Giants Snap Nine-Game Skid Against Arizona, Look For .500 Road Trip

By Vince Cestone
Twitter @vintalkingiants
 
The San Francisco Giants finally got the monkey off their back.

To say the Giants needed this one is an understatement.

Coming into last night's game, the Arizona Diamondbacks won nine straight against San Francisco. In their last 12 games against Arizona, the Giants were just 2-10.

 

The last game the Giants won against the Diamondbacks was a game at AT&T Park started by Matt Cain. Nine games later, Cain would win his next game against Arizona essentially all by himself.

In addition to pitching six innings of eight-strikeout, one-run ball, Cain went 2-for-2 with two RBIs. His two-run double in the sixth inning padded the Giants' lead to 4-1.

Offensively, the Giants jumped out early. After Gregor Blanco walked to lead off the game, he stood at third within a blink of an eye thanks to a pickoff throwing error by Arizona's starting pitcher Trevor Cahill.

After the Diamondbacks tied the game in the third inning, the Giants jumped out in front again in the fifth inning on a RBI Melky Cabrera fan-interfered double down the right-field line.

Cabrera hit another RBI double in the ninth inning that padded the Giants' lead to 5-2. The Giants would go on to win by that score.

Brandon Belt brought Blanco in with a RBI groundout.

The Giants did not play error-free baseball, but they made the plays they needed to make at the right time. After the Giants allowed an unearned run on a throwing error by Brandon Crawford in the seventh inning, third-baseman Joaquin Arias made a diving stop on a ball ticketed for the left-field line off the bat of Ryan Roberts in the eighth inning.

Arias threw a strike to first and gunned down Roberts to retire the side.

Brandon Crawford, however, racked up another error. In 27 games played at shortstop this season, Crawford has already committed eight errors, which is second-most in the league.

Crawford redeemed himself on the very next play when he gunned down leadoff man Willie Bloomquist on a ball hit softly to shortstop.

The Giants committed two more errors Saturday, bringing their total to a major-league leading 37 errors.

... 

The Giants will look to take the series Sunday behind Barry Zito (1-1, 2.21), who will take on Joe Saunders (2-2, 2.50).

Saunders is coming off a horrible start against the St. Louis Cardinals, where he lasted just 3 1/3 innings, giving up seven runs (six earned) on nine hits.

Melky Cabrera has a 10-game hitting streak. He is hitting .429 in that streak with a .455 on-base percentage. He may have some trouble against Saunders, however, as he is just 1-for-10 lifetime against the left-handed pitcher.

A glaring stat, besides the defense, that the Giants must improve upon is hitting with runners in scoring position. They are hitting just .207 in those at-bats, second-worst in Major League Baseball behind the Miami Marlins' .199 clip.

With the AAA lineup the Giants are running out there due to injury, it is crucial they manufacture runs, play good fundamentals, and get on base for the veterans. A few bloops or seeing-eye singles would help too.

With all the misery that has gone on this road trip, a 3-3 mark would probably more than satisfy the Giants and give them good vibes heading home.


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Information from ESPN.com and MLB.com contributed to this article.


Image Attribution:
By User eürodäna (Original version) User StormXor (Crop) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By PMell2293 on flickr (Diamondbacks Logo)