Boston rolled into AT&T Park
on Tuesday leading the Majors in every offensive category except back hair. The
Giants countered with a patchwork line-up and a pitcher making his second
career start. In the immortal words of Alfred E. Newman, “What. Me worry?”
Yeah, worry.
An unlikely hero denied his due. (AP Photo) |
Still, it looked for much of the
night like an unlikely hero might be crowned – at least until the bullpen got
involved. Gee, that sounds familiar.
Albert Suarez gave San Francisco
6 1/3 innings of five-hit ball and exited to a well-deserved ovation. A one-out
walk to Jackie Bradley Jr. ended his night after 84 pitches (1K, 1BB) as Manager Bruce
Bochy took no chances with his young hurler. You can’t argue with the move
(well you could but why?), but Suarez deserved a better result.
Boston broke on top, showing some
muscle with back-to-back doubles in the second that had Chris Young driving
home Bradley for a 1-0 lead. Young had already made his impact felt,
serving notice he planned to catch everything between McCovey Cove and Momo’s
with some stellar glove work in the first. The RBI double, which hit the bag at
third, was one of those annoying extras we could have done without, kinda like
the director’s commentary on “Alvin and
the Chipmunks: The Road Chip.”
An inning later the BoSox were
back in doubles mode. Mookie Betts doubled to left, moved up on a ground out,
and scored when Xander Bogaerts (we are not making these names up) beat out a
grounder to short with a head-first dive.
The Giants’ response was small
yet loud. Jarrett Parker, he who is not Hunter Pence, sent a shot off the
awning atop the Willie Mays Wall to get the Giants on the board in the home
half of the third. The bigger sound came an inning later.
Jackie Bradley Jr. opens the scoring (Getty Images)) |
Joe Panik dumped a leadoff single
into center, Matt Duffy lined a base hit to left, and Brandon Belt added a
single to right to load the bases. Brandon Crawford worked Boston starter Rick
Porcello for an RBI freebie to tie things up. Porcello got Gregor Blanco to
ground into a 4-6-3 twin killing, but Duffy came home on the play to hand the
G-Men a 3-2 lead
It stayed that way until both starters
were gone, at which point that lead evaporated. With George Kontos on for
Suarez, Bradley stole second and kept right on going when Trevor Brown (in for Posey)
sailed his throw into center field. Kontos walked Young to put runners at the
corners, and Boston called on the farewell-touring Big Papi.
David Ortiz, waiting for a
pinch-hitting opportunity with no DH in effect, collected the game-tying RBI off
Javy Lopez but honestly shouldn’t have. His grounder to Crawford screamed
double play and Crawford did everything to make it so except tag Young, who dropped through a trap door between first and
second. The throw to first was in plenty of time to get Ortiz, who runs like a
DMV employee from “Zootopia”, but the
whiff allowed Bradley to score and knot the game 3-3. The Giants did record an
out so no error was charged, but it hurt all the same.
The Red Sox
made some noise in the eighth against Hunter Strickland, and so did plate umpire
Mike Everitt, who took a wild pitch flush on the right thigh when Strickland
missed Brown’s target by a zip code. Both survived.
Santiago
Casilla pitched a quiet ninth (spell check locked up on that one) but the San
Francisco offense was similarly inert and Bochy tempted fate by sending Casilla
out for a second go-round in extras. Sandy Leon led-off the tenth with a double
and Gas Can walked pinch hitter Marco Hernandez, who was TRYING FLIPPIN’ SACRIFICE,
on four pitches. Betts laid down a perfect bunt that Duffy had to eat. Bases
filled, no outs.
Duffy came home
for a force out on Dustin Pedroia’s tapper, but Bogaerts looped a two-run
single to center and Casilla had done it again. Bochy lifted him afterward but
the damage was done. Josh Osich inherited runners at first and second – make that
second and third on a double steal because Osich was too busy counting seagulls
to notice. He whiffed worked out of the jam but it didn’t alleviate the honked-off
fan factor one iota.
Santiago Casilla coughs up another one. |
Red Sox closer Craig
Kimbrel gave up a lead-off single to Parker, giving rise to the possibility
Posey might be used as the potential tying run at the plate, but he never twitched
as a grounder and two fly balls ended it.
The Giants continue
to be in total denial in regard to Casilla, who allowed two runs on three hits and
a walk in just an inning and a third. He blew six saves last year and already
has four failures this season, and that doesn’t count games like tonight where
he entered with the score tied. He got two of the five Giants strikeouts, big
deal. He still coughed it up like a calico with a fur ball. The vet needs to
put this one down out of mercy.
The Giants were
outhit 9-7 with two safeties each from Parker and Span leading the way. Only
three of those hits, two of them singles by Span, came after the fourth-inning
uprising.
While the
Casilla and the Giants played give-away, second place Los Angeles made hay of
the traditional June swoon to pull within three games of the front-running G-men
by topping Colorado 4-3. San Francisco will attempt to perform the needed navel
plexiotomy on Wednesday as the BoxSox return for Round Two and a battle of
aces: Madison Bumgarner (7-2, 1.91 ERA) meets up with David Price (7-2, 4.88).
Hopefully Casilla
misses the Muni.
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