(Sports Network) - The San Francisco Giants have moved into a virtual tie atop the NL West standings and hope to take sole possession today in the third portion of a four-game series against the sliding San Diego Padres at Petco Park.
The Giants have won the first two games of this series and are coming off last night's 1-0 victory thanks to Juan Uribe's RBI groundout in the seventh inning. Jonathan Sanchez threw five shutout innings for the no-decision, while Santiago Casilla recorded the win with 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief. Brian Wilson logged his 42nd save over the final 1 2/3 innings.
Freddy Sanchez posted a team-high two hits for the Giants, who are not only tied with San Diego in the division, but also sit just a game behind Atlanta for the wild card lead.
"This is where we feel like we should be. We got a good group of guys here," San Francisco catcher Eli Whiteside said.
San Francisco is 6-2 on a 10-game road trip and has won eight of its last 10 games overall.
Decisions, especially winning ones, have been hard to come by for young Giants hurler Madison Bumgarner, who's scheduled to make his 15th start of the season Saturday afternoon. Bumgarner is 1-0 over his last six starts and has posted three straight no-decisions.
He pitched well enough for the win in Monday's 2-0 victory at Arizona, despite holding the Diamondbacksscoreless through 7 1/3 innings with seven strikeouts. He remained at 5-4 in 14 starts with a 3.44 earned run average.
The left-hander is 5-2 in eight road starts this season and did not factor in the outcome of a 3-2 win over San Diego back on August 14. Bumgarner limited the Friars to a pair of runs over seven innings that day and is 0-0 with a 2.51 ERA in three career games (2 starts) in this series.
San Diego appeared to be back on track with a three-game sweep of Los Angeles following a season-high 10-game losing streak, but has reverted back to its losing ways with back-to-back losses to the hard-charging Giants.
Nick Hundley ended with two hits and Clayton Richard was the unfortunate losing pitcher even though he threw six innings of one-run, two-hit ball for the Padres, who were outhit by a 7-3 margin.
"We picked a bad time not to score him (Richard) any runs. He's been throwing the ball great for us all year," Hundley said.
The Padres fell to 3-5 on a 10-game residency versus division foes.
Taking the hill for San Diego today will be Tim Stauffer. Stauffer hasn't recorded a win since July 21 at Atlanta, going 0-2 with a 3.24 ERA in 14 games (1 start) since.
He lasted four innings in a 4-2 win over Los Angeles on Monday and allowed one run and four hits for the no-decision. Stauffer, who is 3-3 with a 1.72 ERA this season, is 0-1 in two starts against the Giants in 2010. The right-hander has faced the Giants five times (3 starts) in his career and sports a 2-2 mark and a 3.66 ERA.
San Diego has still dominated the season series with the Giants by a 9-4 count, including a 4-3 ledger at Petco Park.