San Francisco Giants hit four homers to overtake Los Angeles Dodgers

Andrew Baggarly
Mercury News

The San Diego Padres aren't just opening the door for the Giants in the NL West. With their losing streak reaching nine games Saturday, the Padres are putting down the red carpet, plugging in the coffee urn and arranging a fancy tray of delectable edibles.

The Giants have failed to RSVP several times during the Padres' meltdown. But they didn't need an invitation Saturday night.

They knocked the door down with four home runs, all coming in the seventh inning or later, to rally from a four-run deficit and take a stunning 5-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers that will linger in memory.

With one out in the ninth, Juan Uribe hit a two-run shot off Jonathan Broxton that silenced the crowd at Chavez Ravine and turned his own dugout into a mosh pit.

The loud drive into the left-field pavilion gave the Giants a one-run lead and completed a comeback that began with Buster Posey's solo home run in the seventh off left-hander Ted Lilly.

"It's funny to see guys who've been in this league 10 years, 30 or 35 years old, jumping around like little kids," Posey said.

The rookie catcher has a thing to learn about these dugout celebrations, though. He slipped and fell down the stairs and sheepishly said he wasn't pushed.

"I'm all right," he said.

The Giants own 33 comeback victories this season, and Saturday's was the third in which they erased a four-run deficit. But nobody saw this stirring end coming -- especially after Lilly held the Giants without a hit from Aaron Rowand's game-opening double to Posey's homer in the seventh.

Uribe was in a 2-for-22 slump before Cody Ross beat out an infield single and Broxton left a 1-0 slider over the plate.

"It never gets old, man," veteran outfielder Pat Burrell said. "Winning never does, especially when dramatic stuff like that happens."

Burrell had his own act in the drama. His third career pinch homer came against Octavio Dotel in the eighth, and it followed a leadoff shot from Edgar Renteria that chased Lilly. Renteria, playing for the first time since Aug. 10, sneaked his drive just inside the left-field pole.

And Ross, whose hyperactivity is a handy thing to have in a pennant race, sprinted down the line in the ninth on his ground ball to short to bring Uribe to the plate.

"I got chills running around the bases," Ross said. "I couldn't wait for him to get home so I could give him a double high-five."

Uribe got pummeled even worse once he reached the dugout.

"Punch your teammate in the chest. It's pretty exciting," first baseman Aubrey Huff said, grinning. "It was kind of dead in the dugout there, but it almost felt like Uribe was going to hit a home run. Cody beat out an infield hit, just set it up perfectly.

"Uribe, man, it seems every home run he's hit has been late in games and big. For sure, he's won five or six games for us like that."

Brian Wilson put runners at the corners with one out but escaped to record his NL-leading 39th save as the Giants moved within two games of the Padres and also remained three behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the wild-card standings.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy once lost a game in this ballpark as the Padres' manager when the Dodgers hit four consecutive home runs. He enjoyed being on the other end.

"I tell you, that's right up there," Bochy said. "Cody, he got us going by hustling down the line. It's hard to get a bigger win at this stage.

"No question, we've been struggling offensively. We ran into another well-pitched game. But we kept it close. You give Matt a lot of credit for settling down."

That would be Matt Cain, who allowed a three-run homer to Jay Gibbons in a four-run fourth inning but was entrusted to hit for himself in the fifth -- something Bochy didn't do for Barry Zito a night earlier. The right-hander rewarded his manager with three more scoreless innings.

"You can't just fold," Cain said. "Today is definitely a reason why."

In the end, the Giants came knocking.

"Hopefully we do look back (on this game)," Bochy said. "You're hoping some games will spur you on and build momentum."

Box Score

San Francisco Giants' Tim Lincecum regains winning groove

Alex Pavlovic
Mercury News

Tim Lincecum emphatically quieted his skeptics Wednesday night, and he did so by beating one of the best pitchers in the game.

