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Giants ride Blach’s early success, fend off late rally to beat Detroit

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There was a growing sense entering his start on Wednesday evening that Ty Blach could be pitching to keep his spot in the San Francisco Giants’ rotation.

If that’s the case, Blach put a lock on his spot, and then did his best to hide the key.

After the Detroit Tigers snapped the Giants’ six-game win streak on Independence Day, San Francisco rallied behind six innings from Blach and timely two-out hitting to even the series with a 5-4 victory.

With Giants’ ace Madison Bumgarner making his fourth rehab start since an April dirt-biking accident on Wednesday evening in San Jose, San Francisco’s pitchers are aware that someone will soon lose a spot in the starting rotation when Bumgarner is ready to return. Manager Bruce Bochy is hopeful that Bumgarner will be back after the All-Star break, which means Blach, or 13th year veteran Matt Cain, or struggling lefty Matt Moore could be boxed out by next Saturday.

Against a tough Tigers’ lineup, Blach presented his best case to the jury, Giants’ management, and the judge, Bochy, who will ultimately decide the case.

A Giants team that mustered just three runs in its series opener on Tuesday didn’t take long to unsettle Tigers’ left-hander Daniel Norris, who lasted just four innings after giving up five earned runs.

Despite jumping out to an early 5-0 lead, though, San Francisco needed four pitchers to navigate a rough bottom half of the seventh inning as the Tigers’ offense came to life against Blach and relievers George Kontos, Steven Okert and Cory Gearrin.

After Blach tossed six innings of shutout ball and allowed just three hits to the Tigers, the first three Detroit players to face him in the seventh all reached base. Bochy pulled Blach in favor of Kontos, who gave up a single and was promptly replaced by Okert. Okert notched a strikeout against Tigers’ catcher James McCann, but Gearrin relieved him and gave up an RBI single and a sac fly to allow Detroit to pull within a run.

However, in the final two innings, set-up man Hunter Strickland and fill-in closer Sam Dyson shut down the Tigers, and kept the Giants’ lead intact.

Norris threw first pitch strikes to the first 12 Giants’ hitters he faced, but the second time through the lineup, San Francisco caught up a handful of Norris offerings that caught too much of the plate.

Giants second baseman Kelby Tomlinson led off the top of the third inning with a single, and came around to score on a Hunter Pence liner that knocked off Norris’ glove before he threw to first to record an out. Norris nearly snagged the ball cleanly out of the air, and could have had a play at the plate if he recognized how far off of third base Tomlinson darted after Pence made contact, but he wound up firing to first and the Tigers fell behind 1-0.

Later in the frame, Norris delivered a fastball on the inside corner to Giants third baseman Jae-gyun Hwang that froze the 29-year-old South Korean, but home plate umpire Chris Guccione blatantly missed a call on what should have been strike three. Hwang then flipped a Norris offering into center field for a two-out base hit, and Gorkys Hernandez scored to push the Giants lead to 2-0.

In the top of the fourth, the Giants’ two-out success continued when first baseman Brandon Belt ripped a single up the middle to plate catcher Nick Hundley. Two batters later, Pence scraped a line drive over the head of Tigers’ second baseman Ian Kinsler that rolled all the way to the wall and scored Tomlinson and Belt to break the game open and give San Francisco a 5-0 lead.

The two-out insurance runs proved valuable, as San Francisco needed all five runs to fend off the late Tigers’ rally.