CHICAGO — It’s a shame Carlos Rodón quickly ran up his pitch count Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, because who knows how many strikeouts he would have finished with if he were more economical.
Twelve? Fifteen? Twenty?
Corbin Burnes showed what an efficient strikeout pitcher can do against an anemic offense just a day earlier while shutting down the Giants for eight innings. He had 10 through five innings and finished with 14.
Rodón, too, had fanned 10 Cubs batters through five innings. He fired a 95-mph heater past Zack McKinstry for the first out of the sixth and his 11th strikeout, but that marked the end of his day. Rodón had run a 3-2 count on McKinstry — one of 12 plate appearances against Rodón that lasted at least five pitches — and finished 5 1/3 innings on 96 pitches.
Rodón’s latest mastery was wasted, yet again, by an offense that has stalled out and a bullpen that all year has leaked like a loose faucet, in a 4-2 loss to the Cubs, one of six National League teams with a worse record than the Giants (65-73). At 3.7 runs per game, Rodón has received the least support of anybody on the starting staff.
“This game’s hard. It’s not easy to hit,” Rodón said. “If you look back, we had a double-header yesterday, the boys got in kind of late. It’s a quick turnaround for them to show up and play. We still gotta go out there and do it.”
On Friday, Rodón exemplified how difficult a hitter’s job can be, generating 20 swings and misses. But Chicago batters also fouled off 22 pitches — 19 on the fastball that usually blows past opponents’ bats.
One mistake amounted to all of the Cubs’ damage against Rodón, with Yan Gomes hammering a 3-2 slider into the left-field seats, aided by Wrigley’s notorious wind blowing out in that direction. It was a two-run shot because Nico Hoerner snuck a single under the glove of first baseman David Villar to lead off the inning.
“They were able to foul off enough pitches to drive up his pitch count, but otherwise I thought he pitched great,” Kapler said. “That’s one of the situations where you really don’t want to take him out of the game, but you have to do right by him because he’s battled so hard for us and grinded though some big moments.”
It took three batters once Rodón was out of the game for the Cubs to put it out of reach for an offense that, now, has totaled five runs and 10 hits in its past three games.
Yunior Marte struck out Seiya Suzuki after relieving Rodón, but then put Franmil Reyes on base with four balls and served up a home run to Hoerner, an Oakland native who attended Stanford.
It was nonetheless enough for Rodón etch his name in the Giants record books.
His 11 strikeouts gave him his 10th game this season with 10 or more, eclipsing Tim Lincecum’s 2008 Cy Young campaign and Jason Schmidt’s memorable 2004 season.
Lincecum finished 2008 with 265 strikeouts in 227 innings, the most in franchise history. Schmidt had 251 in 225 frames.
“It feels very much like a historic season,” Kapler said. “I think Carlos’ year really stands out in baseball. There’s a couple around the game that may be right there with him, but not many that are way better.”
Rodón increased his total this season to 212, two shy of Burnes for the National League lead, in 162 2/3 innings. He should get five more starts this season to see how high he can push his victim count.
Does Rodón have his sights set on another record?
“I’m just gonna keep going,” he said. “We’ll see how many we can get.”
How about a Cy Young bid?
“I mean, it’d be cool,” Rodón said. “It’s one of those things that’s out of my control. I just step on the mound and I throw the ball. There’s a lot of arms that are throwing very, very well. I mean, hopefully. We’ll see.”
About the Giants offense: Burnes offered a convenient excuse for its performance in the first game of Thursday’s double header. Maybe even the hangover from facing the Cy Young winner carried into the second game. But on Friday, facing Drew Smyly, San Francisco hitters were just as hopeless.
If not for David Villar’s second-inning double down the left field line, the Giants would have had no hits through seven innings.
If not for Evan Longoria’s ground-rule double in the eighth that landed in the same vicinity and drove in two, after San Francisco loaded the bases on an error and a pair of walks, they would have been shut out entirely.
Kapler attributed their recent offensive struggles to the “ebbs and flows of the season.”
“I think when guys are swinging the bats really well, you feed off that energy,” he said, “and when it’s tough sledding offensively, you feel that as well.”
Notable
— Catcher Austin Wynns left the game in the sixth inning after being hit in the head by a pitch. While Kapler called it a “scary” situation, he said afterward that Wynns was doing “OK” and was going to be monitored overnight. Should the Giants need a backup catcher, Kapler said they have the capability to get one to Chicago in time for Saturday’s game.
— Perhaps more interesting than anything on the field was who arrived in the visitor’s clubhouse here at Wrigley Field. In addition to Dean, who was called up from Triple-A and started in left field, right-handed relievers Cole Waites and Shelby Miller were here on taxi-squad duties, as well. The arrival of Waites, a blond, bearded, long-haired fireballer, should be particularly exciting if he is activated. Waites, 24, started the year in High-A and risen all the way to the majors, even if he wasn’t yet added to the roster.
