Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle
Yeah, Stephen Strasburg was special. He struck out eight in six innings and threw 98 mph and so on. But the Giants lost any chance to beat him Friday night because of their obstinacy and found themselves on the short end of an 8-1 keelhauling.
On a night when the Nationals rested two of their better hitters in Josh Willingham and Ivan Rodriguez, Bunyanesque slugger Adam Dunn was the one Nationals hitter whom the Giants should not have let beat them.
But he did beat them, again and again and again.
After smacking three homers against San Diego on Wednesday, Dunn hit two more against Matt Cain, one with a man aboard, and started a two-run rally with a double.
Strasburg improved as the game progressed, and the Giants' ever-widening deficit became too much to overcome. For the fourth time, they failed to extend a season-high four-game winning streak to five.
The Giants' strategy against Dunn was not exactly, "Here it is. I dare you to hit it." Cain was supposed to entice him to chase bad pitches. But the right-hander's accuracy has not been exact during a personal losing streak that has reached four games.
"We didn't execute pitches, is what it comes down to," manager Bruce Bochy said. "He wasn't supposed to catch the plate like he did."
However, by continuing to let Cain tempt Dunn, rather than ordering the Barry Bonds treatment, Bochy gave Washington's top homer and RBI man too wide an opening.
Cain struck him out in the first inning, but Dunn broke a 1-1 tie in the fourth with a one-out solo homer to right. With one out and nobody on in the sixth, Dunn doubled high off the center-field wall to ignite a two-run rally, both scoring on Wil Nieves' two-out single. Dunn delivered the coup de grace in the seventh with his second homer of the night and 22nd of the season.
Cain took the blame, though, saying, "This game is definitely on me. I'm not executing pitches down in the dirt when I'm trying to bounce breaking balls. You're trying to go in or off the plate when you're ahead in the count and leaving stuff over the middle. That's one of those things I've got to not let happen."
Cain was charged with seven earned runs, giving him 21 in 21 1/3 innings over his last four starts. Since June 13 his ERA has risen from 2.05 to 3.34.
Andres Torres gave Strasburg a jolt and the Giants a 1-0 lead five pitches into the game by homering for the third straight game. But that was the end of Kid Superman's generosity. He allowed two more hits, a Buster Posey single and Travis Ishikawa double, and was rewarded with his third major-league win.
Torres left the game after four innings with a left groin that tightened as he chased a first-inning double. Bochy said the injury appears mild, though Torres' return in the final two games before the break was "questionable."
The Giants forced Strasburg to throw 88 pitches through five innings to hasten his exit. By the sixth, when he did depart, the game was out of hand.
"It looked early on like he had trouble with his command," Pat Burrell said. "We tried to make him work for it. He pushed through that, and later in the game we tried to get a good pitch to hit. He has good stuff. He throws hard and he has three above-average pitches.
"We kept it close for a while but couldn't get the big hit."
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