shy of matching the longest of his career.
“I’ve been grinding in the cage a little bit,” Pederson said. “I know I haven’t been hitting home runs. … But I kind of want to put the statistical stuff behind me.”
Pederson, however, expressed his own display of frustration after striking out swinging to end a seventh-inning rally and tossing his bat to the ground.
Mike Yastrzemski walked and Brandon Crawford singled, chasing Ureña from the game, and the Giants rallied for three runs — all with two outs — against the Rockies bullpen. Joey Bart was hit by a pitch, forcing in one run, then Austin Slater snuck a hard-hit grounder past first baseman C.J. Cron to plate two more.
The only longer homerless stretch of Pederson’s career (37 games; April 22-June 1, 2018) ended right here — with two in one game.
After pulling within 7-4, Pederson stepped to the plate against Colorado left-hander Lucas Gilbreath representing the tying run, with Slater and Bart already on second and third. If history repeated itself, the score would suddenly have been knotted at 7.
But Pederson swung at a slider in the dirt for strike three, then tossed his bat in a similar vicinity.
“Striking out’s not fun, especially with runners on base,” Pederson said. “It’s a frustrating game.”
