Game Wrap 6/1/2012: Giants 4 Cubs 3

What had been Madison Bumgarner's best pitched game of the season almost became a nail biter in the 9'th inning, but the Cubs late rally fell just short as the Giants gained another game on the leaders of the NL West.  Key Lines:

Gregor Blanco- 0 for 3, BB.  BA= .282.  Blanco led off the game with a walk, which he seems to do more often than not, and came around to score from first on Riot's double into the LF corner.

Ryan Theriot- 3 for 3, 2B, BB.  BA= .234.  Riot has been hitting the ball hard for awhile but now they are starting to find the gaps for base hits.  He's solidifying his hold on the 2B/#2 hitter job.

Melky Cabrera- 2 for 4, 3B.  BA= .376.  Melky quieted fears that he might be in for a regression in June.  In addition to the two hits, he smoked another one to the base of the CF wall that was caught.

Buster Posey- 1 for 3, SF.  BA= .295.  SF, RBI single.  Just another day at the office for Buster.

Madison Bumgarner- 8 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 11 K's.  ERA= 3.04.  This is an excellent pitching line, but Bumgarner pitched even better.   The 2 hits to start the 9'th came around to score on Soriano's blast off Casilla.  Before that, Bumgarner was as good as I've seen him, which is saying something.

Santiago Casilla- 0.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 0 K.  ERA= 1.54.  Strange appearance for Casilla.  He came out wild high.  I'm not sure what Soriano hit for the HR, but it wasn't close to the strike zone.  I think it may have been a hanging breaking ball that was up around the top of the shoulder wide of the plate.  Soriano reatched out and kind of tomahawked it over the LF wall.  Later Casilla tweaked his knee trying to field a swinging bunt that stopped in no-man's land between him and Arias coming in from 3B.

Javier Lopez- 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K, Save(1).  ERA= 3.55.  Fortunately, the Cubs did not have any RH bats on the bench at this point and Lopez made quick work of the two lefties he faced.  Woulda been the right move to bring him in even if Casilla hadn't tweaked his knee.

Bruce Bochy- Right move to pull Bumgarner after giving up the two leadoff singles and the RH hitting Soriano coming up.  I know Soriano isn't exactly Ryan Braun, but he had hit something like 7 HR's in his last 11 games or something like that.

With the Win, the Giants pulled up to 4 games behind the NL West leading Dodgers who got pounded by the Rockies 13-3.  The third place D'Backs lost to the Padres 7-1 to remain 9 games off the pace while the Rockies gained a game to 9.5 games behind.  The Padres remained 14.5 games behind and in last place after their win.

Matt Cain goes against Matt Garza in game 2 of the 4 game series today.