Giants’ historic week at Fenway ends with loss
BOSTON — It was a week loaded with history and a week filled with celebrations for the San Francisco Giants at Fenway Park.
And when it came time for San Francisco to try and sweep the Boston Red Sox on Thursday, they turned to a man who is quite familiar with historic celebrations.
Madison Bumgarner took the mound in Boston on Thursday, but he did not take down the defending World Series champions. Instead, the Giants suffered a deflating 5-4 loss on a day in which the team looked drained from the events of the previous 48 hours.
“Of course we’re greedy as you’re supposed to be,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “It would have been nice to find a way to come back there.”
A series of bloopers found patches of outfield grass, a couple of soft liners evaded Giants fielders and a few defensive miscues put San Francisco in an early deficit. By the time the club loaded the bases with no outs against Red Sox closer Brandon Workman, the Giants had almost nothing left to give.
Brandon Crawford struck out. Mike Yastrzemski struck out. With two outs, Kevin Pillar took a bases loaded walk to move the tying run up to the third base.
But after the Giants made all the noise during the first two days of the series, Evan Longoria couldn’t produce one last crack of the bat against a Workman curveball that darted out of the strike zone and into the dirt.
“Close to getting a nice sweep here, but just came up a little short,” Bochy said.
Bumgarner lasted just five innings
and allowed five runs in his final road start of the season Thursday. His outings are usually must-see theater for Giants fans, but after the club captured an epic 15-inning victory in Yastrzemski’s Fenway Park debut on Tuesday and helped Bochy into the 2,000-win club with a blowout on Wednesday, the Giants’ luck ran out.
Bumgarner threw 25 pitches before recording his first out on Thursday and while the Red Sox racked up nine hits against him, only two came on hard-hit balls.
“I would like to be upset about the game but I feel really good about the way I threw actually,” Bumgarner said. “I feel like a lot of the hits, especially early on, were good pitches and got broken bats and soft contact and just happened to fall in.”
The Giants ace entered the day with 195 2/3 innings on the season, needing just 13 outs to become the first National League pitcher and the third starter in all of baseball to log 200 innings this year. By inducing a fifth-inning popout from former teammate Gorkys Hernandez, Bumgarner became the seventh active pitcher with at least seven seasons of 200 innings.
The list he joined features C.C. Sabathia, Justin Verlander, Jon Lester, Zack Greinke, Cole Hamels and Felix Hernandez, who all rank among the most accomplished –and richest– starters of the last quarter century.
Each of the six other active starters with seven or more seasons of 200 innings have earned at least $162 million in their respective careers. Sabathia, who will retire at the end of the season, tops the list with more than $280 million in earnings, but he’ll eventually be surpassed by Greinke who will make more than $300 million by the end of his current contract.