Game Wrap 09-11-2010: Padres 1 Giants 0

The score was reversed from the Friday night game as the Giants bats continued to be impotent against Padres pitching wasting a fine pitching performance by the Giants rapidly improving rookie pitcher. This might not be all the Giants hitters' fault though. I only saw part of one inning of this game because I was in meetings all day, but I saw home plate umpire call two pitches strikes on Buster Posey that were at least 6 inches off the plate. Yorvit Torrealba had just put the Padres ahead with a HR in the bottom of the 3'rd inning. Posey made it obvious he was frustrated with the calls and the Giants bench barked at Crawford who came over and had an arm waving, animated discussion with the bench, but didn't throw anybody out. I had to get back to my meeting, but I said to myself, "uh-oh! This just might end up a 1-0 game if that's the way the ump is calling them!" Key lines:

The Giants offense managed just 3 hits, so there are no offensive key lines.

Madison Bumgarner- 7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 3.28. Oh my! MadBum was, again, throwing 93-94 MPH darts in this one. Too bad one mistake had to ruin an otherwise stellar pitching performance by the rookie. On one hand, you can say that if MadBum keeps pitching like this, the Giants are in great shape. On the other hand the time left to make up for a disappointing loss like this is rapidly running out. Giants fans have to be excited about a future that includes this kid in the rotation for the next several years, though!

Tim Stauffer- 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K's. ERA- 1.54. I know Stauffer is a former first round draft choice and still has the stuff to be a good pitcher, but based on what I saw in the 4'th inning pitching to Buster Posey, he got a lot of help from the umpire. I didn't see enough to know whether Crawford was giving the same kind of strikes to Bumgarner, but even if he did, that's no excuse for calling pitches that are clearly way out of the strike zone, strikes. Crawford needs to take a look at this score, look at the attendance in the stands, look at himself in the mirror and ask himself whether he is helping the game by this kind of pitch calling. The technology clearly exists to take balls and strikes calling out of the hands of the umpires. A game like this gives a lot of credence to the notion that maybe it should happen some day.

Heath Bell- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K's, Save(40). ERA= 1.67. Bell has 40 Saves against just 3 blown Saves while Brian Wilson has 42 Saves against 4 blown Saves. It would seem that NL Fireman of the Year will come down to these two and probably should depend on which team wins the NL West and/or makes the playoffs assuming Colorado doesn't jump up and knock them both out.

With the loss, the Giants drop 1 game behind the Padres in the race for the NL West division title. Colorado, once again, took the D'Backs this time by a score of 2-1 to stay 2.5 games behind the Padres, but move up on the Giants to just 1.5 games behind second place.

Tim Lincecum takes the hill in tomorrow's finale for the Giants in Petco Park both for this series and for the season. He will be opposed by wunderkind Mat Latos who was dominating against the Dodgers his last time out after having his start delayed by one day due to a case of apparent gastroenteritis. It's not quite a must-win game for the Giants, but leaving Petco tied for first place would be a whole lot better than 2 games behind, especially with the Rockies breathing down their necks.