Wainwright claims Giants as latest victims

AT&T PARK — The Giants became the latest victim on the Adam Wainwright greatest hits tour.

Wainwright (W, 11-4, 1.89 ERA) only gave up four of them along with a couple walks over 7-2/3 innings to earn the St. Louis Cardinals a 2-0 win Wednesday night.

The Cardinals ace now holds baseball’s ERA crown and leads the National League with 11 wins.

Ryan Vogelsong (L, 5-5, 3.86 ERA) chipped in another quality start for the Giants, but the offense couldn’t do a thing against the National League’s best pitcher.

Vogelsong pitched seven strong innings allowing only two runs and striking out eight.

Despite his solid performance, Vogelsong was salty after the game:

“It doesn’t matter anymore, dude. We lost. I’m tired of talking about ‘stuff.’ It’s all about wins and loses now… I’m just trying to be honest.”

He’s now notched nine quality starts over 17 appearances this season.

Manager Bruce Bochy was impressed with Vogelsong’s showing, but emphasized that something’s got to give at the plate:

“Somebody’s gotta come through. We only had two or three decent chances. We couldn’t get the hit. [Wainwright’s] one of the best in the game. … He knows how to pitch out of jams. That’s what makes him so good.”

Michael Morse offered a bit of first-hand experience about what makes Wainwright so difficult to hit against after Wednesday’s game:

“He keeps you off balance and he can throw any [of his pitches] for a strike at any time, which he did today.”

The Cardinals struck first in the third with back-to-back RBI singles from Matt Carpenter and Matt Holliday to make it 2-0.

Carpenter had himself a day against the Giants. The Cardinals third baseman went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

He also made a diving stop to his left on a Hunter Pence ground out and a leaping stab on a Pablo Sandoval liner all in the fourth inning.

Closer Trevor Rosenthal closed out the ninth for his 25th save of the season.

The Giants will look to rebound when Madison Bumgarner (9-5, 2.90 ERA) duels righty Carlos Martinez (1-3, 4.13 ERA) Thursday afternoon. Game time is 12:45 p.m.

Notes

The Giants were shut out for the seventh time this season, the second time by the Cardinals. … Ryan Vogelsong has given up three runs in 13 innings while striking out 15 in his last two starts. In those starts, he’s received zero runs of support. … Adam Wainwright only had one strikeout Wednesday night and got 16 of his 23 outs via the ground ball.

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