It was supposed to be "Orange Friday" beside McCovey Cove but the Giants went with black jerseys instead, befitting the early mood at AT&T Park. After the first 1 1/2 innings it appeared the Giants intended to stage a continuation of Thursday's 17-7 debacle.
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| This just in; that Crawford guy is pretty good. (AP Photo) |
Then the planets aligned, fates shifted, the rift in the space-time continuum was repaired, and the Giants rallied for a 6-4 win over Colorado.
Starters Madison Bumgarner and Chas Bettis didn't get off to great starts, but it was MadBum who did the better job of restoring order. The resulting win put the Giants back over the .500 mark and sent the Rockies one game below it. Meanwhile, in a time zone far far away, Los Angeles dropped a 5-2 decision to the Jays, giving 16-15 San Francisco a one-game lead in the putrid NL West.
It ended well, but at the outset it looked to be another long night.
There was one of those all-too-familiar snowball innings in the second. Colorado opened with three starlight hits and the Giants contributed an error (there should have been two) as the Rockies put an early four-spot on the board.
Another familiar, but infinitely more-appealing, sight is the offense fighting back. Brandon Crawford went deep for the fourth time this season, this one with two aboard, and it was 4-3 after two.
We were ready to cue up the Coors Field comparisons again, then AT&T began to act like her gloriously beautiful self again.
The Giants missed a golden opportunity to knot the score in the third, putting two on with one out and Posey at the plate. After falling behind 3-0, Bettis got Posey to whiff with the runners on the move. Panik eluded a tag at third to avoid the double play but a line out ended the threat.
They did get the equalizer in the fifth. Denard Span reached on an infield single and came around on Panik's drive into triples alley. The man-on-third, less-than-two-outs bugaboo hit again as Posey grounded out, but Hunter Pence (after a walk to Brandon Belt) added an infield single to give San Francisco its first lead at 5-4.
Belt provided some insurance with an RBI hit in the seventh. Meanwhile, Bumgarner just cruised.
He didn't throw his 100th pitch until the top of the eighth (because doing so in the bottom of the eighth would have been just stupid), and despite surrendering three hits in that shaky third he would leave after 7 1-3 having allowed just seven hits, six of them singles, while striking out 10.
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| FYI, this guy's not half bad either. |
It got dicey for Corey Gearin, who inherited a runner in relief of MadBum and quickly added another on an infield single. He rallied to fan chicken-or-feathers Mark Reynolds and got Ryan Rayburn to hit into a force play. End of story.
Santiago Casilla pitched a quiet ninth to lock it away. Yeah, we were just a surprised as you are.
Pence was the batting star, getting three hits while both driving in a scoring a run as the Giants outhit Colorado 9-8. Duffy had two his and scored twice.
Game three of the four-game set is Saturday afternoon with Johnny Cueto (4-1, 3.61) set to face Jon Gray (0-1, 7.98).
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