Jonathan Sanchez continued his wild streak in the bottom of the third and it led to Bruce Bochy finally pulling him from the game. After walking Placido Polanco, Sanchez hit Phillies second baseman Chase Utley. Due to the bounce of the ball it ended up in Utley’s hand and he lobbed it back towards Sanchez as we jogged to first. Sanchez took exception to this and as he and Utley exchanged words the benches cleared for both sides. The two sides mostly just stood around yelling at each other before the umpires cleaned it up.
However, manager Bruce Bochy did get one benefit from this as it gave reliever Jeremy Affeldt extra time to warm up in the bullpen. Once the players returned to their dugouts, Bochy decided it was time to pull Sanchez. Affeldt managed to escape the two on, no out jam by striking out Ryan Howard, forcing Jayson Werth to fly out, and wrapping the inning up with a ground out to first by Shane Victorino.
Bochy had indicated Madison Bumgarner is available tonight, with Tim Lincecum a maybe. Given the early exit of Sanchez, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bumgarner make an appearance at some point. The Giants have several options in the pen, but it’ll take some work to get through the ninth. If the Phillies were to take a decent sized lead on the Giants then I think we’d be almost guaranteed a Bumgarner appearance to save the bullpen.
In spite of all this, the game remains tied 2-2 in the fourth inning. Head on over to McCovey Chronicles to enjoy the in-game discussion.