Giants tie Franchise Record Eight Doubles, Take Series Against Rockies

This piece was updated with additional notes following today's game. -JND

The tremendous work of the starting rotation in the past couple of weeks had shadowed the fact that the San Francisco offense, one of the deepest and most potent in all of baseball that is not the Chicago Cubs, looked lost at times.

It was nice that Bumgarner and co. were pitching so well that one run was all the Giants needed to etch out a victory, but anyone who knows a thing or two about baseball knows that pitching with three or four runs of support is exponentially more comfortable than only one.

So, with the bats lacking some life, a trip to Colorado turned out to be the checkup that the offense so desperately needed.

Before Saturday's game, Buster Posey called a hitter's only meeting and told his teammates to relax.

The Giants responded by opening up the floodgates to score eight more runs on 17 hits following a ten-run, 16 hit day yesterday, and take the final game of a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies 8 to 3.

Colorado's starter Chris Rusin could not take the energy out of the San Francisco bats, as the Giants made loud contact against the left-hander from the jump.

Part of the Giants' success on offense was much due in part to their eight doubles, which tied a franchise record. Amongst the contributors were Hunter Pence, who had three, Brandon Belt, who had two, and Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, and Gregor Blanco, who had one apiece.

In addition to the three doubles, which was the first time he accomplished the feat, Pence had his 34th, 35th, and 36th RBIs of the season, which ties him with Trevor Story for fifth place in the National League.

Pence became the latest player to get "Coors'd" by the extended fence in right-center, as what would have been his eighth home run of the season hit the top of the wall. Based on the height of the wall last year, the ball would have cleared the previous year's fence with room to spare.

Buster Posey continued his lifetime ownage at Coors Field, racking up three hits in four at-bats and spraying the ball to left, center, and right.

The All-Star would have had four hits, but Carlos Gonzalez positioned himself close to the right-field foul line in his final at-bat, which took away his fourth hit and what could have been his third double of the day.

Denard Span was not a part of the doubles party, but the veteran made up for it by doing his best to look like the second coming of Vladimir Guerrero.

In the second inning on a high fly ball to center field, Span had ample time to gain momentum moving towards third base and threw out Gerardo Parra, who was trying to tag. The throw was a little to the right of the bag, but Matt Duffy was able to apply the tag to Parra's back foot and complete the double play.

The assist was Span's first in a Giants uniform.

At the plate, Span not only had a three hit day, but he launched a mammoth home run approximately 441 feet into the second deck in right field. The home run was Span's first since he, Joe Panik and Posey hit back-to-back-to-back shots on Opening Day in Milwaukee.

Kelby Tomlinson flew under the radar with a solid day, notching both a hit and a stolen base while scoring twice.

All in told, the Giants offense did more than enough to support Johnny Cueto on the mound.

Despite pitching with "back/left side soreness," according to Andrew Baggarly, Johnny Béisbol finished the day with another quality start, allowing two runs over six innings while striking out six, but he had to grind through a couple of tough innings, a small strike zone, and hard contact to get to that point.

The right-hander found himself in a bases-loaded jam against Parra, who has lifetime ownage against Cueto, with the game still in arms reach.

To add fuel to the fire, Cueto and Parra had a little bit of beef as Cueto's quick pace did not match Parra's slow pace, both to their dismay. Cueto got the last laugh by getting Parra to line out to Belt, who gingerly tapped on first base with Nolan Arrenado running to record an unassisted double play.

Cueto didn't favor any particular pitch during his outing, throwing 24 four-seam fastballs, 21 changeups, 28 sliders, and 17 cutters, all of which he was able to throw for strikes.

The Dominican-native was not able to get a lot of swings and misses on the day, totaling only five, two on his fastball and slider, and one on his changeup.

Cueto finished the day with strong velocity, throwing his hardest pitch of the day at the end of the sixth inning.

At the end of the day, Cueto recorded his ninth win of the season, while lowering his ERA from 2.38 to 2.31.

Out of the bullpen, Hunter Strickland and George Kontos had a pair of good outings, holding the Rockies scoreless while recording a strikeout in each of their one inning of work.

Josh Osich pitched a scoreless seventh but gave up a massive home run to Gonzalez, which prompted Bochy to take him out.

The Giants now move on to Atlanta to face the struggling Braves at Turner Field for the last time.

The Braves are having a season to forget and are currently the worst team in the National League.

Jeff Samardzija will match up against Mike Foltynewicz in an afternoon Memorial Day showdown. Foltynewicz is 1-2 on the season with a 3.95 ERA and is coming off a quality start against the Milwaukee Brewers, in which he allowed one run over 5.2 innings.

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