The Silver Lining

It's always hard to close out a sweep but Fassero pretty much put the game out of reach and Feliz put up another oh-fur. Bonds drove in another run & got his 26th walk but he's not even leading the league in that category (Pujols has 28).

No, the good news today came from San Diego, where the Dodgers blew a 5-0 lead in the 9th and lost 6-5 in the 10th, thanks in no small part to Kent going 0-for-5 and lowering his average under the Mendoza line to .182. No wonder Gagne is rushing to get back; the LA Times reported that he was throwing "without pain" on the sidelines and will be back in 3-4 weeks or some such optimistic nonsense.

ALOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!

Nothing's better in sports than a walkoff HR. Nothing. Hard to believe but: Vizquel and Moises are now Nos. 1 and 2 in NL batting average; the Giants started their corner IFs (Feliz and Niekro) in the 7 and 8 slots in the lineup; and Winn played college basketball with Steve Nash at Santa Clara. I wonder if Barry will get any intentional walks in the next few days?

No. 711

Pure joy in Club Section 215 as Barry crosses the plate. Great shot by my sister Jane!

What's not to like?

BEST GAME OF THE YEAR -- a 10-2 buttkick of the Dbacks as Frandsen and Feliz go 3-for-4; Alou and Barry get 4 RBIs each; Moises goes yard following an IBB to Bonds; Schmidt and Accardo are lights out. Alou has 8 RBI following the last three intentional walks to Bonds. Perhaