The Giants hitters held a pregame meeting. Maybe that concentrated their minds in a way that a white hot pennant race couldn't? Maybe the baseball gods just decided it was Madison Bumgarner's turn for run support? Maybe Ryan Dempster just had a really bad day? In any event, the Giants offense continued it's Jekyll/Hyde act and piled on a mountain of runs for a Madison Bumgarner who obviously came geared up for another game going extra innings at 0-0 if need be. Key lines:
Mike Fontenot- 2 for 6, 2B. BA- .286. The Giants new leadoff batter?
Freddy Sanchez- 4 for 5, 2B. BA- .296. How can a guy go 4 for 5 in a game like this and only score 1 run and get 1 RBI to show for it?
Buster Posey- 2 for 4, HR(16). BA= .323. Buster had a rough night last night along with the entire Giants offense. Came back with a vengeance tonight.
Juan Uribe- 2 for 4, 2 HR(22). BA= .249. 2 HR's, 6 RBI's in one inning! Now that's taking responsibility for the offense!
Cody Ross- 3 for 5, HR(12). BA= .263. Ross seems to be heating up a bit. Had a double in last night's game.
Jose Guillen- 1 for 1, 2 HBP. BA= .266. Did Dempster have a beef with Guillen, or was he just wild?
Madison Bumgarner- 2 for 4. BA= .184. Kid can swing the bat too!
Madison Bumgarner- 7 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K's. ERA= 3.06. In MadBum's last 5 starts, his line is 1-2, 1.08!, 33 IP, 6 BB, 27 K's.
With the win, the Giants move back into first place in the NL West by 0.5 games over the San Diego Padres who lost to the Dodgers 3-1. Thank you Dodgers, finally! In Arizona, the D'Backs built a 10-2 lead and then had to hold off the late charging Colorado Rockies for a 10-9 win and a sweep to drop the Rocks 3.5 games behind the Giants. In the Wild Card race, Atlanta was idle and is now 0.5 games ahead of the Padres.
The Giants now travel to Colorado to take on the reeling Rockies. The Rocks are a completely different team at home though, and the Giants historically have all kinds of trouble in Coors field. The Giants will not face Ubaldo Jimenez and have Tim, Zito and Cainer going. If they can win 2 of 3, I will stick my neck out and say the Giants win the NL West. The Padres will be spending the weekend in Cincinnati where the Reds still have a magic number of 3, so should be motivated to win.
9 games to go! Go Giants!!!
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Thanks for the updates Dr. B. Your blog has become daily reading for me.
ReplyDeleteThe Padres are actually at home hosting the Reds. Nevertheless, the Reds are motivated to win because they will want to finish with a better record than any team coming out of the West so they won't have to face the Phillies in the division series. If the wild card team comes out of the West the Phillies will play the WC team. If the Braves win the WC the division winner with the better record will play the Braves while the other team draws the Phillies. At this point I would imagine no one wants to face the Phils in the opening series and that everyone would hope the Phils wear themselves out in the division series so they would be more beatable in the league championship series.
So Go Giants! and Go Reds!
Far from a Jekyll/Hyde act, the Giants offense has been incredibly consistent over the last 12 games. Here are the Giants run totals:
ReplyDelete1-0-6-0-2-10-0-1-9-1-0-12
So, Timmy and Zito know they need to throw perfect games. Cain should be salivating over his next start.
In medicine, that's what we would call a trigeminal rhythm.
ReplyDeleteJunkie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading. My bad on the location of the Pads/Cincy series.
Krukow this morning implied that experience costed Dempster in this game, while inexperience benefited MadBum. He said that Dempster came to the ballpark seeing the weather conditions and knowing that the ball would be flying out. Bumgarner didn't know any better, so he just came out and threw strikes.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Kruk can be quite the psychologist when he wants to be, can't he? That's a beaut. Maybe MadBum's pitches just had too much awesome on them?
ReplyDeleteHi Dr. B, you forgot to put Cody Ross's HR in his line.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteGlad I have an editor. Fixed.