Riches to Rags to Riches: Giants 9, Nationals 7

The Giants turned their worst loss of the season into their best win with one mighty swing of Pablo Sandoval's bat. The Kung Fu Panda's 3-run bolt of a HR off reformed Dodger Joe Beimel gave the Giants a stirring come-from-behind win despite blowing 4 run 7th inning lead to the worst team in baseball and then trailing with 2 outs and nobody on in the 9th.

It was the Giants first real comeback win of the year, and puts them a season-high 4 games over .500, and guarantees them yet another series win. In the last 9 series including this one, they are now 7-0-2, both those ties coming on the road after losing the series opener. It was also the second game in a row, the Giants have allowed 7 runs (albeit against one of the best offensive teams in the NL so far), yet still scored enough to win it with their hitting (albeit against one of the worst pitching staffs in the NL so far). Oh yeah, and Pablo's HR kep the Giants undefeated when scoring first (14-0).

The Giants comeback followed what could have been a crushing rally by the Nationals, who scored 3 runs each in the 7th and 8th to erase a 5-1 lead and steal a win away from Matt Cain. Cain cruised through the first 6 innings, allowing just what should have been an unearned run (Adam Dunn's double should've been caught by Nate Schierholtz, who misjudged it and saw it clank off his wrist), but ran into trouble in the 7th. With 1 out and none on, and Cain on a pitch count which might allow him to finsih the game, Alex Cintron got his first hit of the year. Cristian Guzman followed with another hit before Nick Johnson crushed a good pitch from Cain (knee-high, outer third) for an opposite-field HR -- his first hit ever off Cain.

Right then, you knew it wouldn't be easy.It didn't take long for that to prove out. Cain stayed in to retire Ryan Zimmerman (who had 2 hits to extend his hitting streak to 30) and Adam Dunn to end the inning, but left after 7, having thrown just 100 pitches (not that much for Cain). The combo of Howry (mostly) and Affeldt (just a little) blew the lead by allowing 3 runs (albeit on some pretty weak contact) and the Giants suddenly trailed 7-5. A sure victory for Cain was gone, and the game seemed lost -- even when Bengie Molina led off the next inning with a HR.

I figured the Giants would lose by one, just to make it that much more frustrating. But with 2 out and none on in the 9th, Emmanuel Burris singled, and after being wild-pitched to 2nd, Edgar Renteria drew a crucial walk in a great at bat plate appearance. That set the stage for Sandoval, whose dramatics had to be all that much sweeter to him following an embarrassing play a few innings earlier when he stumbled trying to leg out a triple and took and header in the basepath.

TOMORROW: Barry Zito takes the mound against ex-Giants farmhand, 4-0 rookie Shairon Martis (who was criminally given awaty by Brian Sabean in the Mike Stanton robbery trade) as the Giants go for the sweep of the Nationals. Will Zito continue his recent run of unexpected mastery, or will he run out of smoke and/or mirrors?

O.M.G.: Giants 7, Dodgers 5

The Giants kept a streak alive by going against a trend. They won another series -- extending their streak of non-losing series to eight -- by winning a game in which they didn't score first. With the victory they're now only 3-14 when failing to score first. They did, however, continue a much happier trend -- scoring a lot of runs (for them) in the final games of series. On this road trip, they put 6 on getaway day in Chicago when needing a win Denver in the same situation, and 7 on getaway day in LA to take this series.

More than that, they won a game when several important factors broke against them -- Tim Lincecum wasn't as sharp as usual (though he still had great numbers everywhere but the "Runs" column), they continued to flail with men in scoring position (including two particularly poor AB's from Pablo Sandoval, who swung at first-pitch low-and-away sinkers to ground out with ducks on the pond), Juan Pierre could do no wrong, and Brian Wilson blew a save.

