The San Francisco Giants began on of their last elongated road trips of the season on Friday against the Florida Marlins, but unfortunately continued their streak of unimpressive play. And aside from some early runs from both teams the game was offensively challenged with the Marlins taking game one of the series by a score of 2-1 at Sun Life Stadium.
Matt Cain (L 9-9) pitched very effectively in his six innings of work, spraying six hits along with both of Florida's earned runs with two walks and four strikeouts along the way. Cain's great start was thwarted by the complete ineptitude of the Giants offense though, as a Pablo Sandoval homer in the first was all the team could muster, getting absolutely nothing going from the rest of the lineup. Pablo was the only Giant to have multiple hits, and his home run was the team's lone extra base hit of the game.
As for the Marlins' Ricky Nolasco (W 9-8) his eight innings of one run ball was even more impressive than Cain's performance, striking out four and walking only one with his 109 pitches on the night. Logan Morrison and Mike Stanton backed Nolasco with RBI hits in the first inning, but the Fish couldn't get anything going either, but still did just enough to ensure the W for Florida.
Carlos Beltran was once again out of the lineup with a sore wrist, making a DL stint for the slugger looking liklier by the minute. The cortisone shot he received usually takes some time to kick in, hopefully it will soon so the Black and Orange can get him back in the lineup.
With the loss the Giants move to 64-55 on the year. Full box score can be found here.
Game two of the series will find Tim Lincecum (10-9 2.69 ERA) on the mound for San Francisco to take on Javier Vasquez (7-9 4.72 ERA) for Florida. First pitch is set for 4:10 pm PT with coverage on CSN Bay Area and KNBR 680 AM.