Giants-Mets: Poor Call Spoils San Francisco's Comeback Attempt

When a team like the San Francisco Giants face an offensively superior club, they have got to make the key plays at the key times in order to stay in the ball game. However, they also have to hope that the men in black, who are refereed to as "blue," reward them when they make those key plays.

In Thursday night's series opener against the visiting New York Mets, the Giants found themselves in 4-4 ball game going into the top of the ninth inning. Once again, manager Bruce Bochy brought in his closer Brian Wilson in a non-save situation and the former all-star's struggles continued.

Wilson, whose era is now up 4.50, let up three runs in the ninth that gave New York a 7-4 lead.

However the Mets would not have had the opportunity to take the lead if it wasn't for a poor call by the third base umpire Brian Knight.

After Wilson got the lead-off hitter Alex Cora to ground out to third, Carlos Beltran followed up with a double to left-center.

Three pitches later Beltran attempted to steal third and despite a quality jump, Giants catcher Bengie Molina threw an absolute strike to Pablo Sandoval who applied a razor quick tag to Beltran's foot prior to Beltran making contact with the base. 

However, umpire Brian Knight called Beltran safe and the following 3-1 pitch to Gary Sheffield was no where close to the strike zone and the Mets had runners at first and third with one out. Yet if the right call had been made the Mets would have had two outs with nobody on and a completely different scenario going into that 3-1 pitch.

In all fairness, Giants pitching let up a total of seven stolen bases in tonight's ball game and neither starter Jonathan Sanchez nor Brian Wilson did a good enough job holding runners close, but when the Giants needed to throw someone out, they did and the umpire blew the call.

Despite being out-matched offensively, and the pitching matchup being favored to the Mets, the Giants hung in the whole game with the high-powered New York team.

Giants starter Jonathan Sanchez once again struggled but was able to minimize the damage all game long, allowing one run in the first, two in the third and one in the fourth. However Sanchez lasted only five-and-two-thirds innings before giving way to the bullpen.

San Francisco was able to keep the game close with quality relief from Brandon Medders and were still down just two runs heading into the eighth. After getting Mets starter John Maine out of the ball game in the seventh, the Giants were into the New York bullpen and were able to create more of their famous "ground attack" as coined by their TV broadcasters.

Fred Lewis led off the inning with an infield hit, adding to the team's league lead. Then Aaron Rowand followed with a walk. Ishikawa came up next and after taking a first pitch breaking ball for a strike, laid down a sacrifice bunt on the following pitch and advanced the runners.

Juan Uribe stepped up and drove in Lewis with a solid base hit through the hole between short and third.

Now down just one run at 4-3, the Giants had some new energy in the dugout and after Rich Aurilia struck out, Edgar Renteria once again came through in the clutch. And with the Giants being the Giants, coming through in the clutch was once again an infield hit.

Renteria chopped a bouncer up the middle that Alex Cora fielded but couldn't muster enough on the one-hop throw to get Renteria and Rowand came home to tie the game.

The Giants comeback was in full force and the Giants were looking to steal the series opener before the three run top of the ninth that the Mets laid on Brian Wilson. However the comeback may have had a chance to be completed if it wasn't for the poor call at third base.

Clearly the Mets deserved to win this game as they out-played San Francisco quite significantly but with their powerful lineup they had only mustered four runs in the first eight innings.

Therefore the Giants had an opportunity to steal one with a comeback in the late innings and it would have been nice to see how the game would have developed if the right call had been made.