Lincecum brushed aside a brutal August, pitching eight strong innings and outdueling Ubaldo Jimenez in a 2-1 victory over the Colorado Rockies at AT&T Park.

The Giants drew within three games of the first-place San Diego Padres in the National League West and kept pace in the wild-card race, staying 11/2 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies.

Lincecum entered the game riding a five-start losing streak, but he allowed just one run on five hits while striking out nine.

"I was just trying to be aggressive and overall just kind of have a different mentality," Lincecum said. "Just like, 'This is a big moment, and I've got to step up and start off the month well.' "

Lincecum picked up his first win since July 30, thanks in large part to an eye-opening debut by rookie Darren Ford.

Called up from Double-A Richmond, Ford didn't arrive until the second inning because of a two-hour flight delay in Detroit. That might be the only way to slow down the 24-year-old speedster.

With the score 1-1 in the eighth, Ford pinch ran for Mike Fontenot, who had drawn a walk. Lincecum bunted Ford to second, and when Jimenez's slider to Andres Torres skipped a few feet toward third base, Ford took off.

Catcher Miguel Olivo pounced on the wild pitch, but his throw to third sailed into left field, allowing Ford to scamper home.

"I thought I could make it, so I just told myself to go, and it was a good decision," Ford said.

Lincecum said Ford "was like a blur," and Fontenot called his replacement's speed "unbelievable "... something I was hearing stories about in the dugout."

But manager Bruce Bochy remembered Ford's strong spring training, which he called "one of the best displays of baserunning I've seen."

"He's electric, and he has no fear," Bochy said of his decision to use Ford right away. "This kid can outrun the ball."

Before Wednesday, Ford had never even entered a major league ballpark. He conceded to being nervous, and when asked what he remembered from his first moments in a big league dugout, said, "I think Tim Lincecum was striking somebody out, but I'm not sure who it was."

You could hardly blame him for losing track of Lincecum's dominance. Lincecum pounded the zone from the start, throwing fastballs on 13 of his first 14 pitches.

Carlos Gonzalez took Lincecum deep in the fourth, but Lincecum settled in and cruised into the seventh.

An infield single and error put two runners on, but Lincecum struck out Eric Young Jr. to end the threat, then came back out and set the Rockies down in order in the eighth on seven pitches.

"After the first couple of innings helped me establish (the fastball), I started working some breaking balls in there, and then the changeups," Lincecum said. "I'm going to try to take this momentum into the next series -- (there are) a lot of positives."

The Giants had many positives to dwell on as well. They moved to four games ahead of the Rockies and, aided by San Diego's seven-game losing streak, made up 31/2 games on the division leader during the last seven days of a 5-4 homestand.

"When you make up some ground like we have and the team ahead of you has their struggles -- sure, that's what you need," Bochy said. "You never lose sight of winning your division."

Box Score

Giants hold off Rockies

Alex Pavlovic
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.

Box Score

Giants lose on broken-bat triple, error

Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle
The first thing that must be said is that any right fielder in the majors would have charged the ball as Cody Ross did in the ninth inning Monday night, in a disastrous moment for the Giants that turned a game of beauty on the mound into a 2-1 loss to the Rockies.

Brian Wilson was trying to save what would have been Jonathan Sanchez's career-best 10th win. Dexter Fowler was on first base. Nobody was out. The Giants led 1-0.

Wilson fired a 96-mph fastball that shattered the bat of Carlos Gonzalez. Ross, hearing and seeing the bat break, instinctively ran in but quickly realized how well the ball was struck anyway. He retreated but had no chance. Once the ball cleared his head and rolled toward the wall in right-center, 30,224 fans knew Fowler was going to score the tying run.

It got much worse. Freddy Sanchez fielded Ross' throw and bounced a throw to third. The ball hit a sliding Gonzalez and rolled into a camera well beside the Giants' dugout. Gonzalez was awarded home plate on the error, and the game was lost.

"That was kind of bizarre, a broken-bat triple," Ross said after a number of teammates walked by to console him. "I've never seen anything like it."

