Giants Lose to D’Backs; Giants 1, D’Backs 3

Well that sucked. Even the ninth inning when the D’Backs had a couple of misplayed balls, it still sucked. At least the Giants won the series and that does count for something.

Jul 21, 2013; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher

(40) throws the first pitch of the first inning in a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at AT

Madison Bumgarner pitched great and lowered his overall ERA to 2.93 as he gave up 1 run on 7.0 IP. The problem was 1 run was given up in the top of the first on a fluke play. Diamondback’s 3B Martin Prado hit a one out triple to left center field. It hit off of Kensuke Tanaka’s glove for an almost out. (That out was the difference in the game) That gave Paul Goldschmidt a chance to increase his RBI total with a sacrifice fly to left field.

Bumgarner was in and out of trouble all game long. He let the lead off hitter on base, four of the seven innings, including a lead off double in the fourth inning and Goldschmidt stayed there for the rest of the inning.

The Giants had an opportunity in the sixth inning. After Buster Posey led off the inning with a walk. Pablo Sandoval hit a double to left center field. Tim Flannery waived Posey home, the relay from the outfield was perfect and Posey was out at home for the first out. That was their opportunity for the game. This was the third time in the last two games that the Giants recorded an out at home plate. That’s three too many for my count.

In the top of the eighth, after getting the first out, Sandy Rosario had a weird hit that should have been an out. Two relief pitchers later there was a bases loaded situation with two outs and who else but Cody Ross comes to the plate. He gets a single to drive in two more runs.

Fast forward to the bottom of the ninth and things get real interesting. First, Hunter Pence reaches on an error by the pitcher Brad Ziegler. Next batter, Brandon Belt hits a single up the middle that was stopped by the second baseman and was unable to record an out. Third batter, Kensuke Tanaka hits a double play ball to the second baseman who records the out at second base but, overthrows the relay to first baseman. Hunter Pence scores on the error. Tanaka then tries to take second base on the error but, Paul Goldschmidt’s strike to second base was too good and now there was two outs. Brandon Crawford hit a single to extend the inning but, Jeff Franceour hit a fielder’s choice to end the game.