Game Wrap 6/17/2014: White Sox 8 Giants 2

The Giants were hoping that a change of scenery might give them better results on the field after a disastrous homestand.  What they got was a bandbox ballpark that they appeared completely unprepared to play in and the result was one of the worse shellackings of the season.  Key Lines:

Hunter Pence- 2 for 5, HR(10).  BA= .299.  Alex P over at Giants Extra has Pence hitting .340 over his last 52 games, so he is on a prolonged hot streak.

Matt Cain- 5 IP, 10 H, 8 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 3 K's.  ERA= 4.52.  OK, here is my theory on what we witnessed here:  Cain actually looked sharp in the first 2 innings.  The first sign of trouble that I noticed was early in Gordon Beckham's AB in the 3'rd inning.  He was taking some very healthy cuts and looked like he was right on the pitches.  I thought to myself, if he gets ahold of one, it's going outa here.  Makes me wonder if maybe Beckham knew what pitches were coming and the approximate locations? My second thought:  Things completely fell apart after Hector Sanchez was knocked off his feet by a foul tip off the bat of Jose Abreu in the 4'th inning.  This is the second time I've seen a pitchers completely fall apart right after Sanchez got his bell rung.  I'm wondering if the near-concussions mess up his pitch calling and framing for a couple of innings afterward.  Of course that does not explain why Petit came in and was terrific in mop-up time.  Most likely it was just bad pitching on Cainer's part.

The Loss dropped the Giants lead in the NL West to 5 games over the Dodgers who topped the Rockies 4-2.  The Rockies remain 9 games back after coming off their sweep of the Giants with 2 losses to the Dodgers.  Durn Rockies!

It does not get any easier tonight as Tim Hudson faces one of the best pitchers in baseball, if not THE best, Chris Sale.  Of course Huddy has been pretty sensational himself this season.