The Dodgers hourglass of time is starting to trickle down to the last few grains of sand as the Giants knocked off another milestone tying the San Francisco era team record for wins in a season('62 and '93). With it, their "magic number shrank to 4 with 5 games to play. The Dodgers magic number situation is much more daunting. If the Giants win just one more game, the Dodgers must go 4-1 to beat that. If the Giants go 2-3, the Dodgers have to win out. In other words, the Dodgers "magic number" is 8 with the same 5 games to play.
This game was won by what might be the single greatest AB by any Giants player in my memory. That would be Buster Posey in the first inning. D'Backs SP Luke Weaver came out firing BB's using exclusively high heaters to make quick work of Tommy La Stella and Lamonte Wade Jr on 2 quick K's. Buster came to the plate and sure enough, Weaver brought the high heat on the first pitch. Buster was all over it and fouled it straight back. Weaver knew better than to test Buster again, or to put it another way, he immediately lost confidence in his best pitch and started nibbling around. Buster got the count to 3-2 and after what seemed like about 10 pitches, lined one off the wall in the left-CF alley. Weaver then really lost confidence and walked the next 3 batters to drive in a run. He was saved by a terrible called third strike on Longo by the ump who had a generally terrible game, but ended up throwing over 45 pitches in the first inning alone guaranteeing an early exit.
So there you have it. Buster Posey had the best AB of the game, probably of the season and possibly the best AB ever!
Looks like the season has caught up with Late Night Wade:
ReplyDelete0-17, 6 K, 1 W, but had a very important sacrifice in the 7th, and Bryant brought Duggar home for the lead run.