The Giants hit three balls hard against Huston Street in the ninth, including a leadoff drive by Aubrey Huff that Ryan Spilborghs caught with his back to the left-field fence. The game ended with Buster Posey slamming his helmet to the ground after Street speared his line drive.

Though the Giants lost no ground to San Diego and Philadelphia for the division and wild card, as both lost as well, the Rockies snuck within two games of the Giants in both races. The Giants also fell to 3-4 with two games left in their final long homestand of the year.

"It was tough because Johnny went out and pitched a gem," Freddy Sanchez said. "It would have been a nice win. It's one of those bad beats. It's tough to take."

The second baseman said that in his rush to nail Gonzalez he got a poor grip on the ball, but said, "I should have made a better throw."

Ross also said he should have found a way to catch Gonzalez's triple.

Perhaps, too, the Giants could have scored more than once against Jorge De La Rosa after he walked the leadoff hitter in three straight innings. The Giants took advantage only once, after Huff and Pat Burrell walked to start the fourth. Posey, returning after two days off with a strained forearm, lined a single to center for the Giants' only run.

The Giants hit into three double plays, including a hard-hit one-hopper by Ross after Posey's single.

The only solace for the Giants was Jonathan Sanchez's effort. After 93 runs scored during the first six games of this homestand, a pitching duel finally broke out on a foggy evening and Sanchez was up to it.

Manager Bruce Bochy rewarded Sanchez for eight shutout innings by allowing him to start the ninth in a bid for his second career complete game. The other was his no-hitter last year. Sanchez got ahead of Fowler 0-2 but then threw four straight balls, most of them not close. The lefty said he tried too hard to get the out once he was ahead.

"He was throwing well," Bochy said. "It was hard to take him out after the way he ended the eighth inning,"

Gonzalez's broken-bat triple cost Sanchez the win and pinned the loss on Wilson, who also took his fourth blown save in 40 save chances this season.

Box Score

Giants salvage one against Diamondbacks, 9-7

Ron Kroichick
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

The magnitude of Sunday's game became clear when Giants manager Bruce Bochy hopped out of the dugout and motioned for Brian Wilson to pitch - with one out in the eighth inning.

Wilson soon ended the rampant craziness in China Basin. He restored some semblance of order to a wild affair, pocketing the final five outs as the Giants beat Arizona 9-7 and avoided a costly sweep.

The victory trimmed San Diego's National League West lead to five games and kept the Giants 1 1/2 behind Philadelphia in the wild-card race. In the context of these taut races, and with September fast approaching, another loss to last-place Arizona would have counted as mighty deflating.

"The last thing we wanted to do was get swept, and the guys fought hard to make sure it didn't happen," Bochy said.

They blew a 5-1 lead, quickly moved back ahead and then stood on the brink of losing the lead again. So the call went to Wilson, who had pitched only once in San Francisco's previous seven games.

Wilson channeled his inner Goose Gossage - not a stretch given his long hair, mound presence and howling fastball - and didn't allow another Diamondback to slither across home plate. The 33-pitch outing spoke to Wilson's durability and fortitude in an era in which closers are protected like precious jewels.

This was Wilson's fourth five-out save this season and his first since June 16. He also has four four-out saves.

"I don't think closers should only have to get three outs," Wilson said. "They pay you to do exactly what they need. If they call you in the seventh to get nine outs, then you do it."

Wilson (36th save) was one of the few predictable elements in a game featuring abundant quirkiness. To wit:

-- Matt Cain, after watching his predecessors allow a combined 13 first-inning runs over the past three games, nearly followed suit. Arizona put runners on second and third with nobody out - and Cain struck out the side, launching another solid outing.

-- Catcher Eli Whiteside and Cain, the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters, started the Giants' first two rallies.

-- Cain (with help from Whiteside) threw three wild pitches in one inning.

-- After blowing their lead, the Giants regained it with a three-run rally, fueled in part by Aubrey Huff's ground-rule double - which Arizona left fielder Gerardo Parra lost in the sun.

