In a National League West division filled with mediocrity, the San Francisco Giants, with the help of its white-hot starting rotation, have begun to rise from the ashes of horrible play and cemented themselves as the team to beat.
The Giants' recent success started with Matt Cain's brilliant start against the potent Toronto Blue Jays' offense last Tuesday, in which he only allowed two runs over eight innings in his longest outing since 2013.
San Francisco lost the game 4-0, but the score was secondary to the big picture. That Wednesday night, Cain proved to the world that he still had some juice left in the tank and simultaneously silenced all his haters. At least for a night.
The rest of the starters followed Cain's lead with gems of their own, and coming into today's game, the rotation had a 1.79 ERA in its last five starts, only allowing seven runs over the course of 35.2 innings.
With the Giants looking to sweep the Diamondbacks and extend their winning streak to five games, it was only right that the man who kicked off the streak of dominance on the mound kept it going.
Riding the coattails of Jake Peavy's solid start yesterday, Cain continued to flash glimpses of his former self by limiting the Diamondbacks to one run while striking out five over seven.
During his start, Cain limited the one through five batters of the Diamondbacks' lineup to just two hits in 13 at-bats. With the exception of the Goldschmidt sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fourth, Arizona had nothing going against the Horse.
The Diamondbacks mounted a rally in the bottom of the sixth, loaded the bases with two outs via a pair of walks to Goldschmidt and Chris Herrmann and a single off the bat of Welington Castillo. Dave Righetti came out to the mound to give Cain a breather, and Cain got Yasmany Tomas to pop out on a curveball right after Righetti's trip.
San Francisco has been haunted by the big inning all season, such as when the New York Mets dropped twelve runs, or when the Colorado Rockies scored 13. The bottom of the sixth had all the makings of another one of those innings, but Cain silenced those demons, if at least for today.
Cain's counterpart, Ruby De La Rosa, did his best to outshine Cain, shutting down the San Francisco offense by only allowing one hit and one run in his 6.2 innings of work.
The one run and hit came via Cain's battery mate, Trevor Brown, who launched his fourth home run of the year. Brown's home run marked the most he has ever hit in a level of professional baseball. It is only May.
Despite remaining dormant for nearly all game, the San Francisco offense woke up when it mattered.
In the ninth, Brandon Crawford gave the Giants the lead by knocking in Hunter Pence on a single just past the outstretched glove of Jean Segura to give the Giants a 2-1 lead.
Santiago Casilla ran into some trouble in the bottom of the ninth as the Diamondbacks got runners at the corners with one out. Casilla induced a weak grounder off the bat of Segura, and the Crawnik combination turned a game-ending double play.
The double play was reviewed because Belt initially appeared to come off the bag, which caused Segura to be called safe. Upon review, Crawford also appeared to come off the bag, but after a lengthy replay review, the replay crew in New York overturned the safe call at first, and Casilla recorded his 9th save of the season.
Crew Chief Hunter Wendelstedt initially made the signal that Brandon Drury was safe at second and Segura was out at first, but his crew mate frantically told him both runners were out, and Wendelstedt rightly pointed at both bases with his fist in the air to signal both were out.
Just another laugher.
The Giants have an off day tomorrow before a three-game series against the San Diego Padres at home. Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija will take the mound during that series while the undermanned Padres will have Colin Rea, Drew Pomeranz, and James Shields.
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