San Francisco Giants Get Safety And Two Touchdowns In Win Over Rockies

Irritated by their lack of, well, everything, Giants Manager Bruce Bochy held a closed door team meeting prior to this evenings tilt. He couldn’t have picked a better opponent.

Facing his former team for the first time, Jonathan Sanchez looked every part of the space cadet he’s been this year, giving up six base runners in his three innings of work before being replaced in the Rockies odd four-man rotation scheme. Sadly, the Giants, who had Sanchez on the ropes immediately couldn’t deliver the knockout blow as the inconsistent left hander tight roped out of jam after jam in his 67 pitch stint, only giving up one earned run in the process. The same couldn’t be said for Rockies reliever Matt Reynolds though, who entered the game with a respectable 3.57 ERA. I hope for his sake, he took a picture of it because he wont be seeing it again for the foreseeable future. Reynolds was absolutely mauled by the Giants in the 8th as they unleashed six runs on the big lefty, five of them earned – the lone unearned run due to his own error. The Giants added a few more in the ninth to top off the 16-4 victory.

A Vogey Streak Ends – You wouldn’t know it by looking at the final score, but at one point late in this game, the score was actually relatively tight after the Rockies mounted a mini-comeback against Ryan Vogelsong in the 7th inning. After six shutout frames, the Giants right-hander appeared to be tiring in the Colorado heat, leaving balls up in the zone which resulted in multiple consecutive extra base hits. The end result was a four run inning for the Rockies, which ended Vogelsong’s streak of 16 straight quality starts, also making it only the second time this season where Vogelsong gave up more than three earned runs in a game. Ironically enough, Vogelsong, who’s been a hard luck loser thanks to a lack of run support over and over this season, picked a great night to have a blip on the radar as the Giants scored their season high in runs. That said, Vogey pitched much better than the box score will read.

Pence Is Off The Snide – I’d say Hunter Pence still looks uncomfortable with his new situation, but, Hunter Pence always looks uncomfortable. The awkward outfielder finally joined the party tonight though, getting his first hit as a San Francisco Giant – a game in which he also added an RBI and stolen base. However, despite the one hit, Pence could only muster a 1-6 evening, bringing his tally to 1-12 as a Giant in his first three games. Here’s to a bit more offensive success in the near future.

Offensive Outburst Has Its Issues – It’s pretty difficult to complain about 16 runs on 16 hits, but, leave it to me to find issue with it. Despite the whooping, the Giants individually (not team LOB) left 21 men on base tonight, most of the damage coming from the bottom half of the order as the 5-8 spots in the lineup left 18 of those 21. If there was ever an ugly blowout, this was it. Still – a win is a win, ugly or not, but the Giants have to improve their approach against higher quality teams. What works against the ‘Stros, Rockies, Cubs and Padres doesn’t work so well against the upper echelon squads. Hopefully they’ll be able to be a bit more effective in St. Louis to end this six game roadie.

Madison Bumgarner and his snot rockets try to keep the momentum going tomorrow at 6PM.