They won a game they needed to be able to feel like they're still in the race -- 4.5 out, but 2 over .500 -- even though it took 13 innings, they were on the road, and had every reason to believe they should lose. They scored in the 12th and 13th innings just when you might expect them to pack it in, After Wilson blew the save in the 12th, he came back to get the Dodgers 1-2-3 in the 13th, but that didn't stop him from fuming afterwards over mocking from Casey Blake, who took him deep to tie the game. Twitter, mohawks, mocking -- Brian Wilson is a walking controversy.

TOMORROW: The Giants come home to play the resurgent Nats, as The Unit takes on Daniel Cabrera at Mays Field.

Insert Title Here: Cubs 4, Giants 2

Didn't see the game. Don't plan to either, though I have it on TiVo. It didn't look like much to see -- Jonathan Sanchez too wild again, offense dominated by Ryan Dempster (who shared a flight with my wife and I to Australia, where we were going to get married in 2004). Ho-hum. Move along. Besides, there's more baseball around the corner: I have the next three days off work -- during which the Giants will play two day games, including tomorrow.

The good news from tonight: Pablo Sandoval is back where he belongs -- hitting .320+ with gap power -- and so is Fred Lewis, who's hitting .312 and taking his fair share of walks. Though I'd love to see him take a couple of trots around the bases before too long, if you catch my drift (Chicago and Colorado aren't bad places to find your power stroke -- hint, hint). Another bright side: The 'pen. The Giants got 2 shutout innings out of both Bob Howry, who's been struggling, and Justin Miller, who'd been surprisingly good.

TOMORROW: An awesome fucking display of baseball -- Tim Lincecum at Wrigley Field in an 11:20 PDT start. God bless America!

There's no "O" in Giants: Rockies 5, Giants 1

Again, the Giants offense came up small. This reminded me of what my old high school English teacher used to call the Giants: "The Pygmies". That certainly describes the team today, when they came within a Pablo Sandoval HR from being shut out by Giant-killer Jason Marquis (4-1, 1.98 ERA lifetime).

Matt Cain was off his game, allowing 5 runs, but a good offensive team might have taken advantage of the solid relief work and won the game, 7-5 or something. Not this team. At least, not right now. The starting pitching can't be perfect (see today), so they need to step it up a bit to give them a chance. Otherwise, Brian Sabean might see a team one power hitter away from contending and get a not-so-bright idea.

TOMORROW: Zito vs. Jason Hammel. Hammel has a 5.59 ERA and a 1.97 WHIP this year (5.89 and 1.65 career), and yet I still feel like he's the favorite.

Unit-ed: Giants 3, Rockies 2

I'm sensing a trend in Big Unit starts -- dominant at home, bad on the road, dominant at home, bad on the road, dominant at home. This is a little worrisome as half his starts this year will come on thee road, but then again, half will come at home. It's too early to draw major conclusions from these results (especially the two bad starts), but this appears a classic glass half-full/half-empty, good news/bad news situation. Or, more precisely, a Good Unit/Bad Unit situation.

On Friday night, he was definitely the Good Unit. The result was 7 innings, 4 hits, 9 K's and no runs, as the Giants won 3-2. The game was well in hand -- 3-0 Giants -- through 7 innings before the Giants set-up men did their best blow the lead. Struggling righty set-up man Bob Howry allowed a leadoff HR to Chris Ianetta in the 8th, and Jeremy Affedt allowed 3 hits (though 2 were of the cheapie infield variety which a better SS then Renteria would've probably turned into outs) while only getting 2 outs.

Then Bruce Bochy did something he's been doing more and more after avoiding it the last season plus -- bringing in Brian Wilson to get a 4+ out save. In this case, Wilson was up for the task, though he needed the help of Renteria, who did a good job to stop Garrett Atkins' grounder in the hole from going into LF to keep the potential tying run from scoring. That loaded the bases, but the situation wasn't quite tough enough for the adrenaline junkie Wilson. So he ran the count to the next hitter, Ryan Spillbourghs to 3-2 before striking him out on a high fastball. Wilson walked one in the 9th (can't make it too anti-climactic) before striking out Ian Stewart to end it.

