Zach Greinke continued his dominance against the Giants, outdueling Madison Bumgarner and leading the Diamondbacks to their fourth straight win.
Greinke and Bumgarner traded blows for the majority of the game as both pitchers neutralized the opposition. Bumgarner looked like the sharper of the two through the first couple of frames, not allowing a hit until Paul Goldschmidt singled to left in the fourth with two outs. Mad Bum has finally found his release and got his pitches down around the knees. The ace did not leave the ball up in the strike zone, and when the ball was up, it was on purpose, not due to a lack of control. Bumgarner ended up finishing the game with eight strikeouts over seven innings with only one walk.
Greinke wasn't quite as sharp, but he was able to silence the Giant bats when they started to make any noise. The $206 million dollar man, nonetheless, was great in his right, striking out both the Brandon Belt and Crawford twice apiece on route to striking out seven Giants total. The right-hander wasn't completely unhittable as the Giants were able to collect a couple of hits early on, but the hits never amounted to much.
Bumgarner's only error was a costly one, leaving a fastball high to Welington Castillo, who mashed a two-run home run to left field in the seventh and gave the Diamondbacks the first lead of the night. The blemish on Greinke's start was an RBI single by Angel Pagan in the bottom of the seventh after a Gregor Blanco triple. Blanco gave Grenkie trouble, as along with the triple, The White Shark singled as well.
San Francisco's bullpen kept the Diamondbacks at bay following Bumgarner's departure. Derek Law continued his scoreless streak, pitching an inning and a third before handing the ball off to Josh Osich, who held down the fort in the ninth by registering the final two Diamondback outs of the night. There was a bit of a scary situation as Osich beaned David Peralta on the forearm, but Peralta appeared to be okay.
Arizona's bullpen was equally as brilliant and maintained the lead that Greinke and the Diamondbacks established. Andrew Chafin struck out Denard Span, his only batter, to end the bottom of the seventh inning, then Tyler Clippard struck one batter out in the eighth to register a hold and Brad Ziegler closed out the game by striking out a pair in the ninth to finish off the dying Giants.
Even in a loss, it was encouraging to see that Bumgarner found his release and that the bullpen could finally negate the opposing offense. It's not often that this offense is going to score zero runs and one run in consecutive games, so once the bats get going again, this team will revert to the team that went 6-2 through its first eight games.
In addition to Blanco, Matt Duffy also had two hits, including a double in the ninth off of Ziegler. The Duffman had two hits in yesterday's game and is 4 for 8 in this series, a telltale sign that he's finally found his stroke at the plate.
After such a promising start to open up 2016, the Giants have now lost seven of their last eight games and have dropped to two games below .500. Johnny Cueto, the starter of San Francisco's last win, will look to be the stopper tomorrow as he takes on Shelby Miller, the star acquisition of the Diamondbacks from this past offseason. Miller has gotten off to a shaky start, having an 8.53 ERA with only nine strikeouts so far in the season.
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