San Francisco Giants Drop Opening Game in San Diego

The San Francisco Giants and their fans are sick of Arizona. The team spent all spring training there and lost three out of their first four games there to start the season. Now they start a three game series at their home away from home…San Diego.

The San Francisco Giants look to bounce back from a rough four-game series against the D-Backs, as they take on the Padres today. These next few games in San Diego could be exactly what the team’s pitching staff needs, as they escape the pitchers nightmare that is Chase Field.

Todays game features Matt Cain going up against Padres’ Luis Perdomo. With Cain on the hill, Bruce Bochy will put Nick Hundley in the squat as the two veterans look to silence the Padres. Giants lineup has a few changes from the Arizona series, including Joe Panik leading off for the first time in his career. The rest of the lineup looks like:

Panik, 2B
Hill, LF
Belt, 1B
Crawford, SS
Hundley, C
Nunez, 3B
Parker, RF
Hernandez, CF
Cain, P

Scoring

Scoring got started right away as Panik leads off the game with a double, eventually being moved to third and scoring on a balk from pitcher Perdomo. The Padres follow up immediately, as Matt Cain gives up a solo home run to the very first batter he faces this year, Manuel Margot.

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Fast forward to the bottom of the 3rd, Margo up again and AGAIN he hits a solo homer off of Cain making it 2-1 Padres. Later in the inning, Cain yields a double to Myers and then a single to Solarte as he knocks in Myers making it 3-1 Padres.

Giants offense would remain quiet for the time being as Solarte knocks in another run in the bottom half of the 5th, as the Padres then led 4-1. Cains day would be done after loading the bases in the 5th, departing with a line of 4.1IP, 4ER, 6H, 3BB’s and 3K’s.

Giants finally respond in the top of the 6th as Gillaspie singles and Panik doubles, putting runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out.

After an Aaron Hill walk to load the bases, Brandon Belt comes up and launches a huge grand slam to give the Giants a 5-4 lead in the 6th.

Bottom of the seventh, Kontos comes in and gives up a few hits as the Padres re-take the lead on a Solarte double that scores two. The bullpen has once again blown a lead this year, as they cannot hold onto the one-run lead. Kontos implodes this inning as he struggles to get out of the inning. Giants go to the 8th trailing 7-5.

Would you believe me if i said Belt would go deep AGAIN in the 8th inning? Well you should, because he did. Giants go to the bottom half of the 8th trailing only by one after Belts solo fly.

What we learned from this game:

Matt Cain is living up to expectations, and no thats not a good thing. Cain was roughed up in his first start, giving the Twitter GM’s more firepower against him.
Brandon Belt is starting off red-hot like he usually does. Hopefully he can carry it over to the second half.
Its only the fifth game of the season so im not going to worry just yet, but the bullpen has been a huge issue so far this season. They have blown a lead in three of the five games this year.
The Giants offense is good, and when healthy has nice depth. Starting the year a little banged up, the Giants have used a lot of their bench players to fill holes.
Giants pitchers (starters and bullpen) have allowed allowed 5+ runs in four out of five games this year. The starting rotation getting roughed up by the long ball, giving up eight home runs in five starts.

Next: What do we take away from the opening series?

Finals for todays game:

Giants: 6, Padres: 7

W: Torres (1-0, 5.40 ERA) L: Kontos (0-1, 10.13 ERA)

Tomorrow the Giants send Bumgarner to the mound to do what he does best against the Padres

Game tomorrow is a 5:40 start time

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