Game Wrap 5/23/2016: Giants 1 Padres 0

Hunter Pence drove in Brandon Belt from first base on a pop fly double to RF in the bottom of the 9'th inning to give Johnny Cueto a Complete Game 1-0 shutout of the Padres.  Key Lines:

Matt Duffy- 2 for 4, 2B.  BA= .244.  He didn't figure in the scoring, but Duffy showed signs of breaking out of his slump with a seeing-eye hit-and-run GB single in the first inning and hard hit double later in the game.  Now, about getting picked off first base…..

Johnny Cueto- 9 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K's, GO/AO= 16/2.  ERA= 2.38.  All kinds of historic stuff hearer.  Cueto become the first Giants pitcher since Atlee Hammaker in 1984 to pitch 3 CG's against one team in a season.  He became the first Giants pitcher to pitch 3 CG Wins against one team since Rob Knepper and Ed Halicki in 1978.  This was also the first time the Giants have won back-to-back 1-0 games since 1980 when Ed Whitson and Vida Blue were the pitchers.

The only time Cueto came close to allowing a run came in the 8'th inning when he hit Alexei Ramirez with a pitch on the left wrist with 2 outs.  That seemed to shake him up a bit and he gave up a hard single to right-CF to Amarista putting runners on first and third.  That brought up Yangervis Solarte to pinch-hit, but Cueto buzzed a Shuto across the inside corner for strike 3 to end the threat.  Before that, I don't know when I've seen a Giants pitcher on an almost effortless roll like that.  Hitter after hitter, inning after inning, get ahead of the count, induce weak contact, let the defense do the work and keep the pitch count down.  Yeah, that's the way Juan Marichal used to pitch them.  Once again I come back to Juan as the guy Cueto most reminds me of from Giants history, and not just because of their common country of origin.

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The Win extended the Giants lead on the NL West to 4.5 games over the Dodgers who moved into 2'nd place with a 1-0 win of their own behind Clayton Kershaw against the Cincinnati Reds.  The Pirates dropped the Rockies into 3'rd place, 5 games behind with a 6-3 win of a makeup game from yesterday's rainout.  More on that later. The 4'th place D'Backs were idle to fall 6.5 games behind while the luckless last place Padres dropped 8.5 games off the pace.

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Jeff Samardzija tries to keep the winning ways going tomorrow evening facing Andrew Cashner.

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Angel Pagan had to run hard on a groundout in the 8'th inning and really gimped it down the line, especially the last 30 feet or so.  He's going to get an MRI, but from the looks of it, I would say he is headed for the DL.

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Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Ryan Vogelsong who was hit in the face by a pitch in the Pirates-Rockies game.  It's a bit unclear why this happened.  The bases were loaded in a scoreless ballgame when he got hit, so it was almost certainly not a purpose pitch.  Just before the pitch, two of the broadcasters were bantering about what advice they would give the Rockies pitcher in that situation and the color guy said, "don't hit him!"  Weird answer, weird coincidence.  Anyway, Vogey reportedly has broken bones in his face and is in the hospital.  Wish him the best and yeah, Pittsburgh is not a good place for him!