The San Francisco Giants offense has been a roller coaster over the course of 2011 so far, and luckily today it was on an upswing. Andres Torres luanched his first career grand slam, Madison Bumgarner pitched great, and the Giants took out the St. Louis Cardinals by a score of 7-3 at Busch Stadium.
Madison Bumgarner pitched well (W 2-6), lasting for seven full innings allowing six hits, two runs, two walks, and five strikeouts. It was his seventh straight quality start in a row, and kept one of the NL’s best offenses relatively quiet at their home ballpark.
Cody Ross started it off for the Giants with a solo shot in the second, hist fourth of the year. Then the Giants opened the flood gates with a Miguel Tejada RBI single in the third followed by a Brandon Crawford RBI single in the fourth. That set the stage for Torres’ salami, which burst the game wide open 7-2. Not to be outshined, Albert Pujols hits a homer of his own in the eighth, his ninth of the season, but it was not enough this afternoon.
With the win the Giants move to 28-24 on the season. Full box score can be found here.
Game two of the series will have a battle of veteran righties as Ryan Vogelsong (3-1 1.77 ERA) will take the mound for the Giants to face Chris Carpenter (1-5 4.58 ERA) for the Red Birds. First pitch is set for 4:09 PT with coverage on ESPN, CSN Bay Area, and KNBR 680 AM.