2/3 of the season

SF 4  AZ 3

The Giants played a much better game tonight and it was just enough to prevail over the Diamondbacks. Madison Bumgarner was on the mound for Arizona and Giants hitters made him work (72 p in 4 IP) but he gave up only three hits. Fortunately for the home team two of them were homers! Evan Longoria and Darin Ruf went back-to-back to lead off the 2nd and that turned a 1-0 deficit to a 2-1 lead. The Giants got back-to-back triples (how often does that happen?) by Joey Bart and Mauricio Dubon after Brandon Belt walked in the 6th to make it a 4-1 lead. The triples were the first by both Bart and Dubon–how often has that happened? The Diamondbacks tagged Trevor Gott for a homer in the 7th and added a run off Tyler Rogers in the 8th but Tony Watson threw a 13-pitch 9th to seal the win.

Trevor Cahill had to leave in the 3rd with an injury but some solid work by Caleb Baragar, Sam Coonrod, and Jarlin Garcia (3-2/3 IP, 5 K) kept the lid on things and gave the lineup a chance to add runs later.

Tonight was the 40th game of the season. We are two-thirds of the way through the 60-game schedule. Here’s the story so far:

1st third (Games 1-20): 8-12

2nd third (Games 21-40): 11-9

Overall: 19-21, .475, fourth-place in the NL West, 1/2 game behind Colorado (19-20) and four games ahead of Arizona (15-25). Johnny Cueto goes tomorrow at 1:05 p.m. Pacific.

GO GIANTS!

–M.C.