Again, the Giants offense did just enough to support the good pitching. Leading the way were Pablo Sandoval, who stayed hot, getting two hits (including an earth-shaking triple), and Travis Ishikawa, who stayed both hot and power-unlucky with two hits, including an RBI double, which would've been a HR in almost any other park. Ishikawa could easily have a couple of HR"s this year, but remains stuck on zero because of the park he plays in.

In fact, Fred Lewis, who's been slumping quite a bit lately, also has zero HR's. That gives the Giants three most impressive (and potential middle of the order) young hitters -- Lewis, Sandoval, and Ishikawa -- with 1 HR total. If this trend continues, I don't think the pitching can keep them afloat, but I'll enjoy it while I can. What I won't enjoy, however, is seeing Emmanuel Burriss continue to flail away at MLB pitching. I was in favor of giving Kevin Frandsen the starting 2B job before the season, and am even more so now. At this rate, it won't be long before those two players swap places -- Burriss to Fresno, Frandsen to The City.

In The Zone: Giants 5, D-Backs 1

Again, this was how Brian Sabean drew it up before the season -- great starting pitching, decent enough hitting, and solid defense. The defense and the hitting haven't been very dependable this year, but the pitching is starting to look like something the team can count on.

Counting on opposite-field HR's by Edgar Renteria, and getting 12 K's from your starter is not something they can do on most nights, but when Lincecum pitches it's certainly not surprising. Unfortunately, it's also not suprising to see the Giants leave runners at 3rd with less than 2 out again and again. Tonight, Aaron Rowand did it twice himself, and he wasn't alone. But when Lincecum is on, it doesn't matter much, as long as you score him a couple.

Rowand helped him off to a good start with a fabulous play to save a run in the 1st inning, cutting off a Stephen Drew double into the gap with a quick slide, then popping up and, in one motion, hitting the cutoff man with a strong throw. Lincecum then struck out Mark Reynolds to keep him there, and got out of the inning unscathed, going 8 innings and allowing only a single run and walk to go with the dozen K's (he struck out 13 D-Backs in SF less than a week ago).

The Giants managed to score 5 runs despite their lack of good situational hitting, mainly because of Bengie Molina, who hit one HR with the bases empty, and one ringing double with the bases full, driving in 3 runs total. He may not be the ideal cleanup hitter, but he's our cleanup hitter, dammit. Other highlights included Pablo Sandoval's 2 hits and a walk (yes, you read that right), and Fred Lewis chipping in 2 more hits to raise his average to .360.

For six straight games, the Giants have had dominant starting pitching -- not just in terms of results, but also peripherals -- and have won 5 of those 6 games. Lincecum has been the poster boy of the rotation, and for good reason, but it's nice to see all 5 guys contributing so well at once. It's gotten so good that the team can skip Jonathan Sanchez after a great start and not skip a beat., there might have been some controversy over choosing him and not Zito, but not when The Albatross goes out and mows down a division rival in a 1-0 extra inning win. It's too early to take these types of numbers too seriously, but there's no reason we shouldn't enjoy it.

Real Sunshine, Real Grass, Real Baseball: Giants 1, Padres 0

It was great to see a giants game live today, great to see a businessman's special -- my favorite games -- and great to see Barry Zito pitch like something more than a shadow of his former self. He was far better than that -- throwing 7 shutout innings, striking out 5 and walking none. it was the second straight game in which a Giants starter with control issues had 5 K's with no walks, and the 5th straight game a Giants starter pitched very well.

Luckily for the Giants, they avoided dropping a second of those five by being shutout when they scored the game's lone run with 2 outs in the bottom on the 10th. As Jon Miller said on the postgame show, right now the best way to describe the Giants is "If they score, they win".

