Giants' pitching is winning games despite the team's offensive woes

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Giants' pitching is winning games despite the team's offensive woes

2025-06-02 05:29 Last Updated At：05:41

MIAMI (AP) — Runs have been hard to come by lately for the San Francisco Giants. The good news is their pitching staff has made it just as difficult for opponents to score.

San Francisco ended May with a major league-best 2.64 ERA, while going 14 straight games without scoring more than four runs.

That theme continued in their series against the Miami Marlins, where they took two of three in South Florida. The Giants (33-26) reached the four-run threshold just once, in Sunday's 4-2 win, while limiting the Marlins to just three runs over the three-game series.

“Any time you win a series on the road you have to feel good about it," San Francisco manager Bob Melvin said, “especially the way we’ve been scoring runs. We’ll take it. It’d be nice offensively to break out some and put a little distance in some of these games.”

In Sunday's win, Wilmer Flores drove in a run with a groundout in the third. Luis Matos hit a three-run shot in the fourth. And that's all the scoring San Francisco managed despite eight hits.

Matos' homer, his fourth of the season, made it 4-0 and gave the Giants enough of a cushion to fend off Miami's late threat.

“The way we've been scoring runs it felt like a 20-run homer at the time,” Melvin said. “We had to grind at the end. It'd be nice to not have to play that game every day, but (it was) a huge swing for a guy that works really hard every day ... number gets called on a day like this where we're not scoring any runs and has the biggest swing of the game.”

Their pitching in the series was excellent as it was the entire month of May, despite missing three-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, who remains out with a strained right pectoral muscle.

They shut out Miami in the opener thanks to five sharp innings from Kyle Harrison, who made just his made his second start since moving to the rotation because of Verlander's injury. The Giants limited the Marlins to three hits for a second straight game on Saturday despite losing 1-0.

Hayden Birdsong, another reliever-turned-starter, limited the Marlins to two hits through five innings on Sunday before giving up three in the sixth. San Francisco's bullpen preserved the close win, with five relievers only giving up a run the rest of the way.

Their 2.64 ERA was the Giants best in a single month since posting a 1.91 ERA in September and October of 2010.

Despite their pitching, the Giants have scored just 30 runs over their last 14 games. The last time San Francisco scored four runs or fewer in 14 straight games in the same season was in 1976, when the Giants went 15 games without scoring that many.

“The runs will come. We're hitting the ball . We've just got to find that one swing obviously late in the game to pull away, Birdsong said. "But we're playing good baseball and if we keep it tight early we'll play pretty well.”

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The Golden Globes are tonight. Here's what to look for and how to watch and stream the show

The Golden Globes bill themselves as Hollywood’s booziest bash. This year, is anyone ready to party?

Political tension and industrywide uncertainty are the prevailing moods heading into Sunday night's 83rd Golden Globes. Hollywood is coming off a disappointing box-office year and now anxiously awaits the fate of one of its most storied studios, Warner Bros.

A celebratory mood might be even more elusive given that the wide majority of the performers and filmmakers congregating at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, oppose the policies of President Donald Trump. Likely to be on the minds of many attendees: the recent U.S. involvement in Venezuela and the fatal shooting of 37-year-old mother Renee Good in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But through their ups and downs, the Globes have always tried to put pomp over politics. Host Nikki Glaser has vowed as much.

“You’d be surprised that half the room had no clue why I was saying ‘Venezuela,’” Glaser told The Associated Press earlier in the week, referring to her comedy-club warm-ups. “People aren’t getting the news like we all are.”

Glaser, a comic known for her roast appearances, has promised to go after A-listers in her second time hosting.

“We’re going to hit Leo,” Glaser said. “The icebergs are coming.”

Here’s what to look for at this year’s Globes:

The Golden Globes kick off at 8 p.m. EST on CBS while streaming live for Paramount+ premium subscribers. E!’s red carpet coverage begins at 6 p.m. EST.

The Associated Press will be have a livestream show beginning at 4:30 p.m. Eastern with a mix of stars' arrivals, fashion shots and celebrity interviews. It will be available on YouTube and APNews.

The overwhelming Oscar favorite “One Battle After Another” comes in with a leading nine nominations. It’s competing in the Globes’ musical or comedy category, which means the drama side might be more competitive. There, Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet” and Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” are all in the mix.

But thus far, “One Battle After Another” has cleaned up just about everywhere. Much of Paul Thomas Anderson’s cast is nominated, including DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti and Benicio Del Toro.

If it and “Sinners” take home the two biggest prizes, it will be a banner night for Warner Bros. even as its future hangs in the balance. The studio has agreed to be acquired by Netflix is a deal worth $82.7 billion. Movie theaters have warned such a result would be “a direct and irreversible negative impact on movie theaters around the world.”

The merger awaits regulatory approval, while Paramount Skydance is still trying to convince Warner shareholders to accept its rival offer.

After an audacious promotional tour for “Marty Supreme,” Timothée Chalamet is poised to win his first Globe in five nominations. In best actor, comedy or musical, he’ll have to beat DiCaprio, a three-time Globe winner, and Ethan Hawke (“Blue Moon”).

In best actress, comedy or musical, Rose Byrne is the favorite for her performance in the not especially funny A24 indie “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” One prominent nominee in the category, Cynthia Erivo (“Wicked: For Good”), won’t be attending due to her schedule in the West End production “Dracula.”

Jessie Buckley (“Hamnet”) is the clear front-runner in best actress, drama. In the star-studded best actor, drama, category, the Brazilian actor Wagner Moura (“The Secret Agent”) may win over Michael B. Jordan (“Sinners”) and Joel Edgerton (“Train Dreams”).

In the supporting categories, Teyana Taylor and Stellan Skarsgård come in the favorites.

The Globes, formerly presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, have no overlap or direct correlation with the Academy Awards. After being sold in 2023 to Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions, a part of Penske Media, the Globes are voted on by around 400 people. The Oscars are voted on by more than 10,500 professionals.

But in the fluctuating undulations of awards season, a good speech at the Globes can really boost an Oscar campaign. Last year, that seemed to be the case for Demi Moore, who won for “The Substance” and gave the night's most emotional speech. Mikey Madison (“Anora”), however, scored the upset win at the Oscars.

A few potentially good moments this year went instead in a Golden Eve ceremony earlier this week. There, the Cecil B. DeMille and Carol Burnett honorees, Helen Mirren and Sarah Jessica Parker, accepted their awards.

One to watch, if he wins, will be the Iranian director Jafar Panahi. His revenge drama “It Was Just an Accident” is up for four awards. Panahi has spent most of his career making films clandestinely, without approval of authorities, and was until recently banned from leaving the country. Last month, he was sentenced to a year in prison, which would be only his latest stint behind bars if Panahi returns home to serve it. This week, protests over Iran’s ailing economy have spread throughout the country in a new test to Iran's leaders.

For the first time, the Globes are trotting out a new podcast category. The nominees are: “Armchair Expert,” “Call Her Daddy,” “Good Hang With Amy Poehler,” “The Mel Robbins Podcast,” “SmartLess” and “Up First.”

In TV, HBO Max’s “The White Lotus” — another potential big winner for Warner Bros. — leads with six nominations. Netflix’s “Adolescence” comes in with five nods.

But the most closely watched nominee might be “The Studio.” The first season of Seth Rogen’s Hollywood satire memorably included an episode devoted to drama around a night at the Globes. (Sample line: “I remember when the red carpet of the Golden Globes actually stood for something.”) “The Studio” is up for three awards, giving three chances for life to imitate art.

For more coverage of this year’s Golden Globe Awards, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/golden-globe-awards