The St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants end their four-game series early Sunday afternoon.
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Posey seemed to get another extra boost on Friday, after hitting his first home run in over two months, the longest drought of his career. Because Molina didn’t speak, rookie pitcher Luke Weaver had to answer all the tough questions after his aborted start.
Buster Posey broke a 184 at-bat homer-less streak when he launched a first-pitch fastball to left field.
While the Giants are still battling the Dodgers in the NL West, the Cardinals have been eliminated in the NL Central race by the division champion Cubs. He pitched six innings and held the Giants to the two runs on seven hits because only one of them went for extra bases. He is looking to win for the fourth time in five starts as he makes his ninth start since joining San Francisco in a trade with Tampa Bay. He had a 2.11 ERA in April and May this year, but then gave up 15 earned runs in 16 1/3 innings in June and July.
“It was a good feeling”, he said. “It’s kind of out of the ordinary with him”. He’s pretty stone-faced most of the time.
Belt hit a two-run double to highlight San Francisco’s six-run third. Then Posey followed with a jam-shot single that fell in shallow right field to drive in a pair of runs.
He appeared to be in good shape to win a fourth game in his last start Tuesday, but the Giants’ bullpen blew a 4-1 lead in the ninth inning and the club dropped a 6-4 decision to the San Diego Padres.
The San Francisco Giants are beginning to look like the San Francisco Giants again.
Samardzija walked four and struck out four. Offensively, Stephen Piscotty leads St. Louis with 146 hits, Yadier Molina has 49 RBI and Matt Carpenter has 19 home runs. “We know where everyone else stands”. The Giants stuck to their late-arriving plan and cancelled batting practice – they weren’t changing after collecting 12 hits and six runs Thursday night – but the first two innings did not portend another breakout. That’s all it is. Denard Span added a two-run single in the seventh for San Francisco.
A fan ran on the field in the top of the ninth and a member of security who slid approaching the man had to be helped off the field with an injury. The slugger hasn’t played since August 11, when he was hit by a pitch in an 11-inning loss to the Cubs. He had surgery to insert a screw for the fracture.
The Cardinals (77-71), who were staring at falling four back with 14 to play, are within two of the Giants and Mets. It’s still fractured but there’s a screw in there. Hard to get a great feel for either of these teams in their current form, but I like the price of San Fran more than a shaky St. Louis team on the road.
Cardinals: SS Aledmys Diaz was out of the lineup.
Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, meanwhile, used his best reliever, Seung Hwan Oh, two innings Saturday night, which makes him unlikely to be available in the series finale.
The key for the Giants now is to keep this going, something they should be able to do on Saturday against St. Louis starting pitcher Mike Leake (9-10 4.60 ERA) who’s having the worst season of his career.
Giants: RHP Jeff Samardzija (11-10, 4.07) seeks his first victory in four starts since August 26.
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The Cardinals are 1-4 in their last 5 vs. a team with a winning record and 1-4 in their last 5 vs.
