Game Wrap 6/1/2011: Giants 7 Cards 5

Whew! What a game! The Giants have played some very entertaining games this season, but perhaps none more so than this one as they won a see-saw battle in extra-innings punctuated by a mysterious lighting outage just before the final out. Key lines:

Miguel Tejada- 0 for 6. BA= .210. I post this one because the line looks terrible but Miggy hit the ball hard several times, just right at fielders.

Freddy Sanchez- 3 for 6, 2 2B. BA= .298. Freddy was smoking the ball, showing off his Batting Title form.

Aubrey Huff- 1 for 4, HR(5), BB. BA= .219. Huffster looked terrible in his first 3 AB's but then smoked a HR that gained the Giants a temporary 4-3 lead in the 7'th inning. He later walked and was lifted for pinch runner Emmanuel Burriss which payed off with Burriss stealing 2b and coming home on Nate's single to CF. Burriss stayed in and played 1B and played it well. There was one play where Crawford's throw was a bit up line and the ump said Burriss pulled his foot and called the runner safe. On replays, the ESPN announcers though he kept his foot on the bag, but I think he as off by less than 1 inch and the ump made the right call. I'm guessing if it was Pujols, the runner would have been called out though.

Nate Schierholtz- 3 for 6. BA= .274. Nate came up with 2 very clutch singles, one to tie it in the 9'th inning and another to to drive in the go-ahead run in the 11'th.

Cody Ross- 4 for 6, 2B, BB, SB(3). BA= .267. Cody had been in a mini-slump, but now has 7 hits in his last 3 games. He certainly peppered the field tonight. I'm thinking the Giants best OF configuration is Nate in RF, Torres in CF and Ross in LF. Stick with that for awhile and see if a chemistry can develop. It's also the best defensive OF configuration.

Brandon Crawford- 2 for 6. BA= .333. Crawford had another nice night at the plate, and his defense is a breath of fresh air, close-call throwing error notwithstanding.

Eli Whiteside- 2 for 4, BB, SF. A terrific game by Whiteside too, It seemed like he did something good at the plate every time up. He also threw out one runner and probably should have had another if Crawford could have held onto the ball to tag Rasmus.

Tim Lincecum- 6.1 IP, 10 H, 5 R, 0 BB, 9 K's. ERA= 2.59. On the surface it looks like Timmy was off tonight, but look at the K's and BB's. The hits in the 7'th inning were smoked but pretty much all of the earlier ones were seeing eye GB's, dinkers and dunkers. That is a very unlucky line for Timmy! He had terrific stuff!

Bullpen- 4.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K's. Maybe the bullpen was a bit lucky, but they ended up shutting down the Cards' offense once Timmy left the game.

The W enabled the Giants to keep pace with the Dangerous Dangerous D'Backs who came from behind to edge the Marlins 6-5 to maintain their 0.5 game lead. The Rockies blanked the Dodgers behind Ubaldo Jimenez to gain sole possession of 3'rd place, 4.5 games behind the D'Backs with the Dodgers falling 5.5 games back. The Padres lost to ATL 4-3 to fall 7 games behind in last place in the NL West.

Jonathan Sanchez will try to make it a 3-1 series win tomorrow. The listed starter for the Cardinals is Jaime Garcia, but the team has announced that Kyle McClellan is being place on the DL with a hip flexor strain suffered in the first inning of game 1 of this series. Lance Lynn is being called up and will make his MLB debut tomorrow pitching on 3 days rest from his last minor league start. Strange! I've liked Lynn since he was in college though so it should be in interesting matchup, but one the Giants would seem to have a good chance of winning.