Giants crush White Sox with seven in the seventh

AT&T PARK — With a string of singles — and a little help from the officiating crew in New York — the San Francisco Giants broke open the scoring floodgates to clobber the Chicago White Sox 7-1 on Wednesday afternoon at AT&T Park.

The number of the day was seven for the Giants, as San Francisco scored all seven of their runs in the seventh inning — to avoid a season high seven-game losing streak.

The offensive outburst was the most runs San Francisco has scored in an inning since August 2012.

Giants starter Jake Peavy (W, 1-3, 3.86 ERA) gave the home team perhaps his best start yet, allowing just one run on four hits over seven innings pitched while striking out three and walking three.

The performance earned Peavy his first win since April 25, when Peavy was still a member of the Red Sox.

Photos by Scot Tucker/SFBay

Despite allowing at least one baserunner in each of his first four innings of work, Peavy was able to maneuver out of jams, aided by a pair of inning-ending double plays to avoid an early deficit.

Peavy’s luck ran out when Adam Dunn — who tagged last night’s starter Ryan Vogelsongwith a two-run shot into left field — hit his second home run of the series, sending a fastball from Peavy into McCovey Cove to give the White Sox a 1-0 advantage.

Bochy talked about Peavy’s solid performance in an important game for the Giants’ wildcard chase:

“It’s good to see him get on the board. He threw great. He gave up one home run, I know they’re good buddies so I’m sure he wasn’t too happy about that. … Besides the home run he’s putting up zeros, which we needed because we weren’t doing anything offensively. So good for Jake, good for us.”

Chicago starter Jose Quintana (L, 6-9, 3.14 ERA) looked to be matching Tuesday night’s starter Chris Sale‘s performance after shutting the Giants out through six innings.

But then San Francisco finally snapped their dry spell with a string of singles and the help of the review crew in New York.

With one out in the seventh, Morse gave the Giants their first base runner since Posey’s triple in the fourth by lacing a single into center field. Duvall followed up Morse’s single with a flare single of his own, moving pinch runner Gregor Blanco to third base while setting the table for Joe Panik.

Quintana ran a ball in on Panik, breaking his bat on a roller to first basemen Jose Abreu, who came home in time to tag Blanco out at the plate.

Bochy then came out to argue that catcher Tyler Flowers blocked the path to the plate. After a four-minute, 55 second review, the officiating crew in New York agreed with Bochy, calling Blanco safe on the play.

The ruling enraged White Sox manager Robin Ventura who began screaming at crew chief Fieldin Culbreth while kicking dirt over home plate, prompting a swift ejection, much to the delight of the fans.

After the game, Bochy — who had been an avid supporter of the controversial rule change involving collisions at the plate — talked about the play at home:

“We wanted to see if he was blocking the plate and the reply we got is he was. And it’s a rule, and I know this rule has created a lot of controversy. They talk about reviewing this at the end of the season and maybe tweaking it, but it is a rule.”

Blanco’s run broke open the floodgates for the no-longer stagnant Giants. Quintana’s night ended after issuing a walk to pinch hitter Joaquin Arias, leaving reliever Ronald Belisario to inherit a bases-loaded situation facing Angel Pagan.

On Belisario’s second pitch, Pagan broke the game open by sending a soft line drive into left field, plating two and giving the Giants their first lead of the series.

Hunter Pence and Buster Posey followed Pagan with RBI singles of their own to boost the Giants lead to a comfortable 5-1 score.

Reliever Javy Guerra had an opportunity to limit the damage after getting Sandoval to hit a lazy fly ball to center field, but Dunn cut in front of center fielder Jordan Danks while mishandling the ball, allowing two more to score and giving the Giants a crooked seven on the scoreboard by the end of the inning.

Though the big inning was aided by Chicago’s mental mistakes, Bochy says he is fine getting wins any way they come:

“It’s good to get a win, you take it any way you can. We were due for a big inning, and Pagan, I mean what a huge hit he got and then it just got contagious.”

Relievers Jeremy Affeldt and Sergio Romo each gave an inning of relief, allowing no earned runs while closing out the game.

The Giants will ride the back of this much-needed win into their next series with Philadelphia, beginning Friday night at 7:15 p.m. at AT&T Park.

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