Mercury News
While preparing to play his first game as a visitor at Citizens Bank Park, Pat Burrell smiled when asked how the famously fickle fans might receive him.
"I've heard the full spectrum here," he said.
The former Phillies player got it all in his first at-bat.
Treated to a standing ovation as he walked to the batter's box, Burrell's cheers immediately turned to boos when he hammered a pitch from Roy Oswalt into the left-field seats.
The game turned just as abruptly for the Giants, and not in a good way. A dominant start from Barry Zito went awry after four innings, and the Giants made all manner of mistakes as the Phillies blew open the game with a five-run eighth inning to win 9-3 and grab the NL wild-card lead.
If the season ended now, the Giants wouldn't be a playoff team. They dropped to one game below the Phillies and also fell to five behind the San Diego Padres in the NL West -- their largest deficit in the division since the All-Star break.
"We didn't play well enough today," said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, who did plenty of talking in a pregame meeting and further sharpened his oratory skills while being ejected in the eighth.
"We made some mistakes. We hit some balls hard and had some good at-bats, but when you're playing a good team, there isn't much margin for error."
The Giants simply aren't getting the starting pitching they need to win, nor are they playing well enough to beat quality opponents. They have dominated losing clubs all season, posting a 43-18 record against them. But they are 24-35 against clubs that currently have winning records-- by far the worst mark among the Padres and the other NL contenders bunched near the top of the wild-card standings. Their season depends on rising to the occasion now. They will play their next eight games against clubs with winning records -- two more with the Phillies, then three at St. Louis and three at AT&T Park against the Cincinnati Reds. It starts with the starters. The Giants have gone 13 games without a victory from the rotation; the starting pitchers are 0-8 with a 5.97 ERA over that span. "We've got to do a better job, myself included," said Zito (8-7), who allowed a tying, two-run single to Jimmy Rollins in the fifth and didn't retire any of the three batters he faced in the sixth. "We've just got to give the team a better chance to win, hold them to two or less if we can, go seven strong." Zito appeared poised to do just that. He had a two-run lead, courtesy of Andres Torres, who led off the game with a double and scored on a double-play grounder, and Burrell, who followed with a solo shot. And Zito had plenty of action on his pitches, too, overcoming an error from third baseman Pablo Sandoval in the first inning and using double-play grounders to end the second and fourth. But Carlos Ruiz worked a 10-pitch walk in the fifth, Oswalt got down a two-strike sacrifice bunt, and Rollins hit a jam shot to center field for a tying, two-run single. Shane Victorino's two-run double drove Zito from the game in the sixth. "They hit some good pitches, and others I left up," Zito said. "It's incredibly frustrating to have that two-run lead and not be able to hold it." The Giants still had a chance to win late after Jose Guillen's home run off Oswalt made it a one-run game. Guillen, starting just his second game as a Giant, also showed good bat speed while whacking a single in the fourth inning. "They trust me," Guillen said. "They put me right in there, and I'm trying to make the best of it." Chris Ray made the worst of his opportunity. Summoned to begin the eighth, he didn't retire any of the four hitters he faced. Ramon Ramirez committed a balk that precipitated Bochy's ejection, and second baseman Mike Fontenot made a damaging error. Burrell was booed solidly in his second and third at-bats, but when he hit again in the ninth, the crowd barely took notice of him. With the Phillies comfortably ahead, it wasn't worth the effort. "It looked like we were going in the right direction," Burrell said of his home run. "I'm happy to be able to do that, but where we are, we've got to win games. That one got away from us."
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