SAN FRANCISCO -- Late in Tuesday night's game, the Giants' media relations staff dug up a statistic that was jarring even by the ridiculous standard Tyler Fitzgerald has set over the past month.
With a 425-foot blast early in the game, Fitzgerald became just the second Giant ever to hit at least 15 homers through his first 59 career games. He joined a list that previously had consisted of only Willie Mays.
Fitzgerald has at times been a one-man show in the second half, but with the game on the line, the coaching staff took the bat out of his hands. Down by a run in the bottom of the 10th, Fitzgerald was told to try and bunt the automatic runner to third, but his attempt was a poor one.
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The Giants actually caught a break when home plate umpire Jeremy Riggs mistakenly ruled Fitzgerald out for batter's interference, a decision that could not be challenged. Before Riggs held his fist up, Casey Schmitt, the automatic runner, had been thrown out at third.
Instead of having Fitzgerald at first with one out, the Giants still had Schmitt on second and one out. But for a second straight night, they couldn't get their free runner home, and for a second straight night, they fell to the Atlanta Braves, who widened their lead in the NL wild-card race with a 4-3 win.
The call by Riggs was a surprising one. But it was even more surprising to see Fitzgerald, by far the team's hottest hitter in the second half, trying to put one down.
"Look, we're trying to get a guy over to third, trying to get it down the third base line with LaMonte [Wade Jr.] up next," Melvin said. "The guy [Braves closer Raisel Iglesias] is a pretty tough customer to try to string some hits together [against]."
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The Giants have just eight sacrifice bunts all season, ranking in the bottom third in the majors. In each of these two games, they have had better opportunities to bunt but haven't tried. On Monday, Mike Yastrzemski swung away while leading off the 10th and struck out. In the eighth on Tuesday, Michael Conforto came up with two on, no outs and the Braves leading by a run. He hit into a double play, although the Giants tied the game on a wild pitch anyway.
Conforto doesn't have a successful sacrifice bunt in his career, making him an unlikely candidate to get that sign. Fitzgerald, on the other hand, felt that's a job he should have been ready for, even if he is one of the league's hottest hitters.
"I have to be able to get a bunt down," he said. "I'm a rookie. I've known I'm going to be in that spot the whole year. I just wasn't able to get it down. I kind of deadened it way too much. I practice it a lot, I was ready for that moment, but I just deadened it way too much."
The decision perhaps was a sign of how much pressure the Giants are feeling at the plate in this series. After getting shut out Monday, they went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position on Tuesday.
They were able to slug their way to wins on the road trip, but it has been tough sledding since they returned to Oracle Park. Patrick Bailey's potential walk-off was caught on the track in the ninth, and Heliot Ramos' high fly ball to left got knocked down an inning later, ending the game.
The tying run in the eighth only came after a series of blunders by the Braves, who have come back to the pack in the postseason race. Jorge Soler couldn't track down a fly ball with a hit probability of 28 percent, and third baseman Austin Riley booted a routine grounder. A wild pitch gave the Giants fresh life, but they couldn't take advantage.
They had a chance to end this series in a playoff spot, but they're now 3 1/2 back of the Braves and have dropped back to .500 overall. They also dropped further behind the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, the two hottest teams in baseball. Both Melvin and Fitzgerald repeatedly called the night "frustrating."
"To lose three games in a row and get back to .500 is pretty frustrating," Melvin said. "Especially in the fashion that we have done it."
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