Game Wrap 05-15-2010: Giants 2 Astros 1

It was an old fashioned pitcher's duel today out at AT&T Park. Fox Game of the Week was on hand to broadcast it. The game lived up to it's billing, thankfully complete with a win for the Tim Lincecum and the Giants. ER's in every city served by the broadcast experienced a sharp increase in 911 traffic thanks to Brian Wilson and his unique methods of saving games. Key lines:

Juan Uribe- 3 for 3, HR(4). BA= .279. That's the offense right there. Molina got on base with a soft 2 out single to left-center and Uribe drove him in with the HR. Gotta love how Uribe drops the bat and holds his hands up with fingers spread when he knows he's hit one!

Nate Schierholtz- 0 for 2, HBP. BA= .333. Nate did not participate in the scoring today, but made at least two sparkling catches in RF that helped Timmy pitch his great game.

Tim Lincecum- 8 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 5 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 1.76. Timmy was a bit wild today, especially early in the game. Were it not for Uribe's HR, it would have cost him the game in the first inning. Bourn walked to lead off the game. It's never a good thing to walk Michael Bourn which is about the only way Bourn can beat you. He stole second base. Matsui failed to move him over, but Berkman did the job with a ground out to Huff. Bourn then scored on a wild pitch by Lincecum that Bengie should have been able to block. The 'Stros didn't have anything closely resembling a scoring threat again until the 9'th inning againts Brian Wilson.

Brian Wilson- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 1 K, Save(8). ERA= 1.88. Wilson continues to channel Robb Nen and gave pretty much every Giants fan watching the game a bad case of anxiety as he loaded the bases and the survived a 15 pitch AB from Kaz Matsui to close out the game.

We'll take it any way we can get it. The Giants improved their record to 20-15, once again clinching at least a series win after the first 2 games. It doesn't prove that the 2 sweeps at the hand of the San Diego Padres are either flukes or because the Padres are that good, but it does lend credence to the theories. Barry Zito takes on the 'Sros and Brett Myers tomorrow afternoon. Myers has pitched pretty well this year and his game tends to play well in AT&T. So much so, that he was on the list of SP free agents I wanted to see the Giants sign this offseason! It's another good matchup! Go Giants!

BTW. As if there wasn't already enough annoying about Aaron "Gamer" Rowand's batting stance, is anyone else finding themselves wishing he could get called out for having too much pine tar on his bat? I mean, that stuff is caked all the way up past the label, and he keeps gripping and ungripping the bat over and over as if his hands get stuck to it in the wrong position.

Around the League: The Dodgers won their 6'th in a row with a 4-1 win over the Padres which helped the Giants move to 1.5 games out of first place in the NL West to the Padres 22-14. The Dodgers stayed 1.5 games behind the Giants in 3'rd place with a 19-17 record. The Colorado Rockies won both ends of a DH against the Nats 4-3 and 6-2 to bring their record up to 17-18, 1.5 games behind the Dodgers and 4.5 games out of first place. Arizona trounced Atlanta 11-1 to improve their last place record to 15-22, 7.5 games off the pacesetting Padres. So the NL West tightened up considerably in the last two days. I can go back to rooting for the Padres to beat the Hated Ones.