San Francisco Giants Hold on to Beat Arizona Diamondbacks
The San Francisco Giants put up a good offensive performance against the Arizona Diamondbacks but still made it a close one, winning 6-5.
The Giants gave Arizona pitcher Josh Collmenter the worst start so far of his rookie campaign.
Collmenter came in to tonight’s game with a 4-1 record and 1.12 ERA. He left it with those marks now at 4-2 and 1.86.
In five innings, he surrendered five earned runs, more than he had given up in his first five starts combined (four).
San Francisco notched 11 hits tonight, including three doubles. Every position player in the starting lineup got at least one hit. Manny Burriss, Cody Ross and Brandon Crawford got hits each.
The key contributor was Ross, who knocked a pair of those two-baggers. He went 2-for-4 and drove in two.
Cody Ross (Credit: Flickr user artolog via Creative Commons License)
But it was not just his bat that served the Giants well.
Ross also scored twice thanks to what Giants announcer Duane Kuiper called his “good instincts on the basepaths”.
In the fourth, he led off with a double. He scored on a safety squeeze.
Matt Cain bunted the ball foul in his first two attempts before finally getting it down perfectly.
He scored again the very next inning while Brandon Crawford kept the Diamondbacks busy with a rundown.
The ball went from Miguel Montero to Kelly Johnson to Xavier Nady to Stephen Drew before Crawford was finally tagged out, giving Ross time to come home.
Pablo Sandoval also made an immediate impact in his first game back from the disabled list.
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He got the last of three straight singles to start the game. His drove in Andres Torres to give San Francisco the 1-0 lead.
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From that point on, the Giants never trailed and the game was never tied. However, Arizona did make it close.
Entering the bottom of the fifth, San Francisco led 5-0. The Diamondbacks scored five runs of their own over the next three innings.
The big blow was a three-run homer by Montero in the sixth to make it 5-4, though it should have been a two-run shot.
After Drew doubled, Chris Young bunted. Cain’s throw beat him to first base and Aubrey Huff kept his foot on the bag, but first base umpire Dana DeMuth called Young safe.
Nate Schierholtz doubled home Huff in the seventh to preserve the Giants’ lead.
Closer Brian Wilson retired pinch-hitter Willie Bloomquist on his first pitch of the night. Then, he brought torture into the mix.
It took him six pitches to retire Ryan Roberts. Then, he walked Johnson and Justin Upton.
Upton faced an 0-2 count before reaching six pitches later.
Wilson also started off 0-2 against Drew, the next batter. He then threw a wild pitch to put runners at second and third, at least according to the third base umpire.
Catcher Chris Stewart, who entered the game in the eighth, retrieved the ball and fired it to Sandoval. The third baseman blocked the bag with his foot, preventing Johnson from touching it. However, Doug Eddings called him safe.
Unlike DeMuth’s in the sixth, this mistaken call did not hurt the Giants.
Wilson’s very next pitch was called strike three to end the game.
San Francisco now holds a 2.5 game lead over the Diamondbacks for first place in the National League West.
The series continues today at 6:40 p.m. PDT.
Probable Pitchers: Madison Bumgarner (2-8, 3.23) vs. Joe Saunders (3-6, 4.56)
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big deal zito threw a triple a shutout theres no room in the rotation on the big club is there?
Zito threw a triple? I’m not sure what you mean by that. And Zito has been a very good pitcher in the past and has been doing well lately. Yes, that is in the minors, but he says he feels like he is getting back to the pitcher he once was–the pitcher that won a Cy Young Award–and he deserves a shot at showing whether or not that could be true. As for their not being enough room for him, yes the Giants will have to work around that and deal with it, but that is part of Bruce Bochy’s job.