Fee fi fo fum: Giants smash Rockies to smithereens

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Fee-fi-fo-fum,

The Giants smelled the blood of a man named German,

And in the fifth, he shook his head,

As they pounded pitches to make their bread.

The Colorado Rockies tumble to the finish line continued in a lackluster (to say the least) loss to the San Francisco Giants by the score of 12-3.

Rookie pitcher German Marquez looked mostly pretty good through the first four frames but was hammered in the fifth as a good lineup made adjustments and took advantage of a few small mistakes. Fee-fi-fo-four in the fifth. It was a tough outing for the kid, but one that can undoubtedly be learned from.

The Giants scored first in the first on a two-out single from Hunter Pence, scoring Brandon Belt who was a thorn in the Rockies side all game. And season. And pretty much his entire existence in MLB.

The Rockies tied it on a groundball double from Cristhian Adames followed by some perfectly executed small ball, Marquez bunting him over, and Charlie Blackmon hitting a sacrifice ground ball to short to bring him in.

That was pretty much it for the Rockies offense, though. At least, while everyone was still awake, it was.

The aforementioned fifth inning was a nightmare for young Marquez. It began with a double from Denard Span off the right-field wall. Belt followed with what looked like would be another double but Carlos Gonzalez wheeled around and made a splendid throw to second to nail the Giants first baseman, which eventually just meant that the inning could have been even worse.

Buster Posey is not the guy you want to see after all that but he was the guy Marquez got and the All-Star, world class catcher to a decent sinker down and in and just dropped the hammer, driving the pitch just over the left-field fence for his 14th home run of the season.

Marquez made an adjustment and went to the change, which he had used sparingly on the night, but Pence took him deep on it in the very next at-bat and the sudden route was on. After a groundball triple by Brandon Crawford and a soft single from Angel Pagan, Marquez was lifted and the score was 6-1, Giants.

The final line for Marquez: 4.1 IP, 12 H, 6 ER, 0 BB, 2 K.

Matt Carisiti finished out the inning without further incident and then another high-profile young prospect pitcher, Jeff Hoffman, came into the game for the Rockies and also struggled a bit. Over two innings, Hoffman’s stuff was electric but erratic, finding too much of the strike zone at times and not nearly enough of it at others.

He allowed one run on three hits and also walked two without striking out a batter. Not horrible, but not what he or the Rockies were hoping for.

Justin Miller fared even worse in the eighth. He was tagged for five runs on four hits. Fee fo fum. That ballooned the Giants lead out to 12-1.

The Rockies got a pair of token runs in the top of the ninth on a double from Stephen Cardullo and a sac grounder from Adames but it was far too litte, far too late as the Rockies were smashed to smithereens by the big bad Giants.

By the Numbers

79 – With his groundball RBI in the third, Charlie Blackmon extended his franchise record and 2016 National League lead in RBI for a leadoff hitter.

4 – The Giants hit four triples in this game. Only two of them were nonsense caused by the parameters of the park. It was the fourth time a team has hit four triples in a game this season, including one other time by the Giants (did I mention the parameters of the park?) and once by the Rockies.

What’s Next

Game 2 tomorrow night as a pair of righties duel by the bay. Tyler Chatwood gets the start against Jeff Samardzija. First pitch at 8:15 MST.