Giants starter Jeff Samardzija allowed one run and five hits with four strikeouts and four walks over 6 2-3 innings. San Francisco Giants’ Buster Posey jokes with teammates in the dugout after his two-run home run against the St. Louis Cardinals during the fourth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 16, 2016, in San Francisco.
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“We just have to play better, that’s all there is to it”, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, would not appear to be as strong an opponent as the Giants, but they have played better that San Francisso in the second half and have beaten the Mets’ aces this year. We see. We watch where everybody else is and we know how many are left and we know where everybody stands. You can’t run from them, hide from them. “We had to watch how he responded the first two games and you could tell his hand was fine, it’s just the rest of his body was not quite in that consistent game-playing shape yet”, Matheny said, saying Diaz will be re-evaluated before Friday’s game. The Cardinals (76-70) slipped a full game behind the New York Mets for the second wild card. There’s always the next game!
Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Aly Raisman, competing in nearby San Jose as part of a champions tour, threw out the ceremonial first pitch after spending time with several members of the Giants before the game. RHP Trevor Rosenthal was activated from the 15-day disabled list.
In the field: Brandon Crawford went deep into the hole for a grounder in the seventh and then spun and fired a ideal throw to second. That’s three runs more than that had accumulated over their previous five games against the Padres and Diamondbacks. Instead, it went for a sacrifice fly, scoring the game’s first run.In fact, all three baserunners advanced on Panik’s fly, setting up a two-run single by Posey on a blooper to right to make it 3-0.The Giants weren’t done.
ROYALS 3, WHITE SOX 2 Jarrod Dyson had two hits, scored a run and stole a base in Jason Vargas’ first start in 14 months, and host Kansas City beat Chicago to snap a five-game losing streak. Samardzija walked four and struck out four. Hunter Pence singled, Brandon Belt laced a two-run double and Brandon Crawford smacked an RBI single, completing the six-run uprising, with all of the runs going down as unearned.Weaver was pulled after Crawford’s hit.
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At the plate: Posey entered the series in an 11-for-57 slide, but he has seven hits in nine at-bats against the Cardinals. Moore gave up a run in the fourth and walked Molina with the bases loaded and two down in the fifth. The St. Louis Cardinals have an ERA of 4.04 and have lost six straight games when allowing more than three runs. NOTES: The Giants have won two in a row at home for the first time since August 18-19 against the New York Mets. Cardinals manager Mike Matheny announced that OF Matt Holliday will take live batting practice before Saturday’s game to test his fractured right thumb. Holliday has a pin in the thumb and hasn’t played since August 11. Cueto threw 105 pitches in a game that was done in 2 hours, 33 minutes.
