San Francisco Giants: Defensive Struggles Proves Costly in Loss to D-Backs

The San Francisco Giants looked poised to win their second game of the season in the early going on Wednesday night. After jumping out to a 4-1 lead through four and a half innings, the wheels started to fall off after a two out error by Brandon Belt in the bottom of the fifth—a momentum shift the Giants ultimately could not recover from as they would go on to lose 8-6.

The San Francisco Giants got off to a hot start offensively on Wednesday night after Joe Panik knocked in Eduardo Nunez in the 2^nd inning for the first run of the game. The Giants would tally two more runs onto their lead in the third inning on an RBI single from Hunter Pence, knocking in Brandon Belt, and a sacrifice fly to increase the lead to 3-0 Giants.

In the bottom of the third, the Diamond Backs were able to cut into the Giants lead after Chris Owings singled off of Matt Moore, plating AJ Pollock. The Giants would get that run back in the fifth inning on Brandon Belt’s first home run of the year.

However, the bottom of the inning is when momentum completely shifted for the Giants. After getting two quick outs, Matt Moore began to struggle. Owings would double, Paul Goldschmidt would follow with a walk, and Jake Lamb would reach on a fielding error by Belt, scoring Owings and Goldschmidt. Then, Yasmany Tomas would knock in Lamb, and suddenly the game was tied at two.

Moore was unable to regain control of the game and the bullpen did not do him any favors. Moore would give up an RBI to Jeremy Hazelbaker before being pulled in favor of Cory Gearrin. Gearrin did not look impressive either, immediately giving up a RBI single to Pollock and then walking two hitters before finally escaping the inning trailing 6-4.

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Neil Ramirez also lacked control out of the pen, immediately allowing Yasmany Tomas to reach base after striking out to lead off the inning. Then, a rare passed ball by Buster Posey moved Chris Herrmann (pinch runner for Tomas) to second and the onslaught continued. The D-Backs would score two runs off of Ramirez to increase the deficit to 8-4.

The Giants would plate two runs in the 8^th inning after a bases loaded walk to Aaron Hill and then a wild pitch by Tom Wilhelmsen to score Brandon Crawford, but the rally would ultimately fall short and the Giants would go on to lose their second game of the season by a score of 8-6.

Takeaways:

Eduardo Nunez and Joe Panik are locked in at the plate, hitting .538 and .455, respectively.
Belt hits his first home run of the year, which would be huge if he could belt out (HA!) around 20 home runs on the year.
Buster Posey finally has a batting average. After falling victim to loud contact, but hitting the ball directly to people various times on the year, Posey was able to get two hits tonight.
Matt Moore did not have his best stuff Wednesday night. He pitched well early on, but was unable to bounce back after Belt’s error in the fifth. He started to lack command as the game went on, but it is not anything to stress about.
Aside from George Kontos, the bullpen did not pitch well as a whole. Gearrin and Ramirez both lacked control and although Ramirez struck out 4 in 1.1 innings, he gave up a lot of loud contact and routinely missed his spots.
The defensive blunders are nothing to stress out about. This is an excellent defensive team, unfortunately the Giants just had a rough night on that side of the game—it happens.

Next: Nuñez Should Bat Leadoff, Right?

The San Francisco Giants take on the Arizona Diamondbacks in the final game of the opening series, tomorrow at 6:40pm on NBC Sports Bay Area.

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