Bonds homers, but Giants fall to Padres
04/05/2007 2:48 AM ET
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Bonds homers, but Giants fall to Padres
Cain allows five hits, including two homers, in six innings
By Chris Haft / MLB.com
Jack Taschner scuffs the mound after giving up Adrian Gonzalez's go-ahead
homer. (Eric Risberg/AP)
SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds' first-inning home run and Armando Benitez's
scoreless ninth inning provided sturdy bookends Wednesday night for the Giants
. But the Giants had little to stuff between them.
Bonds' 735th career homer provided scant consolation for the Giants, who lost,
5-3, to the San Diego Padres as Adrian Gonzalez snapped a 3-3 tie with a two-
run, two-out homer in the eighth inning.
Marcus Giles singled with one out in the eighth off Brad Hennessey (0-1), who
was replaced by left-hander Jack Taschner with two left-handed batters due up
next. Taschner retired the first, Brian Giles, before Gonzalez hammered his
0-1 fastball onto the right-field arcade. Taschner pounded his glove in
despair as he watched the ball vanish.
"I completely blew that spot. I was trying to go down and away," Taschner said
. "When you miss over the heart of the plate, that's going to happen. I not
only let myself down but [also] the team down with one pitch. Mistakes like
that don't get missed very often."
Unfortunately for the Giants, they repeated this transgression. Matt Cain, who
entered the game with glittering career numbers against the Padres (3-0,
1.64 ERA, .133 opponents' batting average), seemed poised to sustain that
dominance by allowing two hits in the first four innings. That changed in the
fifth inning, when he yielded Khalil Greene's leadoff home run and Marcus
Giles' two-run homer.
Cain doomed himself in the fifth when he issued his only walk of the evening,
a one-out pass to Terrmel Sledge. Chris Young struck out while trying to
sacrifice Sledge ahead, but that didn't matter when Cain fired a 1-0 fastball
down the middle that Giles redirected into the left-field seats. Like Taschner
, Cain immediately displayed his frustration by squatting and grimacing as the
ball flew away.
"I was just upset that I got beat on that pitch," said Cain, who lasted six
innings. "It was a missed location so bad; that bothered me the most."
Benitez provided encouragement with an outing that mirrored his Spring
Training effectiveness -- and actually exceeded it, by one standard. A
telecast's velocity readings clocked Benitez's fastball in the mid-90-mph
range, significantly harder than he threw during the Cactus League.
Benitez yielded Kevin Kouzmanoff's double and walked Sledge with two outs, but
ended the inning by coaxing pinch-hitter Russell Branyan's popup.
Earlier, Bonds delivered the kind of multifaceted effort that was typical of
him when he was younger and spryer.
With two outs in the first inning, he lofted Young's 2-2 pitch into the left-
center-field seats, leaving him 20 homers behind all-time leader Hank Aaron
and setting off a chain reaction of factoids: Young became the 435th pitcher
to surrender a Bonds homer; Bonds vaulted atop the franchise's runs-scored
list in San Francisco annals with 1,481, surpassing his godfather, Willie
Mays; Bonds hiked his career home run total against San Diego to 86, his most
against any team.
Bonds also ended the Padres' third by hustling toward the left-field line to
make a basket catch of Brian Giles' popup that might have scored Marcus Giles
from first base. Bonds briefly reached for his left hamstring, crouched in
front of the Giants' dugout in apparent discomfort and headed immediately for
the clubhouse. But he returned later that inning to ground out to second base
and played the entire game.
Bonds shrugged off his discomfort, citing "age," although manager Bruce Bochy
answered affirmatively when asked whether Bonds "tweaked" his leg.
"He said it got better, but he was pretty tight there at the end," Bochy said.
The Giants added a third-inning run on Dave Roberts' one-out triple and Omar
Vizquel's single, but squandered a chance for more when Bengie Molina flied
out to end the inning with the bases loaded.
After the Padres powered ahead, San Francisco pulled even in the sixth. Ray
Durham singled leading off, stole second base, moved to third on Rich
Aurilia's flyout and scored on Pedro Feliz's two-out single.
That ended the Giants' offense as San Diego's formidable bullpen trio of Cla
Meredith (1-0), Scott Linebrink and Trevor Hoffman, who notched his 483rd
career save, combined to allow one hit in the final three innings. Bochy
refused to admit that watching Hoffman, who preserved countless leads for him
while he managed the Padres from 1995-2006, caused any emotional conflict:
"That's all behind me as far as that."
The Giants could only hope their futility was behind them after falling to 0-2
for the first time since 1996. They haven't started 0-3 since 1984, when they
finished 66-96.
Cain tried to remain optimistic.
"Us as pitchers kind of let the position players and hitters down. That will
come around," he said. "We got beat today on a couple of long balls. It's
something we feel won't happen a lot with us. We feel we're a good staff and
we're going to help ourselves out."
Chris Haft is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the
approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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