Game Wrap 9/17/2011: Giants 6 Reeling Rockies 5

The Giants hung on to win a nail biter at the end taking their 7'th straight win and tightening up the NL West and Wild Card races in the process. Key Lines:

Carlos Beltran- 3 for 5, 2 2B. BA= .300. Beltran continues his hot hitting. When Sabean was asked about Beltran's comments about upgrading the top of the batting order, Sabean was uncharacteristically deferential and complimentary to Beltran's judgement as a baseball mind. Hmm......

Brett Pill- 2 for 4, 2 3B. BA= .333. Pill started the game because the lefthander was pitching , but he hit both his triples against RHP's. Pill has served his time and honed his game in the minors and has to be impressing the management during this cup of coffee.

Eric Surkamp- 4.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 6 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 2.95. Surkamp was wild, but managed to hold the forces of evil at bay into the 5'th inning. He threw 98 pitches in this one.

Waldis Joaquin- 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 0.00. Joaquin is another guy who may be winning himself a spot on next year's team. He's got a nasty 94-96 MPH two seam sinker that must feel like a cannon ball when it makes contact with the bat. His control/command has been much better than in past callups.

Sergio Romo- 1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 1.40. I kind of wanted Romo to come back out for the 9'th inning, but Bochy is probably trying to keep everybody available for every game.

Santiago Casilla- 1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 1 K, Save(5). ERA= 1.68. It's a good thing Pill was able to beat that throw home on the groundout after driving in the 2 go-ahead runs with his triple. Casilla tried to cough it up, but finally trusted his stuff enough to let it overpower the last 2 rockies hitters. Crawford made a nice play on a deflected ball to get out #2.

The D'Backs lost again to the Pesky Padres 3-1 so the Giants creep up to 5 games behind for the division lead. ATL won a 1-0 game over the Mets to stay 5 games up in the Wild Card, but the Card lost to the Phillies so the Giants trail them for 2'nd place in the WC by just 0.5 games. Dang! Too bad there aren't 2 Wild Card teams like there is some talk of instituting in the next agreement with the Players Association. No matter how it turns out, these September games have been fun to watch.

Matt Cain tries to keep it going tomorrow afternoon against Esmail Rogers.