PHOENIX _ There was plenty to critique in Chris Stratton's outing Sunday afternoon.
He walked the leadoff batter four times in six innings. When you are facing a lineup with six left-handed batters, plus Paul Goldschmidt and J.D. Martinez, that usually works as well as chasing a bear with a butterfly net.
Stratton made it work for him. Somehow, even against the league's livelier lineups, he keeps finding a way to make it work. And if he had any run support, the soft-spoken rookie with the basic-training haircut might have won his third consecutive start instead of coming up on the wrong end in the Giants' 11-0 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field.
Stratton struck out 10 in six innings and it was a 2-0 game before the Diamondbacks broke it open in the ninth against Matt Cain while coasting into a three-game sweep.
The final margin only mattered to pad Paul Goldschmidt's MVP stats. He hit the first of three consecutive home runs in the ninth off Cain and Cory Gearrin as the Diamondbacks all but used blasting caps in a nine-run ninth.
The Giants offense was a dud all weekend. They created next to nothing against left-hander Patrick Corbin, the middle of their lineup looks completely gassed, and in an era when other teams are taking two pails to the power font, Bruce Bochy's squad continues to thirst for the long ball.
It will be up to the Giants front office to get creative this winter and augment the lineup so it can better compete in this era of exit velocity, uppercut swings and baseballs so hard they should be dimpled.
In a way, Stratton's continued emergence could help those efforts. (More on that in a moment.)
The right-handed rookie overcame a vulnerability against left-handed hitters against a Diamondbacks lineup loaded with them, snapped his curveball, made his 93 mph heater play up by firing it at the letters and struck out 10 for the second time in three starts.
He held the Diamondbacks to two runs on four hits in six innings. Martinez cracked a home run in the sixth that soared over the swimming pool _ a mammoth drive for a pitch that came within a couple inches of jamming him. Arizona's only other run scored with two outs in the second inning when Rey Fuentes struck out on a wild pitch and Chris Herrmann crossed the plate.
Herrmann was the only one of Stratton's four leadoff walks to score, and while he shouldn't make a habit of sticking his hand in the cobra basket, the stuff he displayed from the stretch should only further convince management that he has the ability to be a part of the staff in 2018.
If Stratton could establish himself as a viable No. 5 starter candidate for next season, it's possible that Ty Blach could become a swingman contributor alongside Will Smith in a bullpen that lacks both dependable long relief as well as left-handed presence.
And the Giants could focus their roster-fixing energies on other areas, like finding right-handed power that can play in their ballpark.
Even at livelier Chase Field, the Giants had trouble generating enough offense to squeak out one win despite holding the Diamondbacks to eight runs in two games plus the first eight innings Sunday.
Buster Posey managed one single in the entire series. Hunter Pence, playing on a bad hamstring, had one infield hit in three games. They each grounded into a double play on Sunday to complete a series in which they combined to go 2 for 22. They hit a total of two balls beyond the infield.
The better vibes belonged to Stratton, who entered having thrown 12 2/3 scoreless innings in his previous two starts against the Nationals and Brewers _ two of the league's better offensive clubs.
A skeptic would point out that he caught the sleepy Nationals in the first game of a doubleheader after a rain-delayed night game. And the Brewers were in a bit of a lull when Stratton faced them at AT&T Park last Monday.
He received a stiffer test at Chase Field, especially since left-handers had a .340 average and .443 on-base percentage against him this season.
Stratton executed well. He struck out No.3 hitter Jake Lamb three times and held lefties to two hits in 13 at-bats. He also benefited from a call or two, including one that so enraged David Peralta in the fifth inning that he wielded his bat like a sledgehammer into the dirt to draw an ejection from plate umpire Ron Kulpa.
Prior to the game, Bochy agreed with a reporter's notion that the start would provide a good opportunity to evaluate Stratton. But he disagreed with the notion that Stratton's place in the rotation could hinge on how he performed.
"We're not going to do that to him," Bochy said. "He's throwing the ball too well. He's had two good starts against two good teams. No, we won't go start to start."
That's a particularly important statement right now because Johnny Cueto made what he and the Giants hoped will be a final rehab start for Single-A San Jose.
Cueto might need another tuneup, though. He gave up eight runs (five earned) on nine hits in 3 2/3 innings against Stockton, including a grand slam, while striking out four.
Cueto threw 72 pitches, didn't walk a batter and picked a runner off base. But he couldn't pitch around an error by infielder Jonah Arenado.
Cain and Cueto gave up 16 runs on a day when neither of them started a big league game.
The Giants have lost all six of their road series since the break, and have been swept in two of them.
Their road series record this season is 3-16-2. They've been swept six times and have swept an opponent just once.
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