San Francisco Giants’ Samardzija dominant in 9-2 win

The San Francisco Giants snapped a nine-game losing streak to the Colorado Rockies and the offense attacked early and kept the line moving toward a rare win.

Jeff Samardzija pitched well as the San Francisco Giants’ offense erupted for nine runs to beat the Colorado Rockies 9-2 in San Francisco.

It didn’t take long for the Giants to respond on the field to reports of the problems happening off the field. Denard Span started the bottom half of the first by singling, but was later thrown out trying to steal second. Hunter Pence then singled on a groundball that third baseman Nolan Arenado couldn’t handle completely. He later scored on Buster Posey’s double off the base of the wall between center and left field.

Jeff Samardzija escaped his early-inning troubles, only allowing two hits through three innings and avoiding the big inning.

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After allowing back-to-back singles to Charlie Blackmon and Dj LeMahieu with two outs, Samardzija settled down to make a big pitch to force a Nolan Arenado ground out to Brandon Crawford who flipped it to third for the final out.

The San Francisco Giants would tack on another run in the bottom half of the third as Span walked to begin the inning and was moved over by Joe Panik’s single. Pence hit a sacrifice fly to move Span to third, and he scored on Posey’s sacrifice fly. Brandon Belt then tripled off the wall near “Triples Alley” to score Panik easily, extending the score to 3-0.

Momentum carried over from the inning before as Gorkys Hernandez started the bottom half of the fourth by singling, and moved to second on Samardzija’s sacrifice bunt. Span then tripled between center and right field. Panik stuck to the old formula of San Francisco Giants’ winning baseball and sacrificed the runner in with a fly ball for a 5-0 lead.

San Francisco Giants’ offense sure looked anything but boring early, and the fans were into the game from the first pitch. Samardzija finally had a comfortable lead he could just relax and have fun pitching with his general Buster Posey.

Speaking of Samardzija, he pitched an outstanding game going 6.1 innings, allowing two runs, while striking out five and walking none as usual.

Samardzija did encounter some traffic in the seventh as he allowed back-to-back singles to begin the inning.  He then got Ian Desmond to ground out for the first out, before Trevor Story delivered a single for the Rockies first run.

Hunter Strickland would enter the game and allow a single to Tony Wolters to shrink the lead to 5-2.  He then followed to strike out Pat Valaika on a ball in the dirt that advanced the runners to second and third.  Charlie Blackmon followed that by walking to load the bases for Dj LeMahieu to ground out softly to the pitcher as Strickland tagged him to end the threat.

San Francisco Giants added some insurance in the bottom of the seventh as Posey and Pence both singled back-to-back and Crawford singled to bring home Pence and extend the lead to 6-2.

Leading off the bottom of the eighth inning the Rockies gave the San Francisco Giants some more insurance.  Hernandez reached second on an error by left fielder Ian Desmond, and later scored on Kelby Tomlinson‘s RBI double down the first base line for a 7-2 lead. Tomlinson then stole third and later scored on Panik’s single.  Pence singled him over to third, and then scored on Posey’s single to extend the lead to 9-2.

NOTES FROM GAME

• Samardzija showed up big for a game the Giants needed. He sat 93-96 with his fastball and kept hitters off balance all night with a combination of sliders and curveballs. His slider I would like to point out was the difference for him tonight, as he commanded the pitch very well. As mentioned earlier, he also avoided the big inning, which is crucial for him.

• Denard Span is heating up and added some very solid contact during his at-bats tonight. What I might have enjoyed most was his speed around the bases during his triple and that’s because the ball was not shot deep into triples alley. It’s good to see him running freely after the last season and a half rumblings of his legs being gone.

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