Phillies at Giants
The San Francisco Giants slowly are climbing up the National League West standings, but they’ll have to do it without their starting first baseman for the next few weeks. Brandon Belt underwent an appendectomy on Friday and is expected to miss up to three weeks for the Giants, who aim for a sweep of their three-game series against the visiting Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday.
Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey will share time at first base in place of Belt, who is hitting .307 with a team-high 11 homers and 31 RBIs. “He's been swinging the bat as well as anyone in the National League,” second baseman Joe Panik told reporters. “You never want to take that bat out of the lineup or that glove out of the field. Hopefully, he can bounce back quick.” The Giants have won three straight - including back-to-back shutouts of Philadelphia, which was held to three hits in Saturday’s 2-0 loss. Aaron Altherr went 0-for-4 in the contest and is 2-for-17 over his last five games for the Phillies, who are 2-4 on their 10-game road trip.
TV: 4:05 p.m. ET, NBCS Philadelphia, NBCS Bay Area (San Francisco)
PITCHING MATCHUP: Phillies RH Jake Arrieta (5-2, 2.16 ERA) vs. Giants RHP Dereck Rodriguez (0-0, 2.70)
Arrieta closed out a dominant month on Tuesday with seven scoreless innings in a 6-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. In five starts in May, Arrieta gave up a total of three earned runs and recorded a 0.90 ERA over 30 frames. Brandon Crawford is 2-for-16 with eight strikeouts against the 2015 NL Cy Young Award winner, who has gone 5-2 with a 1.96 ERA in seven career starts against San Francisco - including a 4-1 record and 2.23 ERA in five outings at AT&T Park.
Rodriguez is set to make his first career start after allowing four runs - one earned - and five hits in 3 1/3 innings of relief Tuesday against Colorado. The 25-year-old son of Hall-of-Famer Ivan Rodriguez is starting in place of Jeff Samardzija, who left Tuesday’s game with a tight right shoulder and landed on the disabled list for the second time this season. Dereck Rodriguez was promoted to San Francisco last week after posting a 3.40 ERA in nine starts for Triple-A Sacramento.
WALK-OFFS
1. Posey missed Saturday’s game with an elbow contusion but is expected to start Sunday’s series finale.
2. The Phillies are 17-2 when INF-OF Scott Kingery scores a run.
3. The Giants activated OF Hunter Pence and INF Alen Hanson from the disabled list and optioned OF Gregor Blanco to Sacramento.