Despite looking like he was in for another masterful start, Madison Bumgarner and the Giants were stiflied by another go-ahead home run, this time a two-run bomb off the bat of Philadelphia's Cameron Rupp that put the Phillies ahead, spoiling the lefty's bobblehead night.
Through the first four innings, Bumgarner looked like his usual self, taking a no-hitter into the fifth on the two-year anniversary of former San Francisco Giant Tim Lincecum.
Unfortunately for Bumgarner and the rest of the orange and black, the game took a turn for the worse from the fifth inning and on.
Maikel Franco led off the fifth inning by breaking up the lefty's no-hit bid with a loud double down the left field line. Bumgarner would not allow the third baseman to score, but for the All-Star, it was the beginning of the end.
Bumgarner pitched a scoreless sixth inning, but the Phillies had a little something for him in the seventh.
Tommy Joseph started off the inning with a booming double, and Andres Blanco knocked in Joseph with a single up the middle that just snuck under the glove of Bumgarner.
With the lefty at 100 pitches and George Kontos up in the bullpen, the opportunity for Bruce Bochy to take Bumgarner out of the game with the lead was there.
Bochy opted to stick with Bumgarner and the decision came back to bite him, as the manager took out his starter one batter too late, and Ruff homered.
The lefty was handed with another tough luck loss, but even with the three runs allowed, Bumgarner's ERA is still, barely, below two at 1.99.
This is the first start since April 20th that Bumgarner has allowed more than two runs in a start, ending his stretch of tweleve straight quality starts, which was tied for third longest in Giants franchise history.
The San Francisco bullpen made up for a shaky outing last night with George Kontos and Hunter Strickland pitching a combined 2.2 innings of scoreless baseball.
With the way the Giants have been hitting with Bumgarner on the mound in his past two starts, including tonight up to his exit, a one-run deficit felt insurmountable, even with all the clutch hitting the Giants this past week.
The Giants had a great opportunity to score in the bottom of the eighth inning when Joe Panik reached second on a single and a wild pitch, and Buster Posey walked, but couldn't capitalize.
Brandon Belt flied out, then Brandon Crawford got robbed of a base hit on a nice sliding play by left-fielder Tyler Goeddel, who then double up Panik at second due to an incorrect read.
This wasn't Panik's only error on the day, as he committed his fifth error of the season, which was small in the big picture, but an error always hurts.
In Bumgarner's last two starts, the orange and black have only scored two runs and are batting a combined 0-7 with runners in scoring position.
Knowing the Giants, it would not be suprising to see the bats erupt tomorrow and score enough runs to support five Mad Bum outings. ____________________________________________________________________
The San Francisco bullpen made up for a shaky outing last night with George Kontos and Hunter Strickland pitching a combined 2.2 innings of scoreless baseball.
This was quite a strange day for security guards and umpires.
In the third inning, a Joe Panik ground ball struck first base umpire Doug Eddings, which cost Panik a double.
Eddings turned himself parallel to the foul line to try and dodge the grounder, but he wasn't able to get out of harm's way, and the ball hit is left hip.
Those in the crowd weren't shy about letting Eddings hear it.
In the fifth inning, when Franco scorched a double for the Phillies first hit of the ballgame, and the ball bounced off the left field foul fence to strike the right thigh of the left field security guard.
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