“We’re hitting some rough patches here and there, but that’s part of it”, Conor Gillespie said.
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NEW YORK – Yadier Molina and pinch-hitter Kolten Wong each had an RBI double in the ninth inning, and St. Louis rallied past New York to end Jeurys Familia’s saves streak at 52 games.
“We’ve been through this plenty of times, and we know what it’s about”, Bumgarner said of the Giants’ struggles of late. “That’d be pretty remarkable. You’re going to hit those patches, but just find a way to get out of them”. He added his second of the night in the sixth to put the Reds up 6-5 and chase Giants starter Jake Peavy (5-9).
But even without those three the Giants are far more talented than the last-place Reds, which made three games at AT&T Park just as frustrating as eight poor ones on the road. Hunter Pence, despite being 8 for 16 with two homers in his first five games for Triple-A Sacramento, will remain on his rehab assignment a little longer as his surgically repaired right hamstring gets used to taking a daily pounding again.
The Giants offense is in dire need of a spark.
“We’re trying to score as many runs as we can every day”, Posey said.
The 29-year-old Bruce has drawn interest from at least five other teams in the past week and has clubbed six home runs in just his last five games in a conveniently-timed value boost.
At the plate: How many pitchers would get to bat in the eighth inning with their team down a run? “I think he’s fine, I think he’s conditioned, I think he’s ready to pitch for us, but we won’t announce and make that commitment until he gets through the next 48 hours”, Price said.
The Giants’ 2-9 stretch since the break is reminiscent of patches of 2014, when they banked a ton of victories in April and May before looking like the N.L.’s worst team over 5-18 and 5-13 stretches from June to early August. The solace the Giants can take from that: they won the World Series that year. We just need to keep our heads down, keep grinding away and playing.
Bruce broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh inning with his sixth homer during his five-game streak and 25th of the season.
Brandon Crawford had three hits and two RBIs, and Buster Posey and Denard Span added two hits apiece for the Giants.
It was Pagan’s fifth error this season – his most since 2012. The player the Giants moved because he had become a liability in center field is rapidly becoming a liability in left. Since then, it’s been mostly downhill for manager Bruce Bochy’s ballclub. “I don’t know if he lost it in the sun, He nearly made a great catch, too”.
The journeyman right-hander has found a home in Cincinnati, and his 7 2/3 innings lowered his ERA to 3.84. San Francisco left fielder Angel Pagan dropped a flyball in the fifth, setting up Tucker Barnhart’s tying sacrifice fly.
Nationals second baseman Daniel Murphy smacked his 20th home run of the season in the series finale against Cleveland.
San Francisco ace Madison Bumgarner (10-5, 2.14 ERA) has similar impressive recent numbers (1.93 ERA over four starts), but is only 1-1 in that time because his teammates has scored only nine runs during that stretch.
“The way he’s going right now, he’s not going to miss those (pitches) and he’s not going to foul them off”, Bumgarner said. They faced a whole bunch of 104 miles per hour fastballs from Aroldis Chapman over last weekend at Yankee Stadium, just before NY dealt him to the Chicago Cubs. Now Bruce has gone on the offensive for the Reds, who are expected to deal him prior to Monday s non-waiver trade deadline.
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They didn’t hide their unwillingness to throw him a strike.
