SAN FRANCISCO — A day after their franchise player had season-ending surgery, the Giants are threatening to sneak back into the race.
Gorkys Hernandez walked it off in the bottom of the ninth inning Tuesday night, giving the Giants a 1-0 win over the Diamondbacks. They have shut out the division leaders on back-to-back nights.
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Steven Duggar drew a one-out walk in the ninth and took second on Nick Hundley's single, injuring his shoulder in the process. But you don't need a shoulder to race home, and Duggar scored easily on Hernandez's single to left.
The game was full of zeros through eight, with Madison Bumgarner getting out of several jams in seven innings and Duggar and Brandon Crawford teaming up to keep the Diamondbacks off the board in the eighth.
The Giants are still far behind three teams in the NL West, but they've picked up two games on first place in two days. They're six behind the Diamondbacks and Rockies.
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San Francisco Giants
—- Duggar started one of the plays of the year by cutting off a ball in the gap with two outs in the seventh. With Nick Ahmed on first, David Peralta smoked a liner to right-center that looked like an RBI triple, but Duggar got to the ball before it could roll to the wall and made a strong throw to Crawford. Ahmed tested Crawford’s arm and was out at the plate.
—- In the sixth, Bumgarner actually benefitted from the Diamondbacks hitting the ball *too* hard. Paul Goldschmidt hit a 111-mph liner to left that was hit so hard off the top of the wall that he was held to a single. With two on, Ahmed hit a sharp single to left and Austin Slater got to it fast enough that Goldschmidt couldn’t round third. Bumgarner left the bases loaded.
—- Slater dropped a flyball with one out in the seventh and then kicked the ball as he tried to retrieve it. That put Jon Jay on third, but Bumgarner got Goldschmidt to pop up and Eduardo Escobar to ground out.
—- Bumgarner threw seven shutout innings, working around four hits and four walks while striking out five. In six August starts, he had a 2.08 ERA.