It’s just one game.
Carlos Beltrán Powers Giants To 6-2 Win Over Diamondbacks
But for one game, anyway, the San Francisco Giants looked a little bit like the team that won the World Series less than one year ago.
Entering Friday night's contest against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the second-place Giants trailed the first-place Diamondbacks by six games. Realistically, the Giants need to win at least twice in this three-game series to enter next week with a fighting chance at returning to the postseason.
Well, one down, one (or two) to go.
The Giants, with Matt Cain on the mound, got off to a shaky start. In the top of the first, the D'backs took a 1-0 lead on Miguel Montero's run-scoring double, and soon had the bases loaded with two outs. But Cain retired Gerardo Parra on a fly ball, and would never be challenged so seriously again.
Meanwhile, Arizona starter Joe Saunders wasn't challenged much, either. Not early on. Carlos Beltrán did triple with two outs in the bottom of the first, but was stranded. Aubrey Huff walked in the second, but was erased on a double play. And in the third, the first two Giants went down quickly.
But then things went awry for Saunders. First Cody Ross walked, and then Jeff Keppinger lined a pitch off the top of the wall in left field. With two outs, third-base coach Tim Flannery waved Ross home, and he should have been dead to rights ... except Parra's throw from left field was way off line and Ross scored easily. The score should still have been 1-0, Diamondbacks. Instead, moments later it was 3-1 Giants after Beltrán launched a home run well over the fence in left-center field.
The Diamondbacks cut the Giants' lead in half in the fifth, when Aaron Hill's sacrifice fly plated Ryan Roberts, who had led off the inning with a triple. Justin Upton followed Hill with a double, but Cain worked out of the jam with no further damage.
In the bottom of the inning, Beltrán pushed the lead back to two runs with an RBI single. And in the bottom of the seventh, Cody Ross made it 6-2 -- after Matt Cain led off with a walk -- with a drive off D'backs reliever Sam Demel that hit the top of the left-field fence and bounced into the bleachers for a two-run homer.
In the eighth, Ross completed his outstanding evening with a circus catch in unpleasant territory, just beyond the Giants’ bullpen.
Cain went eight innings, giving up five hits and four walks but just those two runs. Santiago Casilla pitched the ninth, and gave up a hit but struck out two Diamondbacks, including pinch-hitter Geoff Blum to end the game.
Beltrán wound up with four hits, two singles accompanying his triple and home run. The Giants isn’t dead; instead they’re five games out of first place, and by weekend’s end they might be three games out.
At which point we can talk. I mean, really talk.
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