It seems I was wrong on my prediction of Schierholtz getting his first start, but I was close: Andres Torres got his first start instead, and scored the winning (and only) run. I would've gone with Nate, who is now the only Giants position player yet to start a game, but Bochy's hunch paid off.

Hell, he even put Pablo Sandoval in catching gear for the first time today, and gave Bengie Molina the day off (the day after Steve Holm was brought up to provide a real backup catcher -- I'm sure if that timing makes sense or not), and had both players play major roles in their victory. Sandoval caught a 10 inning shutout and made a couple of nice plays (and one bad throw as well). Molina came off the bench to win the game with a double, scoring Torres, who had singled and stolen second.

Torres showed today how much better he is than Eugenio Velez -- he made a great defensive play, helped with the bat, and looked fantastic on the bases. Meanwhile, Velez has shown to be a terrible defender and baserunner (despite his great speed). In the 10th alone, the difference between them was clear. After Torres got himself in scoring position, Velez had a chance to play the hero, and struck out. Worse, than that, he realize it. After swinging and missing at strike three, he waited around at home plate as if he thought he got four strikes. The ump had to tell him to go away, holding out three fingers as if to say, "Can't you count to three, moron?" Because Velez still has options, I wouldn't be surprised to see him return to AAA.

TOMORROW: Off-day.

See No Evil: Giants 7, Brewers 1

Very scary moment in the game tonight as Giants rookie pitcher -- and team-leader in wins -- Joe Martinez was struck in the head by a line drive off the bat of Mike Cameron. Martinez was bloodied and dazed, but walked off under his own power, and seemed okay pending tests. It doesn't seem serious, which on a day where one baseball player has already tragically died after pitching the best game of his life, is welcome news. Because that is all terribly depressing, I'm going to ignore it for the rest of this post:

I've determined the secret to winning Giants baseball -- I need to not watch it live. So far this season I've had to TiVo two games because of work, and the Giants are 2-0. I've watched one game live, and they are 0-1. Some people will tell you three games isn't a large enough enough sample size to determine trends about baseball. Those people probably also hate America. Until I have any more evidence, I'm just going to go with the old scientific theorem, "The trend is your friend".

Matt Cain was great, and more amazingly, he got run support, as the Giants won it, 7-1. Cain allowed only 1 run and 6 baserunners in 7 innings, while striking out 5. He accomplished this against a strong Brewer lineup, settling in nicely after a bit of a lucky start, when two long flyballs to right Death Valley were knocked down by the wind and died in Randy Winn's glove at the wall.

Speaking of Winn: He looked great in the field and at the plate -- a good sign for the notoriously slow starter -- and more and more, I'm coming to believe those who believe he's one of the more underrated players in baseball. He plays very well in the toughest RF in the league, hits .300 (3 of the last 4 years), draws walks, and steals bases at a very high rate (42/47 last 2+ years). If he has another good year, the Giants may be able to trade him for something shiny at the trade deadline if they fall out of the race.

Not that I'm thinking they'll be out of the race. In fact, if the prospects I had the most confidence in coming into the season -- Sandoval, Lewis, Ishikawa -- keep hitting (though I doubt Lewis will hit .500+), I might struggle to supress my fanboy optimism. I know the Giants have a potentially great rotation, but there's no guarantee it'll workl out that way. If the offense was good enough that they didn't need a dominant staff, I could be talked into their chances to win the division. Yeah, that's right -- I said it.

TOMORROW: The Giants take it on the road down to San Diego, where they take on the lowly Padres. Lucky for San Diego, the Giants are throwing Barry Zito -- the perfect cure for my fanboy optimism. He'll take on the Padres' Shawn Hill.

