He had his chances. Sometimes he had things working in his favor. So far, these two teams have split the first two games, and if not for a rare bad start from Jon Lester yesterday, we’d probably be looking at this series very differently. Sure, he did that. Collect his first hit in more than two years? Yeah, he did that, too. Bryant hit his second home run of the series and his ninth of the season off Cain and went 2-4 with one run and one RBI. He is 5-0 with a 1.25 ERA in his past six starts, all of them Giants wins, and he has been particularly stingy in tight spots.
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Manager Bruce Bochy brought in right-hander Cory Gearrin after a walk to Anthony Rizzo. “It’s a long road he’s gone down”. What’s more important is the way he’s thrown the ball.
But, for as good as Bumgarner might be, Carlos Zambrano once got an infield single against him, so there’s reason for optimism. He’s a big part of this staff, and we need out starters to give us a chance. “I’m glad we got out of it”.
“I think we’re just glad he made contact”, Bochy said. Pomeranz has a 4.35 ERA over two starts against the Giants in 2016.
Cain’s double ended a drought of 46 hitless at-bats going back to May 10, 2014 (he singled off Zack Greinke, then with the Dodgers). The Giants got some two-out thunder going in the second inning, when Brandon Crawford singled, Gregor Blanco walked, and Matt Cain doubled them both home. Bumgarner failed on two sacrifice bunt attempts, then doubled over the outstretched glove of Chicago left fielder Soler for a double that easily plated Blanco. His previous one came July 21, 2012, in that wacky game at Philadelphia when he and Cole Hamels homered off each other.
“That was the game right there”, Hendricks said.
But the Cubs aren’t going to hit the panic button with a sub-.700 winning percentage (.690), passing the season’s quarter pole in San Francisco and heading into Busch Stadium on Monday night with a six-game lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates and a seven-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals in the division. Sometimes you don’t win.
Cain’s only mistake came in the third, when he hung a 3-2 slider to Kris Bryant. He used his changeup to strike out Jorge Soler, Javier Baez and Addison Russell in the sixth to end his afternoon. The 26-year-old endured one of his rockiest outings of the year on Tuesday at Milwaukee, yielding four runs and five hits over 5 1/3 innings in a loss.
He does not buy into the narrative that he has turned a corner, though.
“I don’t know if you can make a better pitch there than he did with the bases loaded, 3-2”, Bochy said. He got out of that big jam in the first with the bases loaded, made a big pitch at 3-2 to Russell, and from there he kind of just settled in. Cain was 0 for 14 with 10 strikeouts this season.
Casilla picked up his 11th save with his ninth inning work. A key moment came in the eighth inning, when the Cubs, trailing by three, had two runners on with two outs.
The Giants bullpen picked up Cain by picking up each other. Josh Osich entered in the seventh and struck out power threat Anthony Rizzo to strand two of Hunter Strickland’s runners. Down 2-5, centerfielder Dexter Fowler led off the ninth inning with a home run, but Chicago was unable to catch up with the Giants and lost the middle game of the series.
Chicago Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward made a highlight-reel catch in the bottom of the first inning of Friday night’s game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park before colliding with the wall and exiting the game.
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“It’s such a great team, and the Cubs have proven it this year”, Lopez said. “You want to measure yourself against the best, and they’re the best right now”. So there was a lot of passion in he game, and the outs. “Fun series. We got shut down, and it was a good bounce-back for us after getting beaten up pretty good the first game”. “We match up well. Today was another indication we can do that”.
