The Giants open play Sunday two games behind the Dodgers and are just 13-24 since the All-Star break, a swoon that has cost San Francisco 8 ½ games in the standings.San Francisco has lost or split 11 of 12 series since the break and heads into Sunday’s finale needing a victory to avoid another series defeat after Saturday’s 3-1 loss.
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It was the Giants’ first four-homer, four-triple game in the modern era. Peavy was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a lower back strain during the afternoon, but the club clearly had made this decision earlier, since Suarez was notified he was coming to San Francisco on Friday. He was throwing to Trevor Brown, with catcher Buster Posey getting a night off. Hunter Pence missed a second consecutive game with hamstring tightness. And shortly before first pitch, Brandon Belt was scratched with a stiff neck.
The Giants scored eight runs in the seventh inning, and during the 35 minutes it took the Braves to record three outs, Crawford tripled for his 21 at AT&T Park, breaking a tie with Ray Durham for the most in the ballpark s history.
Eduardo Nunez had a solo homer and three Giants – Brandon Crawford, Jarrett Parker and pinch-hitter Conor Gillaspie – smacked triples in the seven-hit, seventh-inning explosion. Giants manager Bruce Bochy said he has not decided who will pitch in the No. 5 spot in the rotation moving forward. “But that unfortunately happens once in a while, and it happened tonight to us”. (Foltynewicz) was tough on us in Atlanta, too. “You saw glimpses of the stuff, but it’s got to be consistent”. “When he’s on, he’s tough”.
Three of San Francisco’s four homers came off Braves starter Aaron Blair (0-6), who allowed five runs over four innings. The Giants have scored 12 runs in their last three games and four or more runs in seven of their last 10 games.
Suarez didn’t allow a hit until Adonis Garcia singled leading off the fourth. “I think at that point when he hit that home run, that’s all I needed”.
“I’m a pitcher that needs to be down in the zone and create movement”, Blair said. Suarez exited two batters into the fifth at 76 pitches. Freeman tagged Giants’ ace Madison Bumgarner for the two-run blast in the sixth inning, cutting the Braves deficit at the time to 5-3.
Emergency Giants starter Albert Suarez only made one mistake.
Suarez accounted for the Giants’ other hit with a one-out double in the third, his first career extra-base hit.
With Posey on deck, you take a 2-0 fastball and hope to get one step closer to setting up the team’s top slugger.
“The first one, I hit that well”, said Panik, who also homered off Blair in Atlanta. Belt came off the bench to pinch-hit in the eighth and struck out against Foltynewicz. Span followed with a double, and Pagan worked a walk, finally forcing the Braves to use their bullpen. Mauricio Cabrera entered and induced a harmless groundout from Joe Panik. “It was a short swing, it was a flawless swing nearly, and that ball just took off”.
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“I usually have to deal with this pretty much every year, and it’s nearly always in spring training”, Belt said. Usually a couple of days… “I would assume I can get back out there”.
