It looked like the San Francisco Giants were well on their way to winning back to back road games for the first time since July 1st. Then it all fell apart.
Santiago Casilla blew his NL leading eighth save of the season and the Giants allowed three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning en route to a 6-5 defeat at the hands of the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field on Wednesday evening.
Colorado pinch-hitter Cristhian Adames ended the game on a two-run double off Giants reliever Joe Nathan in the 41-year-old’s third appearance since being called up last week.
The Giants’ closer entered the final frame with a 5-3 advantage, but gave up a solo home run to Colorado star third baseman Nolan Arenado to open the inning. A Tom Murphy single with one out saw Giants manager Bruce Bochy give Casilla the quick hook.
Josh Osich spelled Casilla and promptly plunked Charlie Blackmon. Nathan then entered the game and gave up a single to Nick Hundley to load the bases. Adames then ended the game with a drive to right.
Wednesday night’s game started out looking like a good ol’ fashioned Coors Field slugfest, with eight runs scored in the first four and a half innings, before settling down.
Giants starter Alberto Suarez was far from spectacular, but did just enough to be in line for his fourth win with San Francisco, giving up three earned runs in six innings of duty.
Eduardo Nunez got things going for the Giants in the top of the first, with a little help from some of his teammates. Nunez reached first on a single, stole second, took third on Angel Pagan’s deep fly out and made his way home on a sacrifice fly via Buster Posey.
The lead didn’t last long. Colorado’s David Dahl tied things up at a run apiece with an RBI single in the bottom half of the inning, scoring Carlos Gonzalez from third.
Brandon Belt responded with a monster, 457 foot two-run jack to dead center field, giving the Giants the lead back. The dinger snapped a streak of 71 at-bats without a homer for Belt, who leads the team with 15. According to MLB’s Statcast it’s the fourth longest home run hit by a Giant this season.
Despite entering the game with the second fewest homers since the all-star break, San Francisco continued to take advantage of the long-ball friendly park. Celebrating his 29th birthday, Gorkys Hernandez picked an ideal time to launched his first ball into the seats as a Giant in the top of the fourth inning, extending the San Francisco lead to 4-1.
Dahl wasn’t celebrating his birthday, but that didn’t stop him from launching a response into the upper deck in the bottom half of the inning, for his second RBI of the night. Nor did it stop Rockies catcher Tom Murphy from hitting his third homer of the season directly after.
The Giants once again responded notching their fifth run in as many innings on Hunter Pence’s two out RBI double.