Jeremy Affeldt does not give up a lot of home runs, but he left a 2-0 pitch a little too up and a little too over the plate for Giant-killer Paul Goldschmidt who sent it over the right-field wall in the 8th to decide the game. Matt Cain left after 7+ with a 1-0 lead, having surrendered an infield single to A.J. Pollock. Ol' Boch summoned his normally stalwart lefty who induced a groundout from pinch-hitter Wil Nieves and then struck out leadoff man Gerardo Parra. Unfortunately he then walked Willie Bloomquist to bring the slugging Arizona first baseman to the plate. Dave Righetti made a trip to the mound and said "down, down, down, there's a lefty up next" or something to that effect, and it looked for all the world that Miguel Montero would get his chance, but then it was a three-run bomb and the gig was up.
Matt Cain gave up a hit, walked three guys, and threw 31 pitches in the 1st but wriggled out of the jam, courtesy mostly of the aforementioned Goldschmidt who hit into a double play. Cain got another 6-4-3 out of him later, and followed that with a whiff in the 6th. It looked like a good night. Matty put up six more zeros with only 72 pitches and had Pollock 0-2 before the high-hop grounder to third in the 8th finally ended his night. It was a good start (Game Score 66), and kept the Giants in the game against the Diamondback's young lefty. Patrick Corbin was clinical through the first six, using only 70 pitches to subdue the lineup, but a broken-bat hit from Pablo Sandoval and a two-out single from Gregor Blanco finally broke the ice. Panda, on his gimpy leg, raced to third on a fly out to right from Joaquin Arias (pinch-hitting for an overmatched Brandon Crawford who swung and missed the six pitches he'd seen) to get the extra ninety feet and make the hit from Blanco count. Alas, it was not to be enough. The Giants usually hang on to late leads and usually squeak out the close ones. Not tonight. Matt Cain pitched well, and despite the loss to the division front-runners, that has to be worth something. If the starters can grind out quality innings and string together good outings then the team can get back to their championship form. Madison Bumgarner gets his shot tomorrow.
GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
p.s. Angel Pagan was finally put on the 15-day DL, retroactive to May 28th. Fresno OF Juan Perez takes his spot.
p.p.s. Brandon Belt made a sweet grab-and-throw on an grounder from Corbin in the 6th to get Didi Gregorius (who doubled to start the inning) at the plate and preserve the 0-0 tie.
3 comments:
This one is on Bochy. Once he walked the guy in front of Goldschmidt, we knew his control was amiss, and it was time to pull a Felipe Alou, and change pitchers. He did not, and proactively thousands of fans knew this was a mistake. This time the fans were correct, and Bochy was wrong. That is unless any decent righty reliever was not available.
That was an awful ending to a good game. I hate that Goldschmidt. I was psyched that we were going to give Corbin his first "L" of the year, but no. Damn he's good.
Once again, the Giants pitching staff had to be perfect, and as they were not, lost the game. That is 8 runs for 6 games in the month of June. A 1.33 runs/game average is not the stuff first place teams are made of.
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