-- The Diamondbacks cut their deficit to 8-7 when Parra boldly/foolishly came home from second on an infield grounder. The next batter hit a slow roller down the third-base line - called foul by third-base umpire Jerry Meals, then correctly overruled by plate ump Dan Iassogna.

"That game had about everything," Bochy said. "We just don't do anything easy."

All that mattered, ultimately, was Cain ending a stretch of bad outings by Giants starters and Jose Guillen extending his run of hot hitting. Guillen's two-run single in the seventh gave the Giants the lead for good.

"He's changed our club," Bochy said of Guillen, who's hitting .372 since his arrival. "We've been putting more runs on the board."

Box Score

Zito, Giants roughed up by D-backs

Chris Haft
MLB.com
The boos, which Barry Zito hadn't heard all year at AT&T Park, returned on Saturday night.

But the fans' catcalls paled in comparison to the wrath of manager Bruce Bochy, who lectured his starting pitchers after the Giants' 11-3 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Bochy was fed up with the ineffectiveness of the starters, who thrived for most of the season and were expected to lead San Francisco toward prominence. After Zito allowed nine runs (seven earned) while pitching a season-low 3 2/3 innings for the second start in a row, Bochy no longer could contain his frustration. He essentially told his pitchers to snap out of it, though the forcefulness of his voice as he addressed reporters indicated that he used harsher language.

"They all need to step up," said Bochy, who summoned Zito, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez and Madison Bumgarner. Matt Cain, who has pitched capably this month (2-2, 2.76 ERA), was resting at home for his Sunday appearance. "It's tough when you go through stretches like this. But the last thing we can do is accept it. You have to do something about it, individually, as a staff and as a team. These are all critical games. We're just not getting it done, and we know it."

"The starters got called in," Zito acknowledged. "We gotta do better. That's the bottom line."

The Giants remain in contention, though their third consecutive defeat dropped them 1 1/2 games behind National League Wild Card leader Philadelphia and kept them six games behind first-place San Diego in the NL West. Memo to the Giants: Look out for Colorado, which trails them by only three games.

If the Giants' pitching continues to flounder, reaching the postseason will be a fantasy by mid-September. San Francisco's starters are 5-13 with a 5.56 ERA in August, largely explaining the club's 11-14 record this month. Through five games on this homestand, Giants starters are 1-3 with a 9.12 ERA.

"Baseball's funny like that. There's an ebb and a flow always. It's just not a good time for us to be having a lull right now," Zito said. "There's a playoff race. It's still August, yeah, but we can't take anything lightly."

Simply put, the starters are starting poorly. Zito allowed Arizona six first-inning runs, though right fielder Jose Guillen misplayed a two-out fly ball that made two runs unearned. That followed the three runs Lincecum yielded in Friday night's first inning, as well as the four Bumgarner surrendered in Wednesday's initial frame against Cincinnati.

"As the starting rotation, we know that we set the tone out there," Zito said. "We have to make a statement in the first inning, second inning, and we haven't been doing that. So we're taking this pretty seriously."

Lincecum, the two-time reigning NL Cy Young Award winner, lost all five of his August starts while compiling a 7.82 ERA. Zito (8-10), the 2002 AL Cy Young recipient, hasn't won a game since July 16 and is 0-6, 5.51 in nine appearances since. The left-hander also has lost three games in seven days, including last Sunday's setback at St. Louis and his 12th-inning relief lapse Wednesday against Cincinnati. The last pitcher to absorb three defeats, including at least two starts, during a one-week span was Jorge De La Rosa, then with Kansas City, from June 16-22, 2007.

In some instances with some teams, both Lincecum and Zito would be candidates for removal from the rotation. But given their past excellence and the lack of qualified stand-ins at Triple-A Fresno, the Giants have no choice but to stick with their current quintet.

