Kolten Wong hit a sacrifice fly that capped a two-run comeback in the ninth inning and the St. Louis Cardinals rallied for a big win in their playoff chase, beating the San Francisco Giants 3-2 in San Francisco.
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Posey drove in four runs and the Giants stayed four games back of the NL West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers, who won at Arizona. “That’s what you want to do – take advantage of mistakes”, Brandon Belt said after the Giants (79-68) used six unearned runs to open a three-game gap over the Cardinals (76-71) in the National League wild-card race. Buster Posey leads San Francisco with 143 hits, Denard Span has 49 RBI and Brandon Crawford has 10 home runs. But Posey countered immediately with his first home run in two months to make it 8-1.
“It was a good feeling”, he said. “It’s kind of out of the ordinary with him. When you know what he’s capable of doing and when he’s had a stretch like he’s had, it’s good to see”.
RED SOX 6, YANKEES 5 Xander Bogaerts hit a two-run home run and drove in three runs, Mookie Betts had a tying single before scoring the go-ahead run and Boston beat NY for the third consecutive time. He threw a 1-2-3 seventh inning, striking out two.
“Giving up the up the walk is what hurt”, Giants manager Bruce Bochy said.
“He’s been out there every day and there were a couple of days he was scheduled to be off that we had to change”, the manager said.
It proved the right call again. The St. Louis Cardinals have an ERA of 4.04 and have lost six straight games when allowing more than three runs. Part of that is the avoidance of save situations, something that has been the Giants’ Achilles heel all season. Samardzija allowed one run and five hits with four strikeouts and four walks over 6 2-3 innings, lowering his ERA to 2.74 over his past eight starts. Molina drove in two runs and Matt Carpenter had two hits for the Cardinals, who began a 10-game trip with a pair of losses. The Cardinals got on the board in the fourth when Molina singled in Stephen Piscotty, who had walked. 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.
It’s hard to ignore the slight plus money we’re getting with the Giants at home given the way the Cardinals have played the last week. That’s all it is.
This time it was Samardzija in the fifth inning, after singles by Nunez and Span put runners at the corners with no out out.
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. Posey’s jovial demeanor was on display afterwards, with the invariably stoic catcher performing a solo celebration in the dugout while his teammates gave him the silent treatment, then finding the television camera to give a goofy smile and thumbs up. He had surgery to insert a screw for the fracture. And I know the guys feel it. It’s still fractured but there’s a screw in there. “I truly don’t keep track of how many in a row”. SS Aledmys Diaz returned to the lineup after being held out Thursday. “That was the right play”, Matheny insisted. This will be Reyes’ first career game against the Giants. Bochy has been looking to rest Posey and will aim to give him a break in Sunday afternoon’s series finale following a night game Saturday.
The Giants were seven outs away from opening up that lead on the Cardinals and rewarding sublime defense and Jeff Samardzija with a win.
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Samardzija pitched June 4 at St. Louis and was the losing pitcher in a 7-4 defeat.
