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Giants rip Jays' bullpen for sweep
By Jeremy Harness June 17, 2004 |
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SAN FRANCISCO - Giants manager Felipe Alou was asked before Thursday's game how his team is getting fat off of beating bad teams such as the Toronto Blue Jays. He replied that at the start of last season, the Giants were beating up on inferior competition as well. That year, they went on to win 100 games, running away with the NL West title. Well, you can't blame the schedule, and it's not the Giants' fault that Toronto (28-38) is so bad. And even though they're not exactly on pace to win as many games this year, they are in the hunt for the division lead despite a terrible start to the season. Unlike the Blue Jays, who the Giants dropped by an 8-5 score on Thursday afternoon to finish off a three-game sweep, the Giants have found ways to win ballgames late. "That's a good sweep for us today because we didn't have a lot of information on the Blue Jays," Alou said. "They also didn't have their two big guys in their lineup (first baseman Carlos Delgado and outfielder Vernon Wells, both on the DL), so that helped a lot." Judging by the way Toronto faltered down the stretch, the Giants didn't really need it. But the Jays sure could've used Delgado and Wells. The Blue Jays held a 5-3 lead after five innings, but the Giants caught up to a tiring Roy Halladay - who lasted only 5 1/3 innings and used up 99 pitches in the process - as well as the notoriously-faulty Toronto bullpen. When the Giants tied the game with two runs in the sixth, the two heroes of the game, Michael Tucker and Dustan Mohr, had central roles. Two batters after Edgardo Alfonzo doubled to lead off the inning, Mohr singled him in. That chased Halladay from the game, and the lowly Blue Jays were in full collapse mode. Yorvit Torrealba greeted Vinnie Chulk with a single, while Ray Durham drew a walk. In came Walnut Creek native Justin Speier, the son of former Giants shortstop Chris Speier. Tucker worked him to a full count before taking ball four, bringing in Mohr and tying the game. Tucker wasn't done by a longshot. After Barry Bonds, who pinch-hit in the eighth, was intentionally walked and Durham bunted his way on, Tucker smoked a first-pitch fastball into the gap in right center for a triple, bringing both runners home. "When we were in the dugout, and we saw Barry going up, Ray and I looked at each other," Tucker said. "Ray goes, 'I guess I'll bunt him over.' We were like, 'They're going to walk him over. They're not going to pitch to him.'" "I just happened to hit the ball in the right spot," Tucker said. A.J. Pierzynski came up as a pinch hitter later in the inning and drove in Tucker for the final run. Mohr, Pierzynski's good friend, has been making some pretty good use of his time on the field, particularly on Thursday afternoon. Not only did he bang out two run-scoring singles and score the tying run himself in the sixth, but he also made a nice throw on a play at the plate in the second inning that should have resulted in an out. Upon catching Howie Clark's fly ball, Mohr's throw beat Eric Hinske to the plate by about five feet, but catcher Yorvit Torrealba was unable to corral the ball, and the game was tied at 3-3. "I was closer than I originally thought," Mohr said of the play. "but I kind of got an in-between hop. He would have had to pick it clean. It was a tough play all the way around." Staring down an early 2-0 deficit against Halladay, the Giants went right to work on the defending AL Cy Young Award winner and got three runs off him in the first inning, using patience in drawing a pair of walks before putting on a two-out rally that brought forth the runs. Immediately following a Pedro Feliz single that scored two runs and tied the game at 2-2, Mohr came up and blooped a single into left field to score Alfonzo, giving the Giants a 3-2 lead. After getting the first two batters on in the second, Toronto tied it back up when former A's farmhand Eric Hinske scored on a sacrifice fly. The Blue Jays tacked on two more runs off Giants starter Dustin Hermanson in the fifth inning by virtue of RBI singles from Reed Johnson and Orlando Hudson, whom the Jays activated from the disabled list Thursday. Hermanson lasted only five innings and gave up five runs on 10 hits, walking one batter and striking out five. |
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