Though win streak ends, a number of positive signs
DETROIT — Matt Cain made his 333rd start for the Giants on Tuesday, postseason included. His final total probably will not be much higher.
Everyone knows Cain’s situation. His contract is up after the year. When Madison Bumgarner returns, as soon as July 15, another starter will be pushed out of the rotation. Manager Bruce Bochy has no plans to use six.
Every Cain start hence brings nostalgia. Tuesday’s was awash in it. He pitched at the site of his last great triumph, Game 4 of the 2012 World Series. Although he and the Giants lost this one 5-3, ending the team’s sixgame win streak, Cain provid-
ed snapshots from his best days during a 2-hour, 23minute sprint.
“It was definitely fun to be able to come back and pitch here, from 2012 to now,” Cain said. “It brings back memories. It was definitely a little warmer today for this game.
“You don’t get rid of those memories. Those things are ingrained in you. Those things never leave you when baseball is over. They stay in your heart.”
Shortstop Brandon Crawford secured the first of his two World Series rings in that sweep-clinching victory at Comerica Park five seasons ago. Crawford’s mind returned there when Cain was announced Tuesday.
“He’s been around here as long as I’ve been here, obviously a lot longer,” Crawford said. “It’s not something you think about in the middle of the year, but you definitely appreciate his years here. You hope he pitches well the rest of the time.”
Cain fell to 0-6 on the road, but if he had pitched all along as he did during the Fourth of July matinee, he would have had some Ws.
Cain reached the seventh inning of a game that Crawford tied 3-3 in the top half with a two-run homer against Michael Fulmer, the reigning American League Rookie of the Year and the Tigers’ only 2017 All-Star.
Cain was charged with five runs, but the fourth and fifth scored after he left the game. With two on and two outs, George Kontos got a groundball from Alex Avila, but second baseman Joe Panik was shifted so deeply into right-center he did not have sufficient time to charge the ball and get an out at first.
The bases were loaded for Justin Upton, who lined a two-run single to left to decide the game.
Although the Giants’ win streak ended, they looked good in a loss. Over the first three months, they just looked bad in their losses.
They scored three runs on two homers, by Hunter Pence and Crawford, against a pitcher who had allowed four all year and carried the majors’ longest homerless-innings streak into the game at 732⁄3. Jose Abreu was the last player to take Fulmer deep, on April 29.
Pence pulverized a 2-0, 97-mph fastball into the rightfield seats in the first inning — “a great sign,” Bochy said. Crawford’s tying homer in the seventh followed a Brandon Belt double and barely reached the right-field seats.
“We did a lot of good things,” Bochy said. “Crawford’s homer was huge. We’re facing a pretty good pitcher. He just made the All-Star team. You go into the seventh inning tied, you take it.”
Bochy liked what he saw from Cain against a lineup that Bochy called scary.
In a tribute to the final out of 2012 and former teammate Sergio Romo, Cain ended the first inning by striking out Miguel Cabrera looking at a two-seam fastball.
In the sixth, with the Giants down 3-1, Bochy let Cain face Victor Martinez with two outs and a man on third after Martinez had punished Cain with a homer and an RBI single. Cain got the Tigers DH to ground out on a 3-2 pitch.
“I thought Matty did a pretty good job,” Bochy said. “He gave us a chance to win.”