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Wilson blows rare save, but Giants win anyway
By Jeremy Harness August 20, 2008 |
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SAN FRANCISCO - There were plenty of strange twists in Wednesday's game. Ivan Ochoa swung at a pitch-out and nearly took the catcher's hand off, while Rich Aurilia showed some athletic ability that isn't exactly his calling card. To top it all off, Brian Wilson blew his first save in three months and, in return, got credit for a win. Even though he has 33 saves this year, Wilson has been known to walk the proverbial tightrope. That practice blew up in his face with a three-run cushion in the ninth. Two strikes away from nailing down the Giants' third win in four games, Florida's John Baker took him into the seats in left-center to tie the game, blowing not only his third save opportunity of the year and stopping his consecutive save streak at 24 but also Matt Cain's would-be ninth win after a brilliant performance. However, the blown save turned into a win when the Giants rallied against Marlins reliever Matt Lindstrom and won it in the bottom of the ninth, 6-5, on Bengie Molina's sacrifice fly. "Obviously I feel pretty terrible about not securing a win for Cainer, (with) the hardships he's had over a few years, but the bottom line is that we won," Wilson said. "And I get to come back to work tomorrow." Wilson wasn't the only one who had a streak snapped on Wednesday. In the fourth inning, Marlins right fielder Jeremy Hermida tagged Cain for a two-run homer, the first time Cain had given up a longball in 13 starts, a span that covered an amazing 94 innings. The last player to hit a home run off Cain was New York Mets shortstop Jose Reyes on June 4. "It had been a while," Cain said. "But it was going to happen sooner or later, especially (since) this team hits a ton of them. It will happen every once in a while." That lead looked like it would stand up while Cain swallowed another hard-luck loss. That feeling lasted exactly one inning this time. Olsen had left pitches dangerously high in the strike zone, and the Giants took advantage of that in the sixth, tagging him for three runs to take a 4-2 lead. Two batters after he led off the inning with a single, he barreled around the bases to score on a double by Rich Aurilia, beating shortstop Alfredo Amezaga's relay throw with a head-first slide. Fred Lewis, who has hit safely in 19 of his 27 games, quickly followed that up with an RBI single. He advanced to second after catcher Paul Lo Duca's pickoff throw bounced into right field and later scored on Emmanuel Burriss' single. Meanwhile, Cain surrendered only one more hit and lasted 7 2/3 innings, walking four while striking out four. "These guys are aggressive, and we were just trying to get them swinging early and get some outs," Cain said. In addition to his game-tying RBI hit in the sixth, Aurilia was spectacular in the field at third base. He made a fantastic diving catch to rob Jorge Cantu of a single, saving the Giants at least a run. Josh Willingham hit a sharp line drive in Aurilia's direction five innings later, but he walked into the dugout empty-handed after the 36-year-old leaped top snare the hot shot to end the inning. Usually when there's an obvious pitch-out, batters will let the ball pass, but not Ivan Ochoa. Even stranger yet, in a bizarre occurrence, he got away with it In the seventh inning, the rookie shortstop, in trying to protect a snuffed-out hit-and-run with a runner on first, swung and whacked catcher Paul Lo Duca on his gloved hand. To add insult to injury for Lo Duca, he was ruled to have interfered with Ochoa, who was awarded first base as a result. That play gave Bengie Molina a chance to knock in a run with a single to right that gave the Giants a 5-2 lead. |
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