5

 

GIANTS   103-54                    Tie SF record for wins in a season.

LA             101-56    2 GB       They're not going away.

Yesterday

Giants defeated Arizona, 6-4.

LA defeated San Diego, 2-1.

Today

Giants host Arizona, second of three games. It's a 6:45 PDT start at the O, with Alex Wood going for the locals against Merrill Kelly.

LA is home with Max Scherzer starting against San Diego.

Last Night's Game

He worked hard-- 98 pitches in five innings-- and he didn't get the win, but Logan Webb put up an encouragingly good start, allowing one unearned run over five innings in a 1-1 game. It wasn't until the sixth that the Giants took the lead for good. It started with Evan Longoria reaching on an error, and included a hit batsman, a bases-loaded walk, a run-scoring wild pitch, a runner (Wilmer Flores) thrown out at the plate-- and, yes, two RBI singles, by Flores and Brandon Crawford. The "Snakes" slithered back into it on a seventh-inning homer by Jake McCarthy off Tony Watson, and scored two more against the overly adventurous Tyler Rogers in the eighth. Gabe Kapler then called on young Camilo Doval to close it out with his 100-MPH heat, and the kid shrugged off a one-out double and took care of business: 15 pitches, 12 strikes, and his first career save.

Fillin' the Hole

Brandon Belt is out for the rest of the season and the postseason with a broken thumb. There will be no 30-homer man for the Giants, for the 16th straight year, and the game's winningest team will have to soldier on without the hottest hitter in the game. Thairo Estrada is back on the active roster to beef up the left side of the infield, and Flores will move over to first base as part of a revolving platoon with LaMonte Wade and probably Darin Ruf when he returns from the IL. There's nothing else to say. The Giants will just have to be their "resilient" selves a little longer, on a road that's now a little steeper.