Kicking Ass, part two

SF 7  LAA 2

The Giants played another outstanding ballgame tonight, besting the Angels behind some formidable pitching (13 strikeouts!) and a relentless attack (10 hits, two homers, two doubles). Johnny Cueto had to work hard (112 pitches) for his 17 outs, yielding four hits, a walk, and two runs, but he also whiffed eight. Andrew Suarez allowed the hit the drove in that second run, and Caleb Baragar had to come in to finish the 6th which he did with a strikeout. He added a clean 7th and Tyler Rogers struck out both Mike Trout and Albert Pujols to take care of the 8th while Tony Watson closed out the 9th on 13 pitches.

Wilmer Flores was the hitting star, Kap sat Brandon Belt to get the righty in against the lefty starter (Patrick Sandoval) and and it paid off with two hits (one a 3-run homer) and four RBI. Austin Slater is not 100% and can’t play the field so he led off tonight as the DH and chipped in two hits (one a two-run homer) and two runs scored. I especially enjoyed the late rally with the meat of the lineup (Solano/Yaz/Longo/Flores) carving out two runs in the 7th to make it 7-2 and take the pressure off the bullpen.

Kevin Gausman goes tomorrow at 6:45 p.m. Angels beat reporter Rhett Bollinger tweets that their starter for tomorrow is lefty Jose Suarez (that fact was re-tweeted by Andrew Baggarly, which was in the sidebar, which is why I have that feature there). The Giants came into tonight’s game with a .268/.331/.455 line against southpaw starters and then they racked up six hits and five runs against another one! So, I think they like facing lefties.

–M.C.