April 7th, 2006
Brian Jordan congratulates Jeff Francoeur after his fifth inning grand slam.
Giants Skid Reaches Five
Atlanta 7, San Francisco 3
The season has certainly not started as the Giants faithful might have imagined it. Doomed for the second straight night by a big grand slam, San Francisco have now dropped five games in a row to start the season and are in danger of being swept again. Injury fill-in Kevin Correia was knocked around for seven runs (two earned) in four and two thirds innings, and neither the offense nor defense did much to pick him up.
It was the third inning yesterday that killed the Giants, and tonight it was the fifth. Kevin Correia had been cruising, retiring seven straight batters after giving up a two-run homer to Chipper Jones, and he looked like he'd continue after retiring his counterpart Davies on a routine pop-up. He was on the verge of nine straight when Ryan Langerhans served up a routine grounder to second, but the ball came out of Ray Durham's glove and he couldn't recover in time to get the out. The next batter walked, but Correia looked like he might be out of the inning after scooping up a comebacker from Chipper Jones. Unfortunately, his throw to second was very wide and all of a sudden the bases were loaded with one out. Andruw Jones walked to make it 3-2 and while Adam LaRoche couldn't repeat yesterday's heroics, flying out to short center field, Jeff Francoeur was glad to fill the void, blasting a grand slam to left to give Atlanta a 7-3 lead.
Todd Greene's two-run homer in his first start of the season had given San Francisco their early lead, and Jason Ellison added a solo longball of his own in the ninth, but the game was never close after that fateful fifth inning. Tomorrow the Giants turn to their ace Jason Schmidt to act as a stopper before the season starts to get out of hand.