Braves bats go cold in San Francisco in 3-2 loss to Giants

The Braves lost their third game in a row on Monday night, falling to the Giants in frustrating fashion, 3-2.

One of the very few poor starts of Strider’s spectacular rookie season came against San Francisco in mid June. He was not as bad tonight, but he did struggle with command at times while navigating an erratic strike zone and poor defense behind him. He worked five innings of three-run ball, striking out nine in the process.

The Giants struck for two runs in the second inning as the offense strung together a series of hits. That would account for the only offense early on despite a handful of scoring chances. An errant throw from Vaughn Grissom in the fifth led to the third run of the game; with two outs, Grissom made a diving stop to corral the baseball but skipped a throw to Matt Olson, who was unable to make the grab. It was not a good night defensively for the young infielder.

Speaking of Olson, he is in a bad funk at the moment. He picked up an opposite-field single tonight, which gives him four hits total over his last 54 plate appearances. Not ideal.

The Braves could not get anything going against Alex Cobb, who is having a great year in San Francisco’s Pitching Factory. They never mounted any kind of a rally against the veteran righty despite a few infield singles early on. It was swing-and-miss all night against Cobb’s splitter with many non-competitive at bats.

The only Braves offense of the night came in the eighth. Dansby Swanson singled home two runs with the bases loaded to make it 3-2, but Austin Riley promptly hit into a double play and Olson flew out to end the threat. It was that kind of night.

The good news is the Mets lost to the Cubs on Monday night, keeping the division deficit at 1.5 with just over three weeks to go.

The series continues Tuesday night at Oracle Park as Kyle Wright takes on Jakob Junis (4-5, 3.98 ERA) at 9:45 p.m. ET. Wright struggled mightily in his most recent start in Oakland and was pushed back a day in the rotation for extra rest. Here’s hoping it gets him back on track.