Giants claim series, beat Shelby Miller, Diamondbacks

SAN FRANCISCO – Speaking in quiet tones in the Diamondbacks clubhouse late Wednesday night, Shelby Miller pinned blame on himself. He felt his pure stuff was good. Too good for the sort of mini-blowup he endured in the fifth inning. Too good to wind up on the wrong end of a 6-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants.

“This loss is definitely on me,” he said, “because I was in a groove and felt really good and gave it away right there.”

But the Diamondbacks’ bats remained in a cold snap on Wednesday night, unable to produce the kind of timely hits they enjoyed in the season’s first week, unable, too, to generate the sort of productive outs that can serve as lipstick on a lineup’s struggles.

For the fourth consecutive game, they scored four runs or fewer. It was also the fourth in a row in which they did not reach double digits in hits. After taking three of four from the Giants at Chase Field last week, they departed San Francisco with their first series loss of the year.

BOX SCORE: Giants 6, Diamondbacks 2

“I think they’ll be fine,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “I think part of moving forward as a team each and every day is how you recognize winning and move through losing. I know these guys will be OK.”

For seven days at Chase Field, the Diamondbacks battered nearly every pitcher who crossed their path. Several hitters had a rough three games in the Bay Area. Paul Goldschmidt and Brandon Drury each went 1 for 11. A.J. Pollock, despite leading off Wednesday’s game with a triple and scoring one batter later, was 2 for 14.

Their success with men in scoring position – they hit .422 in those situations during the homestand – plummeted, as they had just four hits in 25 at-bats. Their most glaring failure came in the sixth, when, after the first two batters reached, Giants reliever Cody Gearrin struck out Drury, Chris Owings and Jeff Mathis in succession.

“We know that these guys are prepared, but sometimes you have to give the opposition some credit,” Lovullo said. “They made pitches when they had to and got some big outs at the right time.”

It also was a rough night for the infield defense, which saw Owings bounce a pair of throws that Goldschmidt could not dig out at first base. Both went for errors, giving Owings five in eight games played at shortstop.

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Miller managed to work around both errors, but he couldn’t escape a mess of his own creation in the fifth. With one out, he threw a 95 mph fastball to opposing pitcher Matt Cain – the same pitch he used to strike out Cain in the second – and watched as Cain lined it into left-center field for a double. He said he should have listened to his catcher, Mathis, who had first called for a cutter.

“I think he (Cain) was just hunting heater and he got it,” Miller said. “It was definitely a buzzkill right there.”

But when Miller did throw his cutter later in the inning, the Giants had no trouble with it. Denard Span, Hunter Pence and Conor Gillaspie each laced RBI singles in the inning, all of them on cut fastballs. They accounted for all three runs Miller would allow in 5 1/3 innings.

“They weren’t bad pitches, but they were just kind of maybe a little up,” Miller said. “They were away where I wanted it but it probably should have been a little bit lower. At the end of the day, I just didn’t make quality pitches that inning at all. It got away from me that inning. I wasn’t very good.”

Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.