Going in, last night was the first time this season I've felt like the Giants were in a must-win situation. Maybe not last night's single game, per se, but they need to win this series. Needless to say, losing last night, coupled with the way they did it was extremely dissappointing. 5 DP's plus what might be the worst baserunning gaffe of the year so far, pretty much was the reason for the loss. The DP's ended rallies before they could start and helped keep a clearly struggling Chad Billingsley's pitch count down. Tough, tough loss. Key lines:
Andres Torres- 0 for 3, BB, SB(14). BA= .272. Torres played the perfect leadoff role in the first inning working Billz for a walk, stealing 2B on Sanchez strikeout and coming home on Huff's jam shot RBI single. After that, his BA continued to slide.
Aubrey Huff- 2 for 4. BA= .296. Huff had a good game.
Pablo Sandoval- 1 for 2, BB. Decent game for Panda, right? Wrong! I don't remember what inning, but it started with Burrell singling to LF. Rowand pinch ran and Pablo singled him to 3B. Rent hit a pop fly to RF, too shallow to score Gamer from 3'rd. The throw came in and Pablo took off for 2B thinking the ball was going all the way to the plate. It was cut off and he was a dead duck at 2B. He tried to stop and get into a rundown, but slipped and was tagged out before Rowand could take off for home. The Giants went from having runners at first and 3'rd with no outs to a runner at 3'rd with 2 outs and the Dodgers were well on their way to getting out of the inning. As Renteria watched the play unfold, he mouthed a profanity. Aubrey Huff grabbed his head and shook it in the dugout. Pablo came out his next AB for pinch hitter Buster Posey. That play was a microcosm of the entire game.
Travis Ishikawa- 1 for 1, 2B.
Nate Schierholtz- 1 for 1. Kudos to Travis and Nate for finding ways to contribute in reserve roles. This team needs more speed and Nate has speed!
Barry Zito- 6 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 3.43. Not a bad game by Zito. He looked great in the first inning, but then threw way too many pitches in the next two. I don't know if this is on Zito or Bochy, but IMO, you don't let Manny beat you when Belliard is the next batter! Oh well, probably didn't matter in the end anyway.
With the loss, the Giants dropped 0.5 games behind the Dodgers into 3'rd place in the NL West with a record of 40-35. San Diego lost to the Rockies 10-6 and are 4 games ahead of the Dodgers at 45-31. Arizona lost to St Louis 6-5 to remain 13.5 games behind the leaders.
Matt Cain, who has not fared well against the Dodgers in his career, tries to right the ship tonight. A series win at this point looks awfully tough, but you never know. If the Giants can't find a way to beat their NL West rivals, they aren't going to the playoffs no matter what they do against the rest of the league. They are now 1-11 against the Dodgers and Padres, which means they are 39-24 against everybody else. If they were just .500 in those games, their record would stand at 45-30, 0.5 games ahead of the Pads in first place.
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