Padres 7, Giants 1: A Shark sighting didn’t scare Trevor Cahill

The Giants won Friday’s game. The Padres won Saturday’s game in memorable fashion. That means that today’s game would determine the winner of the series. The result was a thing of beauty, as a couple of homers and an excellent day from the pitching staff gave the Padres the game and the series win.

Jeff Samardzjia came into the game with a career 3.22 ERA against the Padres. He also came into the game with a 7.00 ERA in the first inning of games. Both of those numbers went up today. After Carlos Asuaje got on base with a HBP, Wil Myers joined him with a single, and then Hector Sanchez did a thing again:

For good measure, Cory Spangenberg ripped a triple into the rightfield corner and Erick Aybar knocked him in with a double. That’s a four-run first inning where the Padres collectively cycled off Jeff Samardzjia. Not a bad way to start the game off.

Trevor Cahill took the mound for the Padres, and he looked good in the first as he retired the Giants in order. The second wasn’t so clean, as Buster Posey led off with a single that ricocheted off the glove of third baseman Jose Pirela. Brandon Crawford smoked a ball to right-center that was just out of the reach of rightfielder Jabari Blash, scoring Posey. A wild pitch (which Hedges would have corralled easily) allowed Crawford to reach third. He put on his big boy pants and stranded Crawford on third, so the score was 1-4 after 1-1/2 frames. Neither team did much for a while , so the score was the same entering the bottom of the third.

Wil Myers led off the bottom of the third with a single, and he seems to be getting some better at-bats these days. Hector Sanchez continued to hit like someone other than Hector Sanchez with a single to put two ducks on the pond for Cory Spangenberg. Mr. Spangenberg has been hitting the gym, as evidenced by the swole he demonstrated in this three-run shot:

The Giants’ TV broadcast crew summarized it well when Duane Kuiper said “Tha..uh..that third inning really hurts.” 7-1 Padres after three.

The score remained the same through 7-2/3 innings, when Cahill was lifted for Craig Stammen after he got into a bit of a bind. Stammen got Hunter Pence out on a sharp grounder to Carlos Asuaje, closing the book and leaving a pretty nice line for Trevor Cahill: 6.2 innings pitched, one earned run on eight hits and a walk with eight K’s. Well done, sir. Kevin Quakenbush and Jose Torres would come on in mop-up time to pitch a clean inning apiece and that was all she wrote. The Padres beat the G-men, 7-1.

Now the team hops on a plane to head to Denver where they open a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies, to be followed by a four-game series against these same Giants in San Francisco. If you like the tank theory, you might want to see some losses start to rack up, but it sure is fun to play the spoiler against division rivals. This fan is parking the tank for the next week. There will be plenty of time to lose. It’s time to beat some rivals and plump up some trade values.