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ARI@SF: Blanco belts a solo dinger to left-center

SAN FRANCISCO -- Armando Galarraga lost his feel for the strike zone and the D-backs eventually lost the game as the Giants scored a come-from-behind 4-3 win Wednesday night in front of a sellout crowd at AT&T Park.

The loss was the third in a row for the D-backs, who will try to avoid a sweep in the series finale Thursday afternoon.

It seemed the D-backs were on their way to a win in this one as they built a 3-0 lead against Giants starter Jonathan Sanchez through three and a half innings.

There were trouble signs early, though, because while the D-backs were scoring runs they were also wasting opportunities to run up a bigger lead.

"We had a ton of chances early," Arizona manager Kirk Gibson said.

After walking six batters in his last outing, Galarraga seemed to be in control as he scattered four hits in his first three innings.

In the fourth, though, Galarraga walked three batters, including Sanchez, with two outs and the Giants scored two runs to cut the Arizona lead to 3-2.

"He was throwing pretty good," catcher Henry Blanco said. "I think in the fourth he just slowed down a little bit, trying to be too perfect and I think that cost him. The way he started the game, I thought it would be a different story."

"He had a real good pace going about himself and all of a sudden we noticed he started to slow down a little bit and he lost the strike zone," Gibson said.

Galarraga was left scratching his head as to what happened.

"Definitely, I lost it," he said. "Just got out of focus a little bit. I had a bad inning."

Aubrey Huff led off the fifth for San Francisco with a homer to right to tie the score.

"It was down," Galarraga said of the pitch that was intended to be outside. "But it was in the middle [of the plate]."

It was the 12th homer allowed by Galarraga this year, tying him for the Major League lead, and his ERA is 5.50 seven starts into the season.

Gibson was asked if he was disappointed with Galarraga.

"The guy goes out and battles his butt off," Gibson said. "I've got no problem with anybody's effort, nothing at all. I think that's unfair to say that."

But is Gibson disappointed in the results?

"The results are what they are," he said. "The guy went out and battled. I'm not disappointed. That's what you said."

When Miguel Tejada doubled with one out in the sixth, Gibson had seen enough of Galarraga for the night and brought in reliever Juan Gutierrez, who got one out before allowing a ground-rule double to Andres Torres to plate Tejada and give the Giants a 4-3 lead.

"It's a good come-from-behind win for us," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "Our offense, we got off to a slow start, then Huff hits the big home run to tie the game for us."

The D-backs made things interesting against Giants closer Brian Wilson in the ninth.

Xavier Nady led off with a double and Gerardo Parra followed with a walk.

Slugger Russell Branyan had been on the on-deck circle, but Gibson elected to let Blanco hit and asked the catcher to lay down a sacrifice bunt. After taking strike one, Blanco fouled two bunts off for the strikeout.

Branyan then pinch-hit for the pitcher and grounded out, moving both runners up. Kelly Johnson smoked a drive to deep left-center that Torres caught on the track.

"Kelly centered the ball pretty good, but it just wasn't able to carry out," Gibson said.

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