[新聞] Three homers put Giants one win from title
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Three homers put Giants one win from title
Panda, Torres, Posey go deep in Bumgarner's first home victory
By Cash Kruth / MLB.com | 09/30/10 8:06 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO -- One more win.
That's all that stands between the Giants and the National League West crown.
Pablo Sandoval, Andres Torres and Buster Posey each homered to give Madison
Bumgarner his first career home win, as the Giants completed a three-game
sweep of the D-backs with a 4-1 win Thursday afternoon at AT&T Park.
The victory, San Francisco's fourth straight, lowered the Giants' magic
number to clinching the NL West title to two. Any combination of Giants
victories and Padres defeats totaling two will bring the division crown to
San Francisco. The Padres hosted the Cubs on Thursday night before flying
north for the weekend series at AT&T Park.
Regardless of what the Padres do Thursday, a Giants win Friday over San Diego
would clinch them their first NL West title since 2003.
"It's a good feeling. We're in a good position," Posey said. "You can't
really take anything for granted. We all know baseball's a crazy game, so
we've got to come out and stay focused [Friday]."
The Giants put themselves in such a position by taking care of business on
Thursday, as Sandoval gave the team an early lead with a second-inning solo
homer into McCovey Cove.
Sandoval's homer held through the first three innings, as Bumgarner continued
his spectacular September. The rookie left-hander didn't dominate the D-backs
as he did the Cubs in his last outing, but almost every time Arizona mounted
a threat, Bumgarner got himself out of it.
In the second inning, Adam LaRoche led off with a double, but Bumgarner
promptly struck out the next two batters before inducing an inning-ending
groundout. In the third, the top of the D-backs' order knocked out
back-to-back one-out singles, but Bumgarner struck out Arizona's Nos. 3 and 4
hitters, Kelly Johnson and Chris Young, with his patented slurve.
"This kid's such a good competitor, great makeup," Giants manager Bruce Bochy
said of Bumgarner, who improved to 7-6 and lowered his ERA to 3.00. "His
poise out there is beyond his years. He's 21 years old and he's in the middle
of this, but the way he's handled it says a lot of his makeup."
The D-backs tied the score in the top of the fourth with a bases-loaded
sacrifice fly, but Bumgarner escaped further damage and was able to earn the
win thanks to Torres' go-ahead homer off Arizona starter Barry Enright (6-7,
3.91 ERA) in the bottom of the fifth.
Bumgarner tossed only five innings but struck out seven in earning his first
career win at AT&T Park in nine tries.
"It's awesome. It's not come easy," Bumgarner said of the victory. "It wasn't
pretty, but it worked. It feels good to get it."
The Giants extended their lead in the sixth on a two-run homer by Posey, his
17th of the season and seventh of September. It is the second time this
season Posey has hit seven homers in a month -- also accomplishing the feat
in July -- and ties him with Jack Clark (June 1977) for the most homers hit
by a Giants rookie in a calendar month.
Now, the series that has been circled on the Giants' and Padres' calendars
for the past two months has finally arrived. For the Padres, it's win Friday
or hinge their postseason hopes to a potential -- but not so likely -- Wild
Card berth. For the Giants, it's about putting the pesky Padres -- against
whom they are 5-10 this season -- away as soon as possible.
"We've got to go out and go hard," Bochy said. "Yeah, we've put ourselves in
a good position. But we've got some games ahead of us. We've got to go out
there and play hard every day."
That mind-set is nothing new for the Giants, who have had to play that way
for much of the past two months. As recent as Aug. 25, the Giants were 6 1/2
games behind the Padres. A little more than a month later, they're the ones
with the champagne on ice.
"In this last month it's really been one game: One game, you go out and give
everything you've got for that one game and you worry about tomorrow the next
day," Posey said. "We've just got to keep doing that and good things should
happen."
Cash Kruth is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject
to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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