The Giants will be looking to ace Madison Bumgarner to end the slide when they open a three-game series against the New York Yankees on Friday night.While Bumgarner will make his debut at Yankee Stadium and first start versus New York, one bit of drama was removed when San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy made a decision to use the designated hitter instead of having his star left-hander bat for himself.
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The Giants (57-39) also lost catcher Buster Posey, at least for five innings. X-rays were negative and he was listed as day to day. The 23-year-old made his first major league start last weekend and gave up three home runs in 3 1/3 innings at Tampa Bay.
The Giants cut into the lead in the seventh when Dellin Betances threw a wild pitch, allowing Angel Pagan to score.
Falling behind early and stymied by Tanaka, the Giants came back to tie the game in the eighth when Mac Williamson hit an RBI double off Andrew Miller. In that game, Bumgarner surrendered four runs and seven hits in six innings of a 4-1 setback with one walk and nine strikeouts.
Austin Romine hit a chopper off Josh Osich (1-2) over the mound and Crawford easily stepped on second to get the force on Mark Teixeira. Up next was Romine who hit into a weird fielder’s fielder’s choice; Crawford made the out at second before throwing the ball away at first base. His throw to first arrived well ahead of Romine but was high, and Brandon Belt s jumping effort merited only a deflection as Chase Headley scored the tiebreaking run from second base. It was Brandon Crawford, their Gold Glove shortstop, whose arm let them down as they remained winless in six games since the All-Star break.
Gregor Blanco hit a leadoff double against Chapman in the ninth, turning around a 101 miles per hour, fastball, but the Giants couldn t advance him. To start the top of the third inning, Gregor Blanco reached on an error charged to Rob Refsnyder. There was a truce when a marriage proposal was shown on the scoreboard in-between innings – he wore a Giants hat, she wore a Yankees cap and said yes to a ring. Carlos Beltran has hit 99 times with 20 homers, 60 RBI and 47 runs. The 39-year-old right fielder unleashed a ideal throw home to nail Blanco and later made a running grab to rob Crawford of extra bases.
NOTES: San Francisco OF Hunter Pence (hamstring) and 2B Joe Panik (concussion) had the night off from appearing in rehab games.
Yankees: SS Didi Gregorius didn’t start, but entered as a defensive replacement. New York’s hitters will know that the lefty has done well in interleague games this year, going 1-0 with a 2.84 ERA in three starts against AL teams.
Yankees: RHP Ivan Nova (7-5, 4.92) pitched a shutout in 2013 in his only career start vs. the Giants.
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Unfortunately for Tanaka, that 2-0 lead and a chance at picking up a win didn’t last long.
