Despite taking a 1-0 lead into the sixth, the Giants’ pitching staff fell apart in the later innings as San Francisco fell on the road to the Phillies Saturday 5-1. This was the Giants’ eighth loss in their last eleven games.
Giants’ starter Johnny Cueto started off the day well, not allowing a run in the first five innings. A solo shot by Phillies’ first-baseman Tommy Joseph tied things up in the bottom of the sixth, but the seventh inning was where the wheels started to come off for Cueto and the Giants’ bullpen.
After allowing back-to-back singles to start the seventh, Cueto was relieved by Hunter Stickland. While Strickland managed to avoid hitting any players in his outing, he immediately gave up an RBI single to Phillies’ shortstop Freddy Galvis and everything went downhill from there. After Cesar Hernandez singled to left to load the bases, Odubel Herrera hit a bases clearing double that put the Phillies up 5-1.
Ben Lively had a great start for the Phillies in his major league debut, going seven innings while giving up just four hits and one run, without striking out a single batter.
The Phillies’ bullpen was not as stellar as they gave the Giants an opportunity to get back into the game late. In the top of the ninth Hector Neris gave up two runs off of a pair of singles by Brandon Crawford and Aaron Hill, which pulled the Giants within two. But it was too-little too-late for the Giants. Jeanmar Gomez came in for Neris and needed just one pitch to end the game as Nick Hundley hit into a fielder’s choice to second to finish things off.
The Giants will take on the Phillies again Sunday, with Matt Moore facing off against Jeremy Hellickson at 1:35 p.m. ET.
