San Francisco Giants break out bats, go fishing against Miami Marlins

The San Francisco Giants returned from the All Star Break with a bang. They came out swinging and defeated the Miami Marlins 9-1 and they did it with the long ball and some good two out hitting. It was a good start to the “2nd half” and Madison Bumgarner picked up his 11th win this season and 1st career win against the Marlins.

Hitting

Every starter with the exception of Bumgarner and Brandon Belt had a hit tonight, including home runs by Brandon Crawford and Pablo Sandoval, and doubles by Michael Morse and Hunter Pence. They scored 9 runs on 13 hits and went 6-for-11 with runners in scoring position. From the plate, nearly everyone looked good and rested, even Belt hit a ball in the 9th inning to the wall and most certainly thought it was a home run.

Crawford got the Giants on the board in the 2nd inning with a 2-run home run and the Giants didn’t look back after that. Crawford ended the night with 3 RBIs and hopefully some confidence heading into the last half. Posey and Morse were both 3-for-4, and had 2 and 1 RBIs, respectively. Joe Panik and Pablo Sandoval each had two hits, with one of Pablo’s being a 3-run home run.

Pence made an amazing wall grab in the 2nd inning that also shouldn’t be overlooked.

Pitching

Even with all the hitting, Bumgarner was still the star of the game. He pitched 6 innings and 84 pitches, and really could have pitched longer, but with the large lead, it was a good opportunity for Bruce Bochy to get the bullpen in a little bit of work after the break. Bumgarner allowed 4 hits and only 1 run. The one run came off a Giancarlo Stanton solo shot to center field. Bumgarner struck out 7, walked 2, and looked sharp all night long. He didn’t give the Marlins much to hit and made sure the Giants padded lead stayed that way.

Yusmeiro Petit, Javier Lopez, and Juan Gutierrez pitched the 6th through 8th innings, each giving up 1 hit, but not allowing any runs. Jean Machi came into the 9th inning to close it out, and in Mean Jean style, was perfect doing so.

Nathan Eovaldi continued his trend of getting owned against the Giants. His ERA against the Giants was 12.27 before tonight. After allowing 8 runs in just 4 innings, you can bet never will be too soon for him to face the Giants again.

Overall

The Giants looked rested and ready to play tonight and pitching was mostly sharp. Crawford left the game in the 7th inning, apparently bruising his knee diving for a ball, according to Henry Schulman. It’s not expected to be serious and Bochy said Crawford could have stayed in. With such a large lead, it made sense to be cautious given the number of players already injured on the team.