Game Wrap 09-04-2010: Giants 5 Dodgers 4

I attended this game with my daughter. She couldn't get off work in time, so we arrived in our seats just as the top of the 3'rd inning was starting. Fortunately, we hadn't missed much and ended up witnessing a pretty darn good game. If the 2-1 loss to the Rockies last week was one of the top 20 most dispiriting Giants losses in my memory, tonight's game might just be in the top 20 most memorable. It had all the elements: Improbably come from behind win, middle of a pennant race in September, and against the Hated Ones. What more can you ask for?

It sure didn't seem so great early on a Matt Cain had an uncharacteristically awful 4'th inning and the Giants fell behind 4-0. Although the Giants were hitting the ball hard at times, they were all going right into Dodger gloves and by somewhere around the 6'th inning when Ted Lilly still had a 1 hitter, I was feeling like I had wasted our time and money on this one. A ray of hope came in the top of the 7'th when Buster Posey hit a towering shot half way up the left-center field pavilion seats to get the Giants on the board.

Things got really interesting in the 8'th when Edgar Renteria found the short porch seats down the LF line for a leadoff HR. With Lilly having given up 2 HR's in the last 5 batters, Joe Torre decided he didn't want him facing Pat Burrell who was pinch hitting for Matt Cain as the next batter. Instead, Torre brought in one of his human gas cans posing as a relief pitcher, Octavio Dotel. Just as Dotel threw a 93 mph fastball for a strike, I yelled out, "Come on Burrell, he's a gas can!" A Dodger fan behind me yelled "He is throwing gas!" Next pitch? Gone! How sweet it is! The Giants still had work to do. Aaron Rowand popped out(I really think Andres Torres should have pinch hit for Rowand at that point, but who's to complain on a night like this?). Sanchez drew a walk and Bochy put in Darren Ford to run. With the LH hitting Aubrey Huff coming up, Torre went to his closer, Hong Chi Kuo, who got Huff to pop up to the catcher, Barajas. More on that later. Buster Posey then hit a drive to right-center that looked like it had a chance to tie the game, but it stayed up a bit too long and was caught for out #3 by Podsednik the CF.

Javier Lopez came in and pitched a perfect 8'th inning. I assumed the Kuo was in the game to stay, and wasn't feeling too good about the 9'th inning. It's not like he's never pitched more than one inning before. Much to my surprise, out for the top of the 9'th comes Jonathan Broxton with all kinds of lame heavy metal music and screen ringing the stadium flashing "100 MPH". Strangely, all that seemed like a bunch of false bravado and I had a feeling the Giants had a chance to win it. Talk about human gas cans! Anyone who tells you a reliable closer is easy to find, is absolutely blowing smoke. After the game, Joe Torre said he felt he could not use Kuo in the 9'th because he had pitched in Friday night's game.

Jose Guillen had a terrible game striking out looking his first 3 times up. He led off the Giants 9'th and I yelled, "might as well go up there hacking, because looking isn't working!" Now, for all his faults, Guillen can turn around a fastball. I really thought he was going to tie up the game with one swing. He did get in a couple of pretty good hacks, and at least he went down swinging this time, but he made the first out. Then, I thought Cody Ross is a pretty good fastball hitter too. He came through with a bouncer up the middle and barely beat Furcal's throw to first to force Broxton to pitch to Uribe out of the stretch. Now I was really feeling good about the game. If anyone on the Giants team can turn around an upper 90's heater, it's Juan Uribe. Blam! It was a low liner, but it obviously had carry and was hit so hard there was little doubt from the instant it left his bat. I leaned forward yelling "Yes, Yes, Yes!!!!!!!" There were a whole bunch of Giants fans sitting around us in the first base side of the Loge deck and we all jumped around and exchanged high 5's in front of the Dodger fans who were looking mighty glum by this time.

Brian Wilson had to give me chest pains in the bottom of the 9'th, but I've been through these with Wilson enough now that I was never that worried about the outcome. I figured there was no way in hell that Wilson was going to let Casey Blake come around to score the tying run, let alone be the start of a winning rally. On the last ground ball, I thought for an instant that Panda had booted it, but he managed to throw it to second in plenty of time to get Jamey Carroll who, by the way, has a very disturbing mug that they show on the scoreboard when he bats.

No key lines tonight. I've covered it all in the summary. Great game! The best game I've ever attended in person.

The Padres lost their 9'th straight game today, 6-2 to the Rockies, so the Giants climb to 2 games off the pace. The win also kept the Rockies at bay, 3.5 games behind the Giants and pushed the Dodgers to 6 games behind the Giants. Unfortunately, the Phillies continued to win taking their 5'th in a row over Milwaukee 5-4 to stay 3 games ahead of the Giants in the Wild Card race. The Cardinals lost yet again, this time to the Cincinnati Reds 6-1 to fall into a tie with Colorado 3.5 games behind the Giants and 6.5 games behind the Phillies in the Wild Card race. It seems that maybe that little dust up against the Reds a couple of weeks ago threw the Card off their game as they have not been the same since then.

Jonathan Sanchez tries to keep it going against Hiroki Kuroda tomorrow at 5 PM in the ESPN Sunday Game of the Week. It might be a good idea for the Giants to try to make Kuroda throw a lot of pitches as the Dodger bullpen is clearly their weakest link right now and Hong Chi Kuo has appeared in two consecutive games already this series.