In the second game of a 4 game weekend series in St. Louis, aces were set to square off. Adam Wainwright had not given up a run in his past 20 innings pitched, and last week won the pitcher of the week honors in the National League. Madison Bumgarner has been solid all year for the Giants, he was coming off of a 7 inning, 10 strikeout performance against the Twins.
The game went much differently that people would have expected. The new Giants revamped offense did not care when they heard the streak Wainwright was on not giving up runs. They took it to the righty in the first two innings, taking advantage of Wainwrights lack of getting ahead and poor location of all his pitches. The Giants got one in the first on a base hit by Mike Morse on a pitch that was supposed to be away but came over the middle. In the second inning he got two quick outs and then got ahead of Brandon Hicks 0-2, Hicks stayed diciplined and worked a walk in a spot that he usually strikes out. That became the key play in the second inning, because Bumgarner came up next and hit base hit on a poorly located fastball by Wainwright to a good hitting pitcher. Angel Pagan then wasted no time and took a hanging first pitch curveball and slapped it up the middle for an RBI. Then Hunter Pence stepped up, and on a 2-1 pitch Wainwright tried to fool him on a curveball but Pence saw the movement and went with it and absolutely crushed the ball to the third deck in left field. Another poorly placed breaking ball by Wainwright who is known for his amazing curveball. On the other side of the script Madison Bumgarner lived up to the billing, he was superb. As opposed to his counterpart, Bumgarner had pin point control all night long which led to 6 strike outs looking by Cardinal hitters who were left guessing. That is an unusual total for him because he normally strikes people out with his wipeout slider and devastating cutter, but he was working the corners of the strikezone all night long. Bumgarner finished with a similar line as he did last Sunday, 7 innings, 3 hits, 1 walk, 10 strikeouts. Wainwright was unable to make it through the 5th inning and finished up with 4.1 innings, 8 hits, 7 runs, 1 walk and 4 strikeouts. By far his worst start of the year.
San Francisco 9, St. Louis 4
W- Bumgarner (7-3)
L- Wainwright (8-3)
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