At 10:13 last night, San Francisco Giants' closer Brian Wilson struck out Arizona Diamondbacks' slugger Justin Upton on a 3-2 pitch. Upton barked at the home-plate umpire in disagreement. The crowd, numbering in the thousands, booed in unison. We're not sure if it was over the call or the fact that they sat there for three hours and 32 minutes just to watch the home team lose the game 5-4. Either way, the same ol' thing was on display at Chase Field Monday night.
As has been the case all year, the D-Backs squandered all sorts of scoring opportunities with their inability to drive in runners in scoring position. The team also committed three errors, bringing its total to an astounding 121 on the season, which gave the Giants, who trimmed their NL Wild Card deficit to four games, extra scoring chances. For example, in the first, a Giants' runner who reached on an error came around to score. Then, with the score tied at four in the eighth, another error allowed runners to move up, which eventually led to the decisive run to cross home plate on Fred Lewis' groundout in the form of Travis Ishikawa.
Arizona starter Billy Buckner, who had only given up six runs in his previous 19 innings-plus, lasted only 4 1/3 innings. Mark Reynolds connected on his 43rd homer of the year in the first inning off of Barry Zito.
The series continues at 6:40 tonight when Arizona's Doug Davis (7-13, 4.01 ERA) faces San Fran's Matt Cain (13-6, 2.71). TV: Fox Sports Arizona. Radio: KTAR-AM 620. More info: www.dbacks.com.
