Game Wrap 4/30/2011: Giants 2 Nationals 1

The Giants overcame some tough things today to win a game they probably shoudn't have won. The day started with the news that Pablo Sandoval has a fractured hamate bone in his right wrist and will undergo surgery to remove the broken of piece on probably on Monday. Jonathan Sanchez battled his demons command and concentration demons and somehow hung on to get his team to the 6'th inning with a chance to win. Lastly, they survived another of Brian Wilson's 9'th inning torture chambers to eke out the W. Key lines:

Eli Whiteside- 1 for 3, HR(1), BB. BA= .214. Whiteside was starting to let Buster Posey give Huff a rest at 1B. As he has done many times in his tenure with the Giants, Eli came up with a big HR in the 3'rd to draw them even and the pitching made it stand up with an added run in the 7'th. Whiteside played a role in that run too. With runners at 2'nd and 3'rd, Nats manager Jim Riggleman intentionally walked Eli with Huff standing on deck to hit for the pitcher. Apparently Whiteside's HR had gotten into his head and he thought he preferred the lefty-lefty matchup of Lannan vs Huff. Huffster hung in there and drew a clutch bases loaded walk to drive in the winning run. Definitely a move by Riggleman that will and should be second guessed. If you are that afraid of Lannan vs Whiteside, bring in Clippard to face him rather than loading them up for Huff, who hits LHP's as well as RHP's and even better this year. If Bochy had made that move, the Giants blogosphere would have exploded, calling for his head!

Jonathan Sanchez- 5 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 6 BB, 7 K's, 2 HBP's, WP. ERA= 2.73. It didn't look like Sanchez would make it out of the second inning as he used a total of 50 pitches in the first 2 IP. In addition, he blatantly failed to cover 1B and back up home plate and got a verbal kick in the butt from Rags between innings. That seemed to get his attention and he settled down over innings 3 and 4. He allowed a leadoff double to Ankiel in the 5'th and another walk to Ramos but pitched out of it with an inning-ending K against Michael Morse, a dangerous hitter. The bullpen took it home from there with a combined 4 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K's, HBP. Wilson loaded the bases and went 3-2 on Adam LaRoche, but struck him out to end the game. Ho hum!!!

The Giants are now back to .500 at 13-13. The Giants remained 4.5 games behind the NL West leading Colorado Rockies after last night's loss but dropped to 3'rd place behind the Dodgers who moved to 3.5 games behind with a win over the Padres. Both Colorado and LA play later tonight.

The loss of Pablo Sandoval is a big blow. Ryan Rohlinger gets the callup. He's never been able to hit at the MLB level in mulitple short callups. For the time being, it looks like Tejada will play 3B with Fontenot at SS. I actually like Fontenot at SS. I think he gives the Giants a nice LH bat in the lineup and seems to hit LHP's as well as RHP's. I'm worried Tejada will be a big offensive downgrade at 3B.

Matt Cain takes the mound against Jordan Zimmerman. Zimm has the stuff to break out at any time and lately is seems those times usually come against the Giants. We'll see.