Game Wrap 8/17/2011: Giants 7 Braves 5

The Giants sorely needed this win tonight. They got a tremendous pitching performance from Matt Cain, put together some offense and held off a late Braves' rally to hold on for the W. Key Lines:

Mike Fontenot- 3 for 5, 2 2B. BA= .220. Fonty is better than a Mendoza line guy. He's due to get some hits and raise that average. He did it by going the other way tonight.

Pablo Sandoval- 2 for 4, 2 2B, SF. BA= .311. The SF was one of 4 by Giants hitters on the night. The Giants are 10'th in all of baseball in SF's, 11'th in S, and I read somewhere recently they are near the top in advancing baserunners. The Giants offensive problems are due to lack of baserunners and lack of power, not "situational hitting."

Aubrey Huff- 2 for 3, 2 2B, BB, SF. BA= .248. The 2, 3 and 4 hitters in the lineup had 6 doubles between them. Huffster is hitting .286 over his last 10 games. He has an .854 OPS in 15 games in the month of August and a .782 in 29 games post All-Star. His overall numbers for the year will probably still look pretty ugly, but his second half split will likely be respectable.

Nate Schierholtz- 2 for 5. BA= .279. Great to see Nate back in the lineup after the injury scare from fouling a ball off his foot. the 2-5 hitters in the lineup went a combined 9 for 17.

Matt Cain- 8 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K's. ERA= 2.86. What an effort by Matt Cain. He started out a bit rough and already had thrown 60 pitches by the end of the 3'rd inning. He ended up with a total of 114 over 8 innings. He retired the last 18 batters he faced. He either pitched to contact or mowed them down in just a few pitches thus managing to keep his pitch count down despite all the K's. His ERA is 2.30 over his last 10 starts.

Dan Runzler- 0.2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K's. ERA= 6.64. Runzler couldn't get his breaking ball over the plate which allowed the ATL batters to time the fastball. There was an error by OCab and a misadventurous route to the ball by Cody Ross involved too.

With the Win, the Giants moved to 2.5 games behind the NL West leading Diamondbacks who lost to the Phillies 9-2 as the Phils broke this one open late.

On the injury front: Nate played tonight and did not appear to be hampered. Jonathan Sanchez is thinking he may not miss a start with his ankle sprain. Brian Wilson traveled to Dr Andrews clinic to have the elbow that Andrews did TJ surgery on while Willie was in college. Diagnosis: Inflammation. Treatment: a couple days rest. Stay tuned on that one! Kepp is still nursing a right wrist sprain/bone contusion and is day to day.

Tim Lincecum tries to get the Giants a split in the 4 game series and a positive W-L on the road trip so far tomorrow evening against rookie LHP Mike Minor.