As if there wasn't enough baseball played at Wrigley Field over the past three days the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs took Thursday's game to the 13th inning, after the Giants had the lead and the Cubbies down to their last strike not once, but twice. And it was Geovany Soto's three run homer that eventually sealed the G-Men's fate, falling by a score of 5-2.
The Giants had a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the ninth thanks to an RBI single from Miguel Tejada in the second. Yesterday's hero Aramis Ramirez stole the show once again as he homered off of Brian Wilson with two strikes and two outs, tying the game and ensuring the third blown save for Wilson this season. The Giants offense went 10 1/3 innings without getting a hit until Pablo Sandoval launched his first home run since returning from the DL, only to watch Ramon Ramirez (L 2-1) give it away in the 13th with an RBI single from Darwin Barney and the aforementioned Soto home run. It marks the second walk-off loss to the Cubs for San Francisco in as many days, and a series tie with Chicago during the four game set. John Grabow earned his first win of the year for the Cubbies.
Matt Cain pitched well to begin the game, tossing seven full innings of scoreless ball with only four hits, one walk, and six strikeouts. Cain notched his 1,000th career strikeout against Koyie Hill in the fifth, joining Tim Lincecum, Jason Schmidt, Gaylord Perry and Juan Marichal as the only San Francisco Giants to reach this epic milestone.
It'd be easy to point the finger of blame at Wilson or Ramirez, but the Giants made some critical errors as a team, like leaving the bases loaded in the 12th. It was a team loss that will certainly sting as it was a game the Giants should have won on two separate occasions this afternoon.
With the loss the Giants move to 46-36 on the year, they are 7-5 in extra inning games for the season.Full box score can be found here.
The Giants will now head to Detroit to take on the Tigers in another interleague matchup, with Madison Bumgarner (4-9 3.84 ERA) set to take on ex-Giant Brad Penny (5-6 4.66 ERA) at Comerica Park. First pitch is set for 4:05 p.m. PT with coverage on CSN Bay Area and KNBR 680 AM.
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