The Giants sent Madison Bumgarner to the mound in Thursday’s series finale against the New York Mets hoping Bumgarner would pitch them into a win that would stop the bleeding from two straight disappointing losses. Not only did Bumgarner deliver on the mound, but also at the plate, doubling home the game-winning run and pitching eight strong innings with just one run allowed to lead the Giants to a 3-1 win.
Steven Duggar scored the game’s first run in the third after walking, stealing second, moving to third on Joe Panik’s groundout, and then advancing to home on a passed ball. The Giants added another run in the fourth when Bumgarner doubled to score Austin Slater.
Bumgarner held the Mets scoreless through six, but ran into trouble in the seventh, conceding a solo home run to Todd Frazier to lead off the inning. He then hit Jose Bautista with a pitch before conceding a single to Jeff McNeil. But he buckled down and preserved the lead, inducing a ground-ball double play from Kevin Plawecki and striking out Michael Conforto to end the inning.
Evan Longoria added an insurance run in the eighth with his own solo homer to left.
The Giants’ win continued Mets starter Jacob DeGrom’s season of impossibly bad luck. DeGrom, who allowed just two runs (one earned) in six innings pitched, lowered his major league-leading ERA to 1.71, but also took the loss to drop to 8-8.
With the win, the Giants move to three games under .500 and are now nine games back of the Arizona Diamondbacks for the lead in the NL West.
