SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle
Freddy Sanchez ended his rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Fresno and went 0-for-4 in his 2010 Giants debut Wednesday night. Soon, the front office might want to promote one of Sanchez's former Grizzlies teammates, Madison Bumgarner.
Bumgarner has a 1.54 ERA over his last six starts for Fresno, and Giants starter Todd Wellemeyer is not making a compelling case to keep Bumgarner on the farm.
Wellemeyer got hammered again on the road in a 13-1 embarrassment against last-place Arizona, which hit three of its six home runs against the starter. The last time the Giants surrendered six in a game was 1996. This was the fourth time a San Francisco team has done it.
"I don't think there were any cheap ones, either," manager Bruce Bochy said. "We pitched in the nitro zone tonight, and we paid for it."
Two of the six were hit by Adam LaRoche in his first game against the Giants since he signed a one-year, $6 million contract with the Diamondbacks after initially receiving a two-year, $17 million offer from the Giants, that he said was reduced to one year as negotiations progressed.
LaRoche hit a solo homer off Wellemeyer in the second inning and a three-run shot to center in a six-run eighth against Brandon Medders. LaRoche just missed a third homer, off Wellemeyer in the fifth.
LaRoche insisted this was not a vengeance performance and said he had no hard feelings against the Giants' front office, adding, "I may end up there one day, so I'm not bitter about anything."
More pressing for the Giants is the fifth-starter situation. Bochy said he might use Monday's off day to skip Wellemeyer a second time this season, but beyond that, Bochy sidestepped the Bumgarner question.
"These are things we talk about internally," he said. "I'm not going to talk about that. (Wellemeyer) had a rough night tonight coming off a good start. You do want consistency there. I'm not going to speculate on what we're going to do right now."
Wellemeyer has done a swell job in three starts plus a relief appearance in San Francisco, where he is 2-1 with a 3.04 ERA. Away from home, he is 0-4 with a 9.35 ERA.
He finished five innings on the road for the first time, but that was a pyrrhic victory after he surrendered solo homers to LaRoche and Justin Upton before Stephen Drew settled the game with a three-run homer in the fifth. That's seven homers and 17 walks in 17 1/3 road innings for Wellemeyer.
Meanwhile, Ian Kennedy held the Giants to three hits in eight innings with a career-best nine strikeouts.
The Giants scored a first-inning run for the first time in 20 road games this year when Aaron Rowand hit a leadoff double and newly installed cleanup hitter Pablo Sandoval got him home with a single - the Panda's first two-out hit with a runner in scoring position all year.
Maybe it was the park. Sandoval's single upped his average in 52 Chase Field at-bats to .500.
Bochy made Sanchez the No. 3 hitter and dropped Sandoval to cleanup because the manager liked what Rowand and Andres Torres were doing in the top two spots. When Aubrey Huff rejoins the lineup tonight, he probably will hit fifth behind Sandoval, with Bengie Molina sixth.
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