Blach bitten by D’backs’ Pollock
PHOENIX » A night after the long ball giveth, the long ball taketh away from the San Francisco Giants.
Just three weeks into the regular season, the Giants have learned this lesson all-too-frequently for a team that plays its home games in the pitcherfriendly confines of AT&T Park.
Thanks to an A. J. Pollock solo shot off Ty Blach in the bottom of the sixth inning, the Diamondbacks took a 2-1 lead en route to a 3-1 win.
“I just left a pitch down the middle,” Blach said. “We were trying to throw one down and away and I just didn’t get it where I needed to.”
After playing six series this season, the Giants have yet to win one, splitting their first three before losing three in a row.
Blach entered the night as one of six pitchers who had thrown at least 20 innings without surrendering a home run. Teammates Johnny Cueto and Chris Stratton are still members of an elite crew that’s figured out a way to keep the ball in the park, which is one of the main reasons the Giants have stayed in the games.
In the sixth inning of his fourth start of the season, Blach finally allowed a ball to leave the yard as he gave up the crushing blow to a hitter he struck out twice earlier in the game.
In the seventh, the D’backs
added on, as a Ketel Marte home run off of Reyes Moronta extended Arizona’s lead.
The late rally from Arizona was enough to beat the Giants on a night when the offense finished its 10th game of the season in which it couldn’t produce more than a single run.
“The long ball has saved us,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “It’s what’s in front of us that’s been the issue. Timely hitting with runners in scoring position. That’s what wins games for you, we’re just not getting those.”
Help is on the way, though, as the Giants plan on bringing minor league outfielder Mac Williamson to Anaheim for their weekend series. Williamson will join the taxi squad, and could be activated if Hunter Pence needs a disabled list stint to heal his ailing right thumb.
“( Williamson) went down and did what we were hoping, he made some noise and a team that’s lacking a little offense, it’s nice to have a guy or two down there swinging the bat well,” Bochy said.
Though Pence is dealing with an injury, it was only a matter of time before Williamson forced San Francisco’s hand, as he’s riding an 11- game hit streak with the Sacramento River Cats.
For the third consecutive night, the hitters’ paradise known as Chase Field played host to a pitchers’ duel, as Blach battled D’Backs ace Zack Greinke in a low- scoring affair.
Greinke paces a deep, versatile Arizona staff that’s helped the club control the National League West since the start of April, and on Thursday, Greinke had little trouble controlling the Giants’ bats as the only mistake he made took place in the second inning.
After clubbing his 100th career home run in the 10th inning on Wednesday to propel the Giants to a 4-3 win, Brandon Belt stepped to the plate and unloaded on a Greinke slider to lead off the top of the second.
Belt said he hoped the journey from 100 to 200 home runs would be a much faster ride than his seven-plus season path to the century mark, so his solo shot Thursday was exactly the type of start he was hoping for.
Belt’s blast was a welcome sight for a Giants’ offense that has struggled to manufacture runs this season, but once again, the rest of the lineup failed to offer much support.
For a team that won its first two games of the season thanks to home runs by Panik and a club that took Wednesday’s game on the shoulders of round-trippers hit by Belt and Evan Longoria, it was time for home runs to taketh away.
“Timely hitting,” Bochy said. “We’re hitting what, .120 with runners in scoring position? That’s not going to get you anything. It will pick up, but I’m hoping sooner than later.” BUMGARNER’S PINS REMOVED » Four weeks after a line drive fractured the pinky in Madison Bumgarner’s pitching hand, the Giants acemade an important visit to the doctor’s office.
Bumgarner had three pins removed from his left hand Thursday as he recovers from a fractured fifth metacarpal suffered during his final spring training start.
Bumgarner is on the 60- day disabled list and eligible to return to the club on May 25 at the earliest, and Manager Bruce Bochy said he wouldn’t be surprised if Bumgarner returns shortly after that date.
“Knowing him, how hard he’s going to work,” Bochy said. “It all depends when he starts throwing. He’s a ways away, probably two weeks before you start playing catch.”