Giants lose to White Sox, streak now at 4 games

The San Francisco Giants finally lost a game to an American League team. The Chicago White Sox beat them 8-2 in the first of two games between the teams in the Windy City. That’s the 4th straight loss for the first place Giants, their longest losing streak of the season. This one looked promising, but got away from Matt Cain in the middle innings.

The Giants showed signs of life early on. Hunter Pence took John Danks deep in the top of the 1st inning. It looked like the ball would be flying tonight. The only other run the Giants managed to push across though came in the 3rd inning. Buster Posey singled to drive in Gregor Blanco, who was at 2nd after an error on White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez.

It started to unravel with 2 outs in the bottom of the 3rd inning. Cain had cruised up until that point only throwing 28 pitches after facing the White Sox lineup once. Adam Eaton singled to right field to bring up Gordon Beckham. On the 9th pitch of the at bat Beckham won the battle by blasting a home run into the left field stands to tie the game 2-2.

The bottom of the 4th inning brought on the parade of singles. First, Jose Abreu singled to left to start the inning. After an Adam Dunn strikeout, Alexei Ramirez blooped one down the left field line that fell between Gregor Blanco and Brandon Crawford for a single. Dayan Viciedo then singled to left on the first pitch he saw from Cain to load the bases.

After Alejandro De Aza fouled out third, Cain looked like he could get out of the jam. It didn’t happen as he walked 9th-hitter Tyler Flowers to give the Sox a 3-2 lead. Eaton followed that with an infield hit to Crawford, who proceeded to throw the ball in to the stands so that another run could score and it was a 5-2 game.

The Sox added 3 more in the bottom of the 5th inning. Conor Gillaspie led off with a single to left field. It looked as if Cain had Adam Dunn struck out on a 2-2 pitch at the knees, but he didn’t get the call tonight. The result was a 3-2 pitch that got lined into the outfield to score Gillaspie and make it 6-2.

Dayan Viciedo then hit a 2 run home run deep in the seats out in left field to extend it to the 8-2 score that became the final. Viciedo had all of 4 hits in the month of June coming into tonight’s game, he went 2 for 4 and scored 2 runs.

John Danks pretty much had his way with the Giants lineup. He limited them to 4 singles and the one home run by Pence. Both Sandoval and Pence went 2-for-4 and were the only Giants to collect multiple hits.

That’s 7 losses in the last 8 games for the Giants. This time it wasn’t the bullpen late, but the starter early getting banged up for runs. Yusmeiro Petit actually threw 3 hitless innings after taking over for Cain. So, there’s something positive.

It’s early baseball tomorrow at U.S. Cellular Field as these two teams will get under way at 11:10 am PT. If you can, tune in, this promises to be a great pitching matchup. RHP Tim Hudson (7-2, 1.81 ERA) faces off against LHP Chris Sale (5-1, 1.97 ERA) in a battle of the tiny ERA’s. We’ll see if Hudson can continue to be the stopper the Giants need him to be.