A pair of rookies helped the Giants get their weekend in Arizona off to a winning start.
Andrew Suarez pitched six strong innings Keelan Cole Jersey , Austin Slater had a pair of RBI doubles and San Francisco beat the Diamondbacks 2-1 on Friday night.
Suarez (3-4), a 25-year-old left-hander, gave up a run, scattering seven hits in his first win in five starts. The left-hander struck out five and walked two.
Five of the singles Suarez allowed were infield hits, including one that died halfway down the third-base line, an inch or two off the chalk.
”It was just weird,” Suarez said of the infield hit spree. ”I’ve never seen it like that. But it worked out thankfully. It could have been way worse and they’d have scored five or six runs.”
Suarez is among the young pitchers who are filling in well for the Giants while the veteran starters work their way back to health.
”We have difficult decisions the way these kids are throwing,” San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy said. ”As I said so many times, they’re doing what you’d hope they would do, is make the decision tough.”
Slater, recalled from Triple-A Sacramento four times this season – most recently last Saturday – doubled in a run off Patrick Corbin in the second and knocked in the go-ahead score off Andrew Chafin (1-3) in the seventh. Slater, who entered the game 4 for 15 in the majors this season, also singled.
He’s become accustomed to the back-and-forth trips to Sacramento.
”The first couple of times up and down it’s easy to lose focus,” Slater said, ”but for me Marcell Dareus Jersey , I see it as a way to try to prove a point, that I was here to stay.”
One of these trips, after a few more of these nights, he may be right.
Will Smith pitched a perfect ninth for his first save since April 13, 2014. San Francisco relievers retired the last 12 batters they faced.
Chafin, relieving Corbin in a 1-1 tie, walked Brandon Crawford, who scored from first when Slater doubled to the right-center gap.
Corbin limited San Francisco to a run on four hits, striking out five and walking one in six innings, but left with his second straight no decision. In his previous outing, Corbin blanked Pittsburgh on three hits for seven innings and matched his career strikeout best with 12. Corbin last won on June 5 at San Francisco.
”Patrick was great today,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. ”He did everything we asked him to do. Would have sent him back out there in the seventh inning to get couple of hitters but we decided to pinch-hit for him. Unfortunately, one of the hazards of the National League game, but he did a great job and gave us a chance to win the game.”
The NL West-leading Diamondbacks opened a 10-game homestand after an 8-2 trip.
The Giants took a 1-0 lead in the second. Buster Posey led off with a single and took second when Chris Owings bobbled the ball in center. Slater brought Posey home with a one-out double.
The Diamondbacks finally got to Suarez tied it in the sixth. Ketel Marte led off with a double to the fence in right-center. Owings was called out on a groundout to third on a close play. Arizona challenged and the call was overturned after a video review, leaving runners at first and third and no outs. Jake Lamb’s sacrifice fly to left brought home Marte and made it 1-all.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Giants: RHP Johnny Cueto (right elbow strain) made his second rehab start Friday night for Triple-A Sacramento.
Diamondbacks: CF A.J. Pollock (fractured left thumb) made his first rehab start Josh Lambo Jersey , with Triple-A Reno.
HIRANO’S MARK
Yoshihisa Hirano set a Diamondbacks record with his 25th consecutive appearance without allowing a run, getting the final two outs of the seventh inning. The Japanese right-hander broke the previous record of 24 shared by Brandon Lyon (2008) and J.J. Putz (2012).
It’s tied with Shigetoshi Hasegawa of Seattle (2003) for second-longest streak in the majors by a Japanese-born pitcher. Koji Uehara of Boston had 27 straight scoreless appearances in 2011.
UP NEXT
Giants RHP Derek Rodriguez (2-1, 3.82 ERA) makes his sixth major league start. San Francisco has won four of his previous five. Arizona RHP Shelby Miller (0-1, 12.27) makes his second start since returning from Tommy John surgery in the second game of the three-game weekend series.
The future is back.
Twenty years ago, Ken Griffey Jr. and the Seattle Mariners‘ marketing department put on one of the most memorable promotions in franchise history — which is saying a lot, since Funny Nose Glasses Night in 1982 drew more fans than Gaylord Perry’s 300th win two nights earlier — with Turn Ahead the Clock Day.
Instead of wearing retro uniforms like most teams do for Turn Back the Clock Day, the Mariners imagined what things might look like in 2027, when they will celebrate their 50th anniversary.
The Kingdome was turned into the “Biodome.” A DeLorean drove actor James Doohan, who played Scotty on “Star Trek,” to the mound to deliver the ceremonial first pitch.
The Mariners’ Moose mascot was replaced by Marty the Mariners Martian. Griffey was referred to as “Digit 24” instead of his last name by the public-address announcer.
Player positions were called quadrants. And the Mariners and their opponent that night, the Kansas City Royals, wore futuristic, untucked uniforms that Griffey, the Hall of Fame center fielder, helped design.
According to Kevin Martinez Leonard Fournette Jersey , the marketing director for the Mariners in 1998, it was Griffey’s idea to change the Mariners’ colors from navy, teal and white to crimson, black and silver. Junior wore his hat backward and spray-painted his glove and spikes silver.
“There were always some surprises,” Griffey recently told The Athletic. “You never knew what was going to happen that night. It was like, ‘Stay tuned.'”
Twenty years later, the Mariners and Royals will reprise Turn Ahead the Clock Night when they meet Saturday night at Safeco Field.
Royals outfielder Jorge Bonifacio is certainly looking to the future after making his season debut in Friday night’s 4-1 loss to the Mariners.
Bonifacio missed the first 80 games of the season while serving a Major League Baseball suspension after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug in spring training.
“I’m so excited to be back with the team,” said Bonifacio, who batted .255 and hit 17 home runs as a rookie last season.
Bonifacio batted .392 in 13 games for Triple-A Omaha before being activated. He batted fifth Friday, going 0-for-3.
“We’re glad to have him back,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “He was swinging very well (at Omaha).
“I mean, the kid hit 17 homers last year. … Yeah, he was going to hit in the middle of the order, until all this surfaced.”
Bonifacio played left field Friday to give Alex Gordon a day off, but likely will be in right field Saturday.
“We are going to move him around. He’s going to play Andrew Norwell Jersey ,” Yost said. “He’s going to play some right, play some left. What difference does it make?”
On the mound, right-handers Jason Hammel of the Royals (2-9, 5.34 ERA) and Felix Hernandez of the Mariners (7-6, 5.10) will be looking for vintage performances.
Hammel, who won 15 games for the World Series champion Chicago Cubs in 2016, has lost four straight starts — in which the Royals have scored a total of five runs. The graduate of South Kitsap High School in nearby Port Orchard, Wash., is 3-3 with a 3.53 ERA in eight career appearances against Seattle, including seven starts.
Hernandez, the American League’s 2010 Cy Young Award winner, is 6-6 with a 3.15 ERA in 15 career starts against the Royals. That includes an 8-3 victory on April 10 in Kansas City in which he pitched 5 2/3 innings, allowing three runs and six hits.