Giants just one win from West crown
The San Francisco Giants gave themselves the best possible chance to make the play-offs on Thursday night, completing a three-game sweep over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Giants go into the final week of the regular season needing just one win from this weekend’s games against their nearest competitors the San Diego Padres. Madison Bumgarner pitched five strong innings, striking out seven, to help the Giants beat the Diamondbacks 4-1 and move to within just one victory of a play-off place for the first time in six-years.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy isn’t counting his chickens just yet, knowing the Padres represent a real threat this weekend.
"We've got to go out there and go hard. Yeah, we put ourselves in good position but we've got games ahead of us. They know it. They're very much aware of where we're at,” Bochy said.
If the Padres come into San Francisco and manage to sweep the Giants it will leave both teams tied, forcing a one-game play-off the day after. With Matt Cain – 13-10 with a 2.95ERA – starting on the mound for San Francisco on Friday night the Giants could be celebrating early.
“We've put ourselves in a good situation and got done what we needed to get done today. I've got to go and do the same things I've done before. Same preparation,” Cain said.
Padres All-Star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez is hoping that his team can find some offence after struggling for over a month. The Padres have lost 22 of 34 games since August 25, having their lead cut from 6½ games to a three-game deficit.
“It just hasn't been very good. We've got to find a way to be very good for three days. That's all it takes. We struggled to get runners on base, we struggled to bring them across the board. Our pitching's done everything possible to put us in a position where we should be celebrating right now, and we haven't,” Gonzalez said.
“Plain and simple, we've got to hit.”
If the Giants fans are celebrating already they may want to remember this. San Diego has won 10 of 15 games against the Giants this season.
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