Mercury News
For a brief moment Tuesday night, the Giants flirted with a second straight crushing defeat.
But this time, they countered the Colorado Rockies' late rally with heroics of their own and came away with a 5-2 victory at AT&T Park.
A night after their ninth-inning comeback victory, the Rockies tied the score on Melvin Mora's wind-aided home run to right in the eighth inning. Andres Torres found the same jet stream, however, responding in the bottom of the inning with a solo blast that sparked a three-run rally.
The victory got the Giants within four games of the National League West-leading San Diego Padres, who lost their sixth in a row. The Giants also stayed 11/2 games behind wild-card leader Philadelphia.
"Big win, big win," Torres said. "Yesterday was a tough loss, but we wanted this game. It was an important game for us."
The Giants also went back to being three games ahead of the Rockies, a detail not lost on starter Madison Bumgarner.
"They're creeping back into the race here, and we need to go ahead and pull away," said Bumgarner, who left with a 2-1 lead after six innings.
The 21-year-old rookie has looked right at home in the big leagues -- except at his home field.
Bumgarner entered the night 0-2 with a 6.04 ERA in five starts at AT&T Park this season, but he gave up just one run on five hits and three walks.
The strong start came six days after Bumgarner couldn't make it out of the third inning of a 12-11 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. Not that the seven earned runs last Wednesday bothered him.
"I forgot about that game the second I walked into the clubhouse after being pulled," Bumgarner said.
He was back to his old self Tuesday, outdueling fellow rookie Esmil Rogers on the mound and at the plate.
Rogers needed just 37 pitches to get through the first four innings, though he gave up a first-inning run when his balk brought home Freddy Sanchez.
The Rockies tied the score an inning later, but Bumgarner put the Giants ahead in the fifth, following Juan Uribe's single with a run-scoring double.
"I was looking first-pitch fastball, and I got it," Bumgarner said of his first career extra-base hit. "I might have gotten lucky, but I'd rather be lucky than good."
Bumgarner was plenty good on the mound, but he got help from a defense that had made 11 errors in the previous five games.
Jason Giambi led off the fourth inning with a double but was caught in a rundown when Aubrey Huff fielded Ryan Spilborghs' hard grounder to first and immediately turned and fired to third baseman Pablo Sandoval. The third baseman threw to Sanchez, who tagged out Giambi as he dived back into second.
Miguel Olivo's single put two runners on, but Uribe leapt to snag Clint Barmes' liner before throwing to second to double up Spilborghs.
"I didn't have a whole lot of strikeouts, so I needed them," Bumgarner said of his teammates' defense. "They picked me up."
Bumgarner's two strikeouts tied a season low, but after 94 pitches, he left the game in position for his first career win at AT&T Park. Mora changed that in the eighth, smacking Jeremy Affeldt's fastball into the right-field arcade.
Torres led off the bottom of the eighth and jumped on Matt Belisle's fastball, hitting it deep into the bay -- and about 50 feet foul.
"I hit that ball good," Torres said. "I just pulled off it a little."
He straightened one out three pitches later, launching a moonshot that came down in the first row of the right-field seats.
"It's great to answer back the way we did," manager Bruce Bochy said. "I wasn't sure if he got enough on it, but we were blowing on it and it just made it."
Buster Posey added a two-run double, and Brian Wilson pitched a perfect ninth for his 37th save.
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