In case there was any doubt that the Padres still have fight in their bellies, that was put to rest last night in their 11 inning 3-2 victory over the Giants.
Bumgarner was as sharp as the Padres had seen him in the past two years. From the very first batter he was spotting his fastball perfectly inside to the right handed batters which in turn set up his cutter inside, and curveball away perfectly as well as the rising fastball to finish batters off. He was almost literally unhittable retiring the first 14 batters defaced, 10 by strikeout. It was some of the best stuff I’d seen all year. The Padres have faced guys throwing harder, but no one with a three pitch combination as effective as Bumgarner’s last night. He was absolutely wicked.
Alonso finally put an end to his perfect game and no-hit bid with a jam shot, shattered bat single that he muscled into right field just beyond the second baseman and in front of the right fielder. The spell was broken and Middlebrooks followed with another single advancing Alonso to third. The rally was snuffed out however when Middlebrooks broke for second and was picked off by Bumgarner, while Alonso was cut down trying to sneak in from third. Back to the drawing board.
Meanwhile Despaigne, although not as dominant as his counter part was matching zeros with Bumgarner throrugh the first four innings. In the 5th he allowed a lead off double, then retired the next two batters, with the runner advancing to third. In one of the most unlikely run scoring plays you could imagine Blanco hit a little swinging bunt in front of home plate toward the first base side. Despaigne ran to it, but planted his right foot too far in front of the ball, and appeared to take his eye off it as he was grasping for it and looking to first base too soon. The ball never quite reached him and as he desperately reached back to grasp it he never got a handle on it and the runner was safe on the 15′ base hit while the go ahead run scored. The next batter doubled to score Blanco and the Pads are in a 2-0 hole with Bumgarner back to mowing guys down.
It stayed 2-0 into the 8th. The Pads finally got to Bumgarner with Alonso again being the catalyst this time with a walk. Middlebrooks doubled on a rare mistake fastball up that seemed to signal the Giants starter was fatiguing. Botchy stuck with him though, and he struck out Barmes on a terrible check swing call that lead to both Pat Murphy’s and Kemp’s ejection from the ball game. He was running out of gas though and made another mistake this time to Venable who came off the bench and lined a pinch hit double down the left field line that scored both Alonso and Middlebrooks to tie the game.
The bullpen shut down the Giants offense, with Vincent and Kelley holding the line after Despaigne was pinch hit for in the 6th, and Benoit and Maurer keeping it tied into the 11th. Norris doubled to lead off the Pads half of the inning, and J. Upton’s single got him to third. Amarista then hit a hard grounder back up the box to the pitcher, Strickland’s, left but it tipped off the end of his glove a trickled towards second base out of reach of any infielder and Norris scored the go ahead run to give the Friars their first lead of the night 3-2.
Kimbrel came on to close it out and did so striking out the side for his 18th save of the season. Another gutsy come from behind victory for the Pads! With the win and a Dodgers loss the Pads find themselves only 4.5 back of the division leaders.
Kennedy will look to make it two in a row for the first time since Murphy took the reins. First pitch will be thrown at 7:15 and as always Uncle Teddy and I will look forward to bringing you all the action on the Mighty 1090.
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