Day 2, Game 1: Giants 10, Brewers 6

This season, the Giants will survive only if their pitching holds up, because their offense won't give them much. In their first game of the 2009 season, not so much. It was Opposite Day at Mays Field, as Tim Lincecum struggled mightily -- as did a couple of the relievers who followed him (though Joe Martinez vltured a win in his big league debut despite struggling) -- the the prolific Giants offense out-scored the Brewers 10-6. While Lincecum struggled with his command all day (which was just three innings -- the shortest start of his career), just about every hitter had a big day.

The Giants compiled 12 hits, hit three HR's (something it took them 64 innings to accomplish last season), and even did a lot of the little things right (sac fly, successful hit-and-run, even a perfectly-executed butcher boy base hit by Lincecum). They also did some things very sloppily -- particularly Pablo Sandoval's D at 3B, but also including a very bad throwing error by Fred Lewis in LF.

The power came from Randy Winn, Bengie Molina, and Aaron Rowand, who bounced back from a terrible Spring to have two hits and a walk. Travis Ishikawa hit what would've been a grand slam in almost any other park in the first inning, but since it was to Triple's Alley, he had to "settle" for a three-run triple. Sandoval, Burris, and Lewis all chipped in, and one can only hope this was a sign of good things to come. Though, definitely not this good.

The pitching, likewise, will likely not be this bad. Lincecum didn't appear hurt, or really that far off -- it seemed to be a case of overthrowing leading to poor mechanics and rhythm, which isn't hard to understand. He is the defending Cy Young winner, and this was his first Opening Day start. Plus he met Sully Sullenberger like two minutes before the game started, and that can't help but throw you.

Watching the game on TiVo this afternoon after I got off work, I was reminded why Kruk and Kuip are tow of the best announcers in the game. They pointed out how small Ryan Braun is for a power hitter, and Krukow likened him to Will Clark, showing his swing, and how he maximized his strength with toque and timing. Moments later, they showed video of The Thrill hitting one out to compare and contrast. Kruk capped it off with a quote from Rick Reuschel, inspired by Clark's ability to hit: "A genius is a guy who makes something hard look easy".

This first game could be viewed by those looking to jump to conclusions as the first win of many for a maturing team, or a sign of the youthful, sloppy play which will plague the Giants all year. But it's probably neither -- just one game of 162. Who knows what the next 161 will bring. Whatever it is, I'm ready. Baseball is back. Yippee.

TOMORROW: A night game, so I might actually get to catch some of it live. The Giants will whip out the Big Unit, as Randy Johnson makes his SF debut against Yovani Gallardo.

It's (Almost) On!

Don't let the fact I haven't written much about the Giants, or baseball in general, convince you I've given up on this whole Giants Diary idea. I still plan to write a little something -- usually a very little something -- every day of the baseball season, I just haven't had much to say during Spring training -- there's just something so meaningless and hypothetical about it. More like a tease, then the real thing. This year, because of the WBC, Spring training lasted even longer, giving it an even more useless feel.

But now the clubs are back in their big league cities -- I'm watching Tim Lincecum mow down the A's right now (3-0 Giants in the middle of the 3rd) on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area (thanks, DirecTV!) -- and the season finally feels like it's actually going to happen. The first game (or "Opening Night" as ESPN prefers to call it) is Sunday, most teams open Monday, and the first Giants game (against Milwaukee) is Tuesday.

It's great to see the big league parks again -- especially PacBell Park SBC Park AT&T Park Mays Field -- and it doesn't hurt when the first time up in their home park your team puts up three runs. That's not likely happen too often this year with a Giant offense everyone agrees is a weak spot, but I think they have a few hitters who could be better than a lot of people think. Fred Lewis, coming off an impressive first full year in the majors, is one. Travis Ishikawa, a once-fallen prospect coming off a revitalizing and dominant minor league season, is another. But the most excitement surrounds fan favorite, Pablo Sandoval, who's already starting to earn some national recognition.

Only time will tell, but as a Giants fan, I go into this year with much more enthusiasm than in any year since at least 2004. It may come to nothing, but at least for now, it's Spring and I'm hopeful, and there's something to be said for that.