The San Francisco Giants have seemingly been on the road all season so far, compiling 27 of their first 42 games away from AT&T Park. They have a 13-14 record in those games, and were looking to improve their road record tonight against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Madison Bumgarner pitched great, the offense got to Chad Billingsley early, and the Giants swept their rivals by a score of 3-1 at Dodger Stadium.
Bumgarner (1-6) was incredibly solid tonight, earning his first win of the season going eight and 2/3 innings of shutout ball against the Dodgers. He gave up only one earned run on six hits with two walks and four strikeouts, with that run coming in the ninth. Brian Wilson came in with one out left to get the save, and made it about as painstaking as humanly possible by walking the bases loaded. He, along with Bumgarner’s win, were saved by a Nate Schierholtz diving grab to end the game, leaving the bags full of Dodgers. Wilson got his 13th save of the season.
Mike Fontenot plated Buster Posey after they both doubled in the second, Freddy Sanchez hit a sacrifice fly in the third, then hit an RBI single in the sixth for the Giants tonight. Buster Posey extended his hit streak to eight games, hitting only his second extra base hit of the month of May. Miguel Tejada was the only Giant with multiple hits tonight, going 2-4 with two singles.
Chad Billingsley (L 2-4) didn’t have too much control this evening after he lasted for 6 innings, allowing three earned runs on six hits with four walks, four punch outs, and two hit batsmen. Out of his 108 pitches only 61 were strikes, and was lucky the Giants didn’t do more damage tonight.
With the win the Giants move to 24-19 on the year, still a half a game ahead of the Rockies in the NL West. Full Box Score can be found here.
The Giants will head home tomorrow to begin their first interleague matchup of the year with their cross Bay rivals the Oakland A’s. Ryan Vogelsong (3-0 2.36 ERA) will be on the mound to face Trevor Cahill (6-1 1.82 ERA) for the A’s. First pitch is set for 7:15 PT tomorrow night with coverage on CSN Bay Area and KNBR 680 AM.
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