Giants 4 - 2 Diamondbacks
Final
  for this game

Giants try to keep pace in playoff race vs. D-backs

Sep 17, 2014 - 2:41 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - The San Francisco Giants have a good chance at keeping pace with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West with Madison Bumgarner set to take the mound Wednesday in the finale of a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Giants are three games behind the Dodgers for the division lead and have won Bumgarner's last five starts, with the left-hander going 5-0 with a 1.80 earned run average in that time. Bumgarner provided seven shutout innings in Friday's 9-0 win over Los Angeles and struck out nine to reach the 200-mark.

Bumgarner is 18-9 with a 2.91 ERA in 31 starts and is tied with two other pitchers (Johnny Cueto, Adam Wainwright) for second in the majors in wins. Clayton Kershaw leads the majors with 19 victories.

San Francisco is 12-4 in Bumgarner's 16 road starts and he is 11-3 with a 2.00 earned run average as the visitor. The left-hander has faced the Diamondbacks three times this season and is 2-0 with a 1.96 ERA. In 17 career games (16 starts) against Arizona, Bumgarner has a 6-4 record to go along with a 2.68 ERA.

The 18 wins for Bumgarner are the most by a Giants pitcher since Shawn Estes won 19 games back in 1997.

Bumgarner will follow a superb outing by Jake Peavy in Tuesday's 2-1 victory and the right-hander limited the D-backs to a run and five hits in 7 2/3 innings. Peavy fanned four and walked one for the Giants, who ended a three- game slide and won for the 14th time in the past 20 tries.

"I feel very blessed to feel healthy and go out there and be a contributing factor to a team that's fighting for our lives every day," Peavy said.

Buster Posey homered and both Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Crawford added two hits for the NL wild card-leading Giants, who are 58-23 when hitting at least one homer this season.

Arizona was aiming for its fourth straight win last night and wasted a solid performance from Josh Collmenter. Collmenter was touched for just a pair of runs in eight innings to absorb the hard-luck loss. He talked about the home run by Posey in the fourth inning.

"Up and down, soft and hard, it doesn't matter. He seems to get the bat on it," Collmenter said of the All-Star Posey.

Collmenter was the victim of a Giants club that improved to 61-17 when scoring the game's first run.

A.J. Pollock knocked in Arizona's only run with an RBI single in the sixth inning and Ender Inciarte recorded a pair of hits.

After this series with San Francisco, the D-backs, who have lost eight of 11 games, will visit Colorado and Minnesota. They are 5-3 in last eight at Chase Field.

Andrew Chafin will toe the rubber Wednesday for the D-backs and is replacing Randall Delgado in the rotation. Chafin made his major league debut in a 1-0 win at Cleveland on Aug. 13 and allowed just three hits in five scoreless innings. He struck out three and walked two.

Chafin, a left-hander, was recalled from Triple-A Reno this week and went 9-7 with a 4.08 ERA in 26 games (25 starts) at Double-A Mobile and Reno.

Arizona starting pitchers have allowed three runs or fewer in 17 of their last 19 starts.

The Giants have defeated the D-backs 17 times in the previous 24 games at Chase Field and have won six straight series in the desert. They have not lost a series in Arizona since April 6-8, 2012.

San Francisco is 12-6 overall against Arizona this season.






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