Hungry Giants not panicking amid early-season funk

SAN FRANCISCO -- Matt Chapman is typically a savvy baserunner, but he got caught trying to do too much on Sunday.

With the Giants down by three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, Chapman was thrown out on an attempted steal of second base, a regrettable decision that served as a capper to a mistake-filled series loss to the Mets.

“If I could do it over again, I would not elect to steal that base,” Chapman said before Monday’s series opener against the Phillies. “I was paying attention. I just kind of made a bad decision there. … But we’ve got a new series today, and we're just going to try to put that past us.”

Chapman did his best to atone for the miscue on Monday, delivering a two-run triple to put the Giants on the board in the third inning. But it wasn’t enough to snap the club out of its early-season funk. San Francisco’s bullpen couldn’t preserve a two-run lead in the seventh inning, allowing the Phillies to rally for a 6-4 win and hand the Giants their fourth consecutive loss.

San Francisco dropped to a National League-worst 3-8 and 1-7 at Oracle Park, its poorest start to a season at home since 2000 (1-7).

“We’re getting tested right now,” right-hander Adrian Houser said. “Obviously, it’s no time to overreact or anything like that. It’s the second week of the season. There’s plenty of time to turn this around, plenty of time to play better ball.”

The Giants took a 4-2 lead into the seventh, but the Phillies came back after Justin Crawford and Trea Turner led off with back-to-back singles to knock Houser out of the game.

Manager Tony Vitello brought in left-hander Ryan Borucki to face the pocket of lefties in the heart of the Phillies’ order, but Borucki issued a four-pitch walk to Kyle Schwarber to load the bases and then gave up a game-tying, two-run single to Bryce Harper that got past a diving Rafael Devers at first base.

“Obviously, you can’t start with walking Schwarber on four pitches,” Borucki said. “You’ve got to give them credit. They put together a couple of good at-bats and kind of broke the game open. Just disappointed. Mentally, I was ready for what I wanted to do. I just didn’t execute.”

Alec Bohm followed with a go-ahead double off Borucki, who has surrendered four runs over four innings (9.00 ERA) over his first five appearances of the year. Brandon Marsh added a sacrifice fly off Caleb Kilian to cap the four-run rally and extend the Phillies’ lead to 6-4.

It was the second consecutive day the Giants’ bullpen has faltered, as the group also blew a one-run lead in the eighth inning against the Mets on Sunday.

“It was more of a sting for House -- he pitched his butt off today and he didn’t deserve how it finished with me,” Borucki said. “Just let the team down. That’s really where it stings. We should have won that game. I just didn’t do my part to get the job done, and it equated to a loss. But tomorrow is a new day. The sun will come up, we’ll go from there and just keep going. It’s a long year.”

The Giants had another lefty, Matt Gage, warming in the bullpen in the seventh, but Vitello said he planned to use the 33-year-old journeyman for the start of an inning, which is why he decided to summon Borucki to relieve Houser.

“I don’t know who else was playing catch at the time, but [Borucki] was the one that was going to face Schwarber and Harper all along,” Vitello said.

Nothing seems to be clicking right now for the Giants, who have been outscored 30-9 over their current four-game skid. They managed to jump out to a 4-0 lead against Phillies rookie Andrew Painter on Monday, but their bats went silent over the final five innings, resulting in another frustrating loss for a club that is still searching for a way to turn things around.

“I don't think that there's bad vibes or anything like that here,” Chapman said. “We know what we're capable of, and we're not playing to our capabilities so far. It’s still early. It's no reason to panic, but we're hungry and determined to get where we need to be.”