San Francisco Giants snatch close 6-5 clash with Arizona Diamondbacks – MLB Update
The defending World Series champions San Francisco Giants romped to a 6-5 victory in the first fixture against the Arizona Diamondbacks at the Chase Field on Tuesday June 14, to take a 1-0 lead in three-game series.
Third baseman Pablo Sandoval drove in an RBI single off the Diamondbacks’ starter Josh Collmenter in the top of the first inning to take an early 1-0 lead. After this run, the Giants remained scoreless until the top of the fourth inning when Matt Cain hit a sacrifice fly for an RBI single, which took the score to 2-0.
In the fifth inning, Cody Ross hit a grounder to deep left side for an RBI double while Eli Whiteside earned an RBI single on a double play from catcher to second to first to short-stop. The Diamondbacks changed their starter Collmenter with reliever Aaron Heilman, who did not give any run in the sixth inning.
The batters, on the other hand, being under 5-0 deficit before the start of the bottom of the fifth inning, recuperated with some strong hitting. Ryan Roberts managed to hit a sacrifice fly for an RBI single in the bottom of the fifth inning. Then catcher Miguel Montero hammered a 422-feet long three-run grand slam off the Giants’ starter Matt Cain to trim the lead to 5-4 in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Heilman carried his pitching momentum to the seventh inning, forced Sandoval to pop out at third base but suddenly pitched loose and gave away a walk to Aubrey Huff before receiving a hard hit RBI single from Nate Schierholtz.
The Giants were 6-4 ahead when the game entered into the seventh inning. Cain managed to control the Diamondbacks bat to just one run in this inning and the game went to eight with the Giants having one run lead. This lead remained there until the end of the game and the Champions earned their 38th win of the season.
"Doesn't matter the team, we usually play tight games," Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy said. "We don't have too many games that get out of hand either way."
Despite allowing five runs on eight hits, walking two batters and making just four strike-outs in six innings, Cain got his sixth win of the season. With this triumph, Cain improved his win-loss record to 6-4 with 3.61 ERA in his 14th start of the season.
"We were putting together good at-bats -- we've had a long string of that," Diamondbacks’ manager Kirk Gibson said. "I thought we had a real good shot in the ninth inning, just unable to get him in. The guy—Wilson—is pretty good out there."
In contrast, rookie starter Collmenter made a promising game and gave five runs on eight hits while walking three and struck-out four batters but failed to escape his second loss of the season.
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