BOX SCORE
SAN FRANCISCO — There have been a few games already this season when it seemed that a Giants starter would have such a rough outing that a position player would end up on the mound. On Tuesday, it finally happened.
An 11-3 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers ended with rookie infielder Christian Koss on the mound. The Giants gave up eight runs in the top of the sixth and allowed a season-high 11 runs on 13 hits, including a pair of homers in a long sixth inning.
Jordan Hicks left a mess for Lou Trivino, who gave up a grand slam to Christian Yelich that turned this one into a blowout. Jake Bauers completed the eight-run sixth inning with a two-run blast of his own.
The Giants dropped to 6-6 during this stretch of 17 games in 17 days. A night after getting three innings out of Hayden Birdsong, they needed 2 1/3 from fellow length reliever Spencer Bivens. Koss saved the bullpen a bit in the ninth, throwing a scoreless inning in his MLB pitching debut.
Same Result
Hicks had to work hard the last time out to keep his line from looking disastrous. Against the Phillies, he gave up five runs in the first and then bounced back with six shutout innings. On Tuesday, there was no happy ending.
Hicks gave up three runs in the third on two doubles and two singles, and when Bob Melvin let him try to get through the sixth, the inning turned disastrous. The right-hander sandwiched a single and a walk around a throwing error from Willy Adames, and when Trivino gave up a grand slam to Yelich, Hicks ended up with five earned runs on his line for a second straight start. He has a 6.59 ERA on the season and has allowed 21 runs in 21 1/3 innings since a spectacular season debut in Houston.
Hicks is in year two of a four-year deal and continues to show good velocity, but it’s getting harder and harder for the staff to ignore the results — and the fact that Birdsong is in the bullpen and dominating.
Missing Matos
The Giants were down by 10 when Luis Matos came up for a third time. There was no getting back in the game, but he had a chance to at least grab some momentum. Instead he hit a 78 mph grounder to short for an inning-ending groundout, which continued a recent trend.
Matos hit into double plays in each of his first two at-bats, and there was no bad luck involved. The first one left the bat at 69 mph and the second at 74 mph. With the three slow rollers to short and a late strikeout, Matos extended his hitless streak to 21 at-bats. He’s batting .147 on the season and is just 2-for-21 against lefties.
The Giants were hopeful that Matos would be Mike Yastrzemski’s platoon partner and also do well enough that he could occasionally be their DH. With this early slump, he has already yielded some at-bats against lefties to Yastrzemski, and that might continue.
RBI Guy
Wilmer Flores drove in nine runs on the road trip, but he was just 4-for-35 at the plate. In two games back home, he’s still driving in runs, but the rest of the production is there, too.
Flores had three singles and a walk in four plate appearances and drove in a run in the eighth with a hard single down the right field line. He has reached base seven times in the two games of this series, raising his OPS from .680 to .798.
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