San Francisco Giants lose pitching duel to Jacob deGrom, Mets

Travis d’Arnaud knocked in the first run of the game on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh inning, and the New York Mets went on to defeat the San Francisco Giants, 4-2, Saturday night at Citi Field in New York.  Both starting pitchers took no-hitters into the seventh inning, with Jacob deGrom outlasting Jake Peavy.

Pablo Sandoval finally cracked deGrom with an opposite field double with two out in the top of the seventh, but Michael Morse followed immediately with a ground ball to David Wright who easily threw him out at first.  That left the door open for the Mets.

With one out in the bottom of the seventh, and nineteen consecutive batters retired for Peavy, Daniel Murphy hit a deep drive to left field that Michael Morse initially took one step in on before retreating back to make a futile effort to snag what turned out to be a double.  The next batter up, David Wright, singled into left field, putting runners on second and third.  

Peavy walked Lucas Duda before d’Arnaud hit his sacrifice fly, scoring the first run of the game.  Juan Legares lost no time knocking in Wright with a single to left.  Wilmer Flores added the two critical insurance runs with a double, plating both Duda and Legares.

The Giants responded with two runs of their own in the top of the eighth, when Brandon Belt singled and Juan Perez doubled him to third.  Up stepped old friend Travis Ishikawa, who promptly doubled in both Belt and Perez.  Belt had four solid at-bats, lining out to deep center field in the second inning, when Juan Legares made a stunning, full-stride, last-second snag of his blast.  Belt walked in the fifth and singled in both the eighth and ninth innings.  

The name of the game, though, for the first six innings was pitching.  Talk about taking a pitching duel to the next level.  Jake Peavy had a perfect game going into the seventh and the only mar on deGrom’s night was the walk to Belt.

In a season where the Giants were not in a pennant race, I would have marked it down as a highly entertaining game, regardless of the outcome, especially since the Giants got the go-ahead batter to the plate in the ninth inning. 

As it turned out, it just meant another disheartening loss due to insufficient offense.  Angel Pagan cannot return too soon for San Francisco.