"Believe me, we're working on it. Because we know this isn't going to work," Bochy said. "We're not getting it done. The starting staff is what we're built on. We're going to have to get this fixed really soon."

The D-backs have made some repairs since the Giants swept them July 22-25 at Phoenix. They're 14-12 in August.

"We've played hard," interim D-backs manager Kirk Gibson said.

Arizona's standouts include first baseman Adam LaRoche, who spurned the Giants' overtures as a free agent last offseason. LaRoche wanted to play in a better hitters' park, but he looked at home while depositing his second homer into McCovey Cove in two nights, a two-run drive in the ninth inning.

The game became a rout eight innings earlier. Zito reached two-strike counts on six of the 11 hitters he faced in Arizona's crushing first inning. But he retired just one of them. Two collected hits, a pair drew walks and another -- Daniel Hudson, the opposing pitcher batting .154 -- was hit by a pitch. Those lapses helped set up the inning's biggest hit, Miguel Montero's bases-loaded, three-run double with two outs.

"I'm just not in a good rhythm out there," Zito said. "The pitches just aren't crisp right now."

Much to Bochy's chagrin, the same goes for the rest of the staff.

Box Score

Lincecum can change his stripes, but not his luck

Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle
Tim Lincecum threw his first changeup hours before Friday night's game. He dug deep into the clubhouse closet for a pair of stirrups with the horizontal orange stripes favored by managing general partner Bill Neukom.

If only for the Giants' sake those stirrups possessed the magic to restore the enchantment of Lincecum's past.

No wins, five losses and a 7.82 ERA. That was Lincecum's August after he allowed four runs over six innings in a 6-0 loss to the Diamondbacks, only the third shutout by Arizona pitching this year.

A crowd of 38,013, whose morale sank with Adam LaRoche's three-run homer in the first inning, surely became more fearful when Buster Posey was removed for a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning. Posey left with what manager Bruce Bochy described as a mild left forearm strain, which Posey felt while swinging in his second at-bat. The rookie will be reassessed before tonight's game.

"I probably would have been all right to hit," Posey said. "It was probably smart not to risk taking a swing. I don't think it's that serious."

At least Lincecum maintained his humor after completing his winless August. Asked about the stirrups, he said he wore them at a fan's suggestion. Then, after a pause, he smiled and said, "And I seem taller."

Perhaps Lincecum was buoyed by the way his night ended. He allowed one run over his final five innings and finished with three scoreless frames, which he had not done since his last win July 30. Nobody wants September to arrive more than he does.

"I'm probably ready for it," he said. "Hopefully I'll start off fresh. This is one of those things where you've got to take a punch and roll with it. It's not something fun to go through. It's not fun for my teammates to watch me go through. I've got to fight through it and keep pitching. The last thing I want to do is give in or give up right now."

Coincidence or not, Lincecum's improvement Friday followed a slight adjustment with his right arm after LaRoche jumped on a hanging changeup and blasted it into San Francisco Bay for a quick 3-0 lead.

Stephen Drew, who was on second base, appeared to be sending signals to LaRoche. After the homer, Drew was caught on television demonstrating Lincecum's delivery to teammates. That suggests Lincecum was tipping pitches.

Drew denied doing so. LaRoche, asked if he was receiving signals, said, "If I did, I wouldn't repeat that."

Giants coaches were aware of all this and told Lincecum to move his right arm closer to his torso before his windup so a runner on second base could not see how he gripped the ball, moved his forearm or whatnot.

Unfortunately for the Giants and Lincecum, too, the league does not allow rollover runs.

After they scored 38 in three games against Cincinnati to start the week, they were skunked over seven innings by red-bearded rookie Barry Enright, who did not allow a run for the first time in 10 big-league starts. The Giants got one runner to third base.

Enright had a good backup sinker and provided a clinic on throwing breaking pitches to set up high fastballs. They reached only 87 mph, but as Geena Davis said in "A League of their Own," Giants hitters couldn't lay off 'em and couldn't hit 'em.

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