It took awhile, along with a lot of bitten off fingernails, but the Giants managed to turn the tables on the Padres with a 1 run extra inning win when the Padres had the more dominant pitching. While not quite a must win, the victory makes tomorrow's games much less desperate than it would were a sweep staring the Giants in the face. Key lines:
Mike Fontenot- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .286. Nice game for Fontenot.
Buster Posey- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .331. In addition to the two hits and scoring the winning run in the 11'th inning, Posey hit another shot that nearly ripped Tejada's hand off in his prior AB that would have been the game winner had it not been right at Miggy. Hail to the Buster!
Pablo Sandoval- 1 for 3, 2 BB. Panda's HR off Latos to open the 7'th inning was as much the game winner as Posey's run. Without that HR, I'm not sure the Giants score any runs in the game at all. Panda happened to connect with a pitch up near eye level and put it in the Cove on 1 bounce. I know you can't ascribe it all to luck, Panda is obviously a gifted hitter, but Latos throws that same pitch 20, 30, heck, 50 times and Panda comes up empty, I swear.
Juan Uribe- 2 for 5. BA= .260. Panda's HR put the fear into the Padres, but if you pitch to Juan Uribe too many times, he will make you pay!
Madison Bumgarner- 7 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 3.27. What a gutty performance by Bum! A hot pennant race. A dominant pitching opponent. Fox Game of the Week. The future is bright with this kid!
Javier Lopez- 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 2.68. Looking for a payoff to for trading Bowker and Martinez? Lopez came in to the game in the 8'th inning with 2 outs, the bases loaded and a tough LH hitter at the plate. He got a ground out to end the inning. That out might be the difference between a playoff spot and not.
Wilson, Romo, Casilla- 3 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K's. Each pltcher allowed 2 baserunners and each got out of their jam. For once, the Giants bullpen outpitched the Padres' pen.
Mat Latos- 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 9 K's. ERA= 2.32. Latos is a horse, and he was certainly dominant today. I did think he was helped by an awfully generous strike zone by the ump. I remember seeing some pitches that I thought were slightly off the plate called strikes in the first inning. Then, when I saw the movement on his breaking ball, I said to myself, "uh-oh, he might just throw another shutout today with that stuff and that strike zone. it looked like several of the Giants hitters though the zone was a bit wide too.
With the W, the Giants pull back to 2.5 games behind the Pads. Meanwhile, Colorado lost to the BrewCrew 5-4 to drop back to 8.5 games behind, and the Dodgers won their game against ATL 2-1 to get to 9 games off the pace. Arizona blasted Washington 9-2 to get back to 22.5 games behind. In the Wild Card race, Cincinnati pulled within percentage points of the Cards and a 0.5 game deficit to the Giants as they topped Florida 5-4 while the Cards were losing to the Cubbies 3-2. The Phillies blanked the Mets behind Roy Halladay to remain 1 game behind the Giants.
Tim Lincecum tries to get his game back on track tomorrow against Wade LeBlanc who has bedeviled the Giants throughout his short MLB career. It's not a must win, but make no mistake, a 1.5 game deficit coming out of this series is a whole lot better than a 3.5 game deficit which is light years better than a 5.5 game deficit, which would be close to insurmountable at this point in the season.
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