|
|
|
|
|
Relievers come up big as Giants hang on
By Jeremy Harness July 6, 2006 |
||
|
|
|||
|
Armando Benitez has a way of making things mighty interesting, especially when he’s has the ball in his hand in the ninth inning. As many saves as he has gotten over the years, he’s just as likely to blow the big save. However, Thursday was not one of those days. Ditto for the rest of the Giants relievers, who bailed starter Matt Cain out of major trouble and allowed the Giants to escape with a 5-4 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the opener of a four-game series at Dodger Stadium. Cain was cruising along for four innings, but the Dodgers loaded the bases against him to start the fifth. Brad Hennessey took over from there, and although a run scored on the play, he got former Giants infielder Ramon Martinez to hit into a double play. After giving up a walk to Andre Ethier, he then got shortstop Cesar Izturis to foul out after a long battle, and the Giants maintained a two-run lead. Martinez did come back in the seventh to rip an RBI single off Hennessey that scored Nomar Garciaparra and narrowed the Giants’ lead to a single run, and it remained that way until the bottom of the ninth, when Benitez entered the game with the LA’s best hitters coming to the plate. It appeared that things would get dicey as leadoff man Kenny Lofton ran the count to 3-2 to start the ninth, but Benitez got him to ground out sharply to second. The big closer then got Garciaparra, the final National League All Star who had struck out only 14 times over 251 at-bats this season, to swing and miss at a high fastball for a third strike. The next batter, J.D. Drew, floated a fly ball to left field that Randy Winn was able to run under and catch for a 1-2-3 inning that seems to elude Benitez on a regular basis. The Giants got off to a fast start, as they scored three runs in the first inning. Moises Alou, who had not played since June 17, went 2-for-4 on Thursday, including an RBI single that scored Winn for the first run of the game. Meanwhile, Pedro Feliz has continued to swing a hot bat, as he went 3-for-4 with a pair of RBI, both of them in the first three innings that helped the Giants run out to a quick 5-0 lead before the Dodgers closed the gap enough to create some drama in the late innings. With the win, the Giants move one game above the .500 mark and are a full two games behind the first-place San Diego Padres in the NL West. Meanwhile, the Dodgers trail the Padres by a half-game at press time. |
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||