San Francisco Giants: Arroyo’s legend continues to grow in Giants’ win

The San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals played one of the best games of the season… in Rob Manfred’s eyes. They were able to get through 9 innings in just a matter of 2hrs and 20 minutes. Too bad there was a rain delay, and then the game went into the 13th. Christian Arroyo came up clutch, yet again.

The San Francisco Giants played quite a pacy game, as both them and the Cardinals seemed worried about getting through the game before inclement weather entered the St. Louis Metro. The game was scoreless headed into extra innings.

Jeff Samardzija pitched eight solid innings, striking out eight and walking none. He only surrendered five hits over those eight innings. Carlos Martinez was incredible as well, only allowing two hits over his own nine scoreless innings.

Trevor Rosenthal came in the tenth for the Cardinals, and got a 1-2-3 inning against the heart of the Giants order. Osich and Law each made an appearance as well. Osich was the more interesting of the two. He only faced one batter, Matt Carpenter who flipped a ball out into deep left field. Eduardo Nunez got incredibly lucky that Carpenter attempted to go to third base. He completely misplayed the ball off the wall, but nailed Carpenter who was trying to stretch it into a triple. Derek Law came in and finished off the inning.

Derek Law’s only concern was with two outs in the bottom of the tenth. Aldemys Diaz tattooed a ball to deep center field. Denard Span tracked it down and made an incredible leaping, over the shoulder catch to rob Diaz of extra bases. As the Cardinals were taking the field in the eleventh, the tarps rolled out for the rain delay.

After the Giants got through a pretty scary 12th inning, the Giants started things off with a one-out, Buster Posey single. Brandon Crawford and Nunez followed suit with singles of their own. Then, Christian Arroyo hit the 12th pitch of his at bat off the wall in left center to give the Giants a 2-0 lead. Nick Hundley came in and got Nunez home on a sac fly to right. Melancon then came in and closed out the ninth in less than smooth fashion.

Three Things:

1. Jeff Samardzija has really been good this season. He hasn’t walked anybody in like forever. 71k’s to 10 walks this season. He’s figured it out, and it’s quite incredible to watch him pitch.
2. Christian Arroyo’s at bats are better than his average, which at some point will even out. He may not be a .300 hitter this year, but no way he’s a “below the mendoza line guy.” His clutch, two-run double on the 12th pitch of his 13th inning AB was evidence of that.
3. The bullpen was pretty darn good, again. Outside of Melancon’s stressful save attempt, Strickland, Law, and Osich were great. Combined with Samardzija’s outing, the Giants staff went 12ip with 8 H, 13 K’s, no walks no runs. That’s darn good.

Next: NL West Rankings, Where do the Giants fit?

The Giants will go for the sweep with Matt Cain on the mound tomorrow morning at 11:15 pm. Tune in to NBCSBA or KNBR 680!