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<\/p>\nSAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Willy Adames lost track of the outs earlier this month at Dodger Stadium. He became the first major-league player to commit 10 errors. He\u2019s struggled with his attention span at times. He hasn\u2019t always made the shrewdest decisions at shortstop or in the batter\u2019s box, where his 33.2 percent chase rate is the highest of his career. For some, his cheerful gift of gab with opposing players has become a lightning rod for criticism amid a San Francisco Giants season shrouded in mistakes and misery. This much is fair game: He has been a $182 million franchise pillar the Giants haven\u2019t been able to bank on.<\/p>\n
When the Giants\u2019 latest chaotic calamity arrived in the eighth inning Wednesday afternoon, Adames was at the center of it.<\/p>\n
This time, he didn\u2019t do anything wrong. Not his fault. Totally blameless.<\/p>\n
Adames got a huge break and represented the tying run when his sun-aided double dropped in left field with one out. He skittered halfway to third base when Luis Arraez hit a flare to center field, and the Arizona Diamondbacks\u2019 Jorge Barrosa closed on it. It was textbook base running. The last thing Adames could risk was getting doubled off. And when Barrosa\u2019s diving attempt came up short, Adames got the next part right, too. He cold-started to third, and he picked up third-base coach Hector Borg.<\/p>\n
Everything unraveled from there. Borg made the highly questionable decision to wave Adames home. The Diamondbacks executed a routine relay to the plate. In a cloud of dust, Adames was out easily.<\/p>\n
One pitch later, the Giants committed an even uglier lapse: Arraez danced away from second base and got picked off by Arizona right-hander Kevin Ginkel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Luis Arraez was picked off second base with two outs in the eighth, ending the inning with team RBI leader Casey Schmitt at the plate. (D. Ross Cameron \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
Casey Schmitt has been the Giants\u2019 best hitter all season. He never got a chance to swing the bat.<\/p>\n
The Giants still haven\u2019t won a game in which they trailed after the sixth inning. They ran their way out of an ideal chance Wednesday, losing 3-2 and getting swept by Arizona in a three-game series for the second time in a week.<\/p>\n
The Giants had never been 0-6 against the Diamondbacks to start a season series. But does the opponent really matter when you keep beating yourself?<\/p>\n
\u201cJust following Borgie\u2019s decision,\u201d Adames said. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate we had that result at the plate and (didn\u2019t) tie the game there. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t think that I could have done anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
You could argue that the Giants\u2019 .293 on-base percentage, which would be their worst in the franchise\u2019s San Francisco era, is the biggest anchor dragging their season to the bottom of the National League. If only that was the worst of it. When the Giants do get base runners, they act as if they\u2019ve been deposited there from an orbiting spacecraft. As FanGraphs\u2019 Ben Clemens noted<\/a>, the Giants are 30th in base-running runs this season, which is quite a feat, considering they\u2019ve had fewer opportunities than anyone to give away value.<\/p>\n Base running basically gave away the game Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cA part of it is it needs to be revisited more,\u201d said Giants manager Tony Vitello, asked to explain how the Giants became such an unproductive base-running team. \u201cJust because you do things in spring training, you know, it could be anything: bunting, PFP (pitchers fielding practice), base running. Days go by, and you\u2019re always sensitive to guys having their legs under them, but I think those things need to be revisited, whether they\u2019re mentally or actually physically, with the reps. Part of the base-running thing, I think, is by nature, not having guys on base as much as we would like to earlier in the year. I think things are at least trending in the right direction, as far as on-base percentage. Not today in particular. It\u2019s not what you want it to be, you know. And then, too, we\u2019ve created a lot of problems by digging ourselves in a hole early and trying like crazy to get out. I think what we\u2019ve all done is driven ourselves a little bit too crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n At this point, no idea sounds too wild to try to spark change in this moribund group. The problem is that the front office has already pushed every button from an organizational personnel standpoint. It traded Patrick Bailey. It promoted Bryce Eldridge. It even called up Victor Bericoto.<\/p>\n The closest buttons within reach now involve the coaching staff. And as tough as it might be to single out the third-base coach, especially after he just missed four games after the death of his grandmother in the Dominican Republic, there have been enough questionable decisions to wonder whether a change in assignments is warranted. It\u2019s a move the Atlanta Braves made at this time last season, when they reassigned third-base coach Matt Tuiasosopo and replaced him with Fredi Gonzalez.<\/p>\n Borg was the last hire to join Vitello\u2019s staff and was highly regarded while coaching his way through the Giants\u2019 minor-league system. He\u2019s a baseball lifer who has experience managing in winter ball and won an Olympic bronze medal while managing the Dominican team in the delayed 2020 Games in Tokyo.<\/p>\n But when a team\u2019s trust in a coach erodes \u2014 think about Adames\u2019 scoring a run May 5 when he blitzed past Borg\u2019s stop sign<\/a> or Heliot Ramos\u2019 appearing to complain<\/a> about Borg\u2019s decision to hold Drew Gilbert in the 10th inning of an April 30 loss at Philadelphia \u2014 it\u2019s almost impossible to re-establish.<\/p>\n Would decorated emeritus coach Ron Wotus, who handled Borg\u2019s duties deftly over his four-game absence, be able to re-establish that trust? Or heck, if this whole thing goes sideways and the coaching staff loses all remaining credibility, would Wotus be a candidate to run the whole show on an interim basis?<\/p>\n For now, Vitello has two-plus years on his contract, and he has a vote of confidence from president of baseball operations Buster Posey, who characterized his manager\u2019s performance as \u201csolid\u201d during an interview on KNBR last week.<\/p>\n Vitello, for his part, didn\u2019t give the impression after Wednesday\u2019s game that he would consider making major changes, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a massive team adjustment that needs to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSincerely, the effort\u2019s pretty damn good,\u201d Vitello said. \u201cThe attention span on some certain plays maybe has been lax, or maybe just grinding out a play that appears to be routine or appears to be average. But if you\u2019re going whole group, nine innings, pregame, all those things, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a massive team adjustment that needs to be made. I think some of the mistakes will happen, but you don\u2019t want them to be on plays that in spring training you would call routine. Maybe it\u2019s getting caught up in the score or the record, or just taking a pitch or two off. We can\u2019t afford to do that at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n The Giants played Wednesday as if aggressive base running had been a pregame point of emphasis. Arraez stole second base in the first inning. Schmitt stole second base when a replay review reversed an out call in the third. It marked just the second time all season the Giants recorded multiple steals in a game. They entered with a major league-low 12 of them in 18 attempts.<\/p>\n Neither steal resulted in a run, but the Giants did enough against Arizona right-hander Mike Soroka to take a 2-0 lead into the sixth, when Trevor McDonald threw an unfortunately timed wild pitch in the midst of the Diamondbacks\u2019 three-hit rally. A sacrifice fly tied the score against McDonald, and Arizona used another sac fly in the seventh to push ahead with an unearned run after left-hander Matt Gage failed to field a dribbler to the first-base side of the mound.<\/p>\n As in most of the Giants\u2019 losses in a 22-34 season, there were multiple unforced errors. The base running in the eighth was merely the most obvious Wednesday. Vitello called Borg\u2019s decision \u201cthe aggressive route.\u201d But was it the right one?<\/p>\n Vitello neither supported Borg\u2019s decision nor criticized it.<\/p>\n \u201cFor what it\u2019s worth, we\u2019ve taken as much time as anybody analyzing things postgame and reviewing things, and we\u2019ll do that as well,\u201d Vitello said. \u201cBut the easy answer, to be honest with you, is the right thing is usually the thing that works out, and sometimes we\u2019re guilty of it not working out because of decisions, and then there\u2019s even been some occasions where maybe you\u2019d redo a decision, but the game or the instance works out for us.\u201d<\/p>\n This part doesn\u2019t change: A 162-game season is the ultimate meritocracy. McDonald has performed well enough to keep his place in the rotation after Logan Webb returns from the injured list in Friday\u2019s series opener against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. Does that mean Tyler Mahle and his 6.04 ERA will be shuttled to a long relief role? Or will the Giants entertain a six-man rotation, perhaps because the Giants are already looking ahead to the possibility of ditching some of Mahle\u2019s $10 million salary if he can rattle off a few solid starts? That will be revealed soon enough.<\/p>\n But when someone in uniform performs, you owe it to him and to the organization to give him more runway. To do otherwise would be to undermine everyone\u2019s trust in the meritocracy.<\/p>\n And to keep giving runway to folks in uniform who squander opportunities? Same effect.<\/p>\n