With the San Francisco Giants back home for the weekend, the Bay was looking for some good pitching from Madison Bumgarner and some of big innings with the lumber tonight. Unfortunately, they didn’t get much of either as Bummy left early and the offense stayed quiet as the Atlanta Braves beat the Giants by a score of 4-1 tonight.
Bumgarner (L 0-3) lasted for a mere 2.2 innings tonight, giving up 4 runs on 4 hits with 2 walks and 2 strikeouts. Home umpire Derryl Cousins seemed to be squeezing Bummy a little bit as he wasn’t getting some pitches called strikes. Obviously frustrated on the mound, skipper Bruce Bochy thought it best to yank the kid earlier than later this evening. Ryan Vogelsong made a scoreless 3.1 inning relief appearance, as did Guillermo Mota, Dan Runzler, and Sergio Romo for an inning apiece.
The Giants offense consisted of a Pat Burrell RBI groundout in the 7th, and nothing more. Pat the bat had a single as well, bumping his average up to a whopping .214 for the season, while Miguel Tejada’s single bumped his average to .209. Cody Ross remained hitless in his first two games thus far, but Pablo Sandoval stayed hot, ripping a double in the 7th.
The Braves Tommy Hanson (W 2-3) was on his game tonight, going for 7 full innings allowing only 3 hits, 1 run, 1 walk, and seven strikeouts. He was very impressive in his best outing of the season thus far, as was young Johnny Venters in his perfect inning of work and Craig Kimbrel who picked up his 5th save of the season.
The Braves did all of their damage against Bumgarner in the 3rd as a Jason Heyward RBI single, a 2 RBI Chipper Jones double, and a Freddie Freeman RBI single were enough to seal the G-Men’s fate.
With the loss it moves the Giants to 10-9 for the season, 3 games behind Colorado in the NL West. Full box score can be found here.
Saturday may turn into a pitchers duel as Tim Lincecum (2-1 1.67 ERA) squares off with the Braves Tim Hudson (2-2 4.05 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 PT and can be found on the FOX network or KNBR 680 AM.
Full more discussion and analysis of the San Francisco Giants head over to McCovey Chronicles to get your fix.