San Francisco Giants Win, Ryan Vogelsong Filets The Fish

Ryan Vogelsong has been proving the doubters wrong lately, and Sunday afternoon was no different. The Giants beat the Marlins 4-1 behind 7 scoreless innings from Vogelsong. He only allowed 5 hits and 1 walk while striking out 6 Marlins.

Angel Pagan did not start today because of a sore shoulder he suffered in last night’s ball game.

Gregor Blanco proved once again to be a capable fill-in as he ignited the Giants offense in the bottom of the 1st inning. Blanco reached base to lead off the inning when he was hit by a pitch in the foot. He then stole second base.

Replays on the television showed that he may have been tagged on the foot before his hand touched the bag. The Marlins did not challenge and Blanco was safe. It may have been a case of a manager not wanting to lose his challenge with nobody out in the 1st inning.

Hunter Pence then grounded out to the second baseman to move Blanco to third. Buster Posey then lifted a fly ball and Blanco scored on the sacrifice fly. The Giants led 1-0 before recording their first hit thanks to a manufactured run.

The hits came for the Giants, immediately. Pablo Sandoval followed all that action with 2-out single to extend his hitting streak to 9 games. Michael Morse followed with a single of his own and the Giants had a rally going.

Tyler Colvin singled to center field and Sandoval scored to make it 2-0 Giants. Brandon Hicks followed with a rope to left field that plated Morse and the Giants were up 3-0. The Giants had four straight 2-out hits in the bottom of the first inning. I’m pretty sure I will be revisiting this with tomorrow’s toteboard.

After that, there wasn’t much of anything. It wasn’t boring, but you could definitely chat with grandma and not miss a thing during the middle innings of this game. Vogelsong was in a groove not allowing many hard hits, and Marlins starter Jacob Turner was able to keep the Giants mostly in check.

Pablo Sandoval got to Turner again in the 5th when he blasted a solo home run to left center field to extend the lead to 4-0. It was Sandoval’s 3rd HR this season, but if he’s starting to heat up, there should be many more of those to come. The fact that he’s driving the ball the opposite way shows that Sandoval is hitting with more balance than he was earlier this season.

Poor Jacob Turner of the Marlins. He is now 0-11 in 18 starts on the road in his young career. He pitched pretty well after that first inning. He may be a big fan of the #KillTheWin movement.

The Giants bullpen wasn’t lights out, but wasn’t bad either. Jeremy Affledt had a rough outing allowing 2 hits in 3 batters. He was charged for the only run the Marlins scored. Santiago Casilla bounced back from Friday night’s loss and was pretty good in his 2/3 of an inning. He was able to retire a pinch-hitting Giancarlo Stanton on a pop up to get out of a 2 on, 2 out jam in the 8th.

Sergio Romo came in and closed it out for his 15th save this season. It looked like he landed funny on his first couple of pitches, but was able to work the kinks out and retire the last 3 batters he faced. He’s now 15 for 16 in save chances this season.

The Giants are off tomorrow for the first time in over 2 weeks. They just ended a streak of 17 straight days of games and went 11-6 during that period. After the day off they head to Colorado for a quick 3 game set before returning home to host Minnesota next weekend.