For one day the San Francisco Giants chased away calls from fans for a trade to bring a big time power hitter to the City by the Bay. Then, just as quickly, the offense was back to its familiar torturous self, but fell just short of a magical finish.
One day removed from pounding out 30 hits en route to 19 runs in a doubleheader against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field; the bats fell silent, failing to support another strong outing by staff ace Tim Lincecum in a 2-1 loss. The Cubs got a pinch-hit walk-off single from Aramis Ramirez to end Giants' comeback bid and stop their win streak at seven games.
By now it's nothing new that the Giants are a team with a huge gap between its pitching staff's brilliance and its offense's mediocrity, but Wednesday night's game was anemic even by their standards. The Giants lineup made Cubs starter Ryan Dempster look like a Cy Young winner, at one point sending 20 men to bat without netting a single baserunner.
After Nate Schierholtz's second inning double, no Giant recorded another hit or walk until pinch-hitter Pat Burrell's leadoff double in the top of the ninth.
Burrell's hit sparked a thrilling comeback by the defending World Series Champions, as Emmanuel Burris came out with one out and spanked a 3-2 pitch back up the middle to scored pinch-runner Bill Hall, and tied the game at 1. This game had all the feel of the nail biters San Francisco always seems to find themselves in and somehow find a way to win, but tonight they fell just short.
Burris' game tying single was followed by a Pablo Sandoval walk and an Aubrey Huff's single that would have brought Burris in to score, but for a costly baserunning blunder.
Huff's single to shallow center was in doubt until the last few moments, when Cubs outfielder Tony Campana dove and came up several feet short of making a spectacular catch.
Right after starring as the hero, Burris was recast as the goat. Burris misread the play and scrambled back to second base on the outfielder's desperate dive, rather than use his blazing speed to test Campana's suspect throwing arm. Burris would still advance to third to load the bases with still just one out, but for an offensively challenged ball club, ruining late-inning scoring chances usually proves fatal and it would last night.
In spite of Burris' mistake, the NL West leaders still had a chance to take a lead and give the ball to closer Brian Wilson. But, Cody Ross came up next but Cubs close Carlos Marmol got him to hit into a 6-4-3 double-play, ending the Giants best offensive chance all game.
With the game still tied, right-handed reliever Sergio Romo came on instead of Wilson and surrendered a leadoff single to Campana. Reed Johnson laid down a sac bunt and Geovany Soto grounded out to move Campana to third before Aramis Ramirez came to the plate for Marmol.
Romo, currently holding right-handed batters to a .123 average, gave up the game winning hit on a slider well off the outside corner of the strike zone.
Despite the loss, the Giants find themselves 11 games above the .500 mark with a 46-35 record going into the All-Star break, and still in first place in the division after losses by the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies last night. Last year's World Series winning team was 41-40 at this point in the season.
Facing off against one of baseball's best pitchers, Cubs starter Ryan Dempster was more than up to the task. The Cubs right-hander was phenomenal over eight-plus scoreless innings, giving up only three hits with six strikeouts and one walk on just 83 pitches.
Lincecum was a force on the mound as well, scattering five hits over seven strong innings, giving up one earned run while striking out nine and walking two.
In a classic pitcher's duel, neither starter picked up a decision, despite both throwing the ball like All-Stars. Neither starter allowed a run to come across until the Cubs finally put a rally together against the two-time Cy Young winner in the seventh.
It will be Matt Cain (7-4 3.22 ERA) looking to best Carlos Zambrano (6-4 4.38 ERA) as the Giants look to take three games out of four from Chicago's North Side team. Cain has extra motivation for today's game as with five strikeouts he will record 1,000 for his career.
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