Game Wrap 4/16/2016: Giants 4 Dodgers 3

The Giants seemed to be cruising to an easy win behind Johnny Cueto's terrific pitching, then had to hold off a late Dodger surge including a chest pain inducing 9'th inning from Santiago Casilla to squeak by the Dodgers in LA.  Key Lines:

Denard Span- 1 for 4, BB, SB(2).  BA= .244.  If Span were to put up this line every night, he'd finish with a darn good season.

Joe Panik- 2 for 5.  BA= .256.  Panik appears to be feeling better from his hip bruise.

Brandon Crawford- 1 for 3, 2B, BB.  BA= .250.  There are two things that will make a player rush back from an injury:  A really good performance by his replacement and a really bad one.  In this case, the Giants desperately needed Crawford's steady hand back at SS.  He ended up with the only XBH of the game for the Giants.

Johnny Cueto- 7.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K's, GO/AO= 10/0.  ERA= 3.38.  Another splendid performance by Cueto who threw 109 pitches each one seemingly with a different wrinkle in his delivery.  His FB velocity was reportedly up to 95 MPH.

Javier Lopez- 0.0 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 0 K.  ERA= 13.50.  Lopez messed the bed and failed to even record an out for what seems like the 5'th or 6'th time this season already and he's giving up shots to lefty batters to boot!  The Giants need him to figure out whatever is wrong ASAP as they need that lefty matchup out of the pen.  PS:  It's actually the 3'rd time in 6 appearances that Lopez has failed to record an out this season.  He has allowed 5 hits in 9 AB to LH batters.

Santiago Casilla- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K, Save(1).  ERA= 2.08.  It seems like it's never easy with Casilla who has always taken a batter or two to find his groove.  Tonight, he gave everybody chest pain when he gave up a leadoff double to Yasmani Grandal bringing back memories of a Blown Save against these very Dodgers in Game 2 of the last Dodger series in AT&T Park 8 days ago.  Things were not looking any better after Kike Hernandez advanced Grandal to 3B with a soft groundout to Matt Duffy.  Joc Pederson reduced the threat level a lot by popping out to Matt Duffy in foul territory failing to bring in the run.  That brought up Yasiel Puig as a PH.  The plan, obviously, was to jam Puig with hard stuff in tight and he flied out to Pagan to end the game.

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The Win brings the Giants back into a first place tie with the Dodgers atop the NL West with 7-5 records.  The Rockies lost the Cubs 6-2 to fall 0.5 games back in 3'rd place.  The 4'th place D'Backs and last place Padres are battling into extra innings at 3-3.

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Jeff Samardzija makes his first start against the Dodgers as a Giant tomorrow afternoon facing Kenta Maeda who is still something of an unknown quantity.  It will be hot and the ball will be lively tomorrow in an afternoon game with a strong offshore flow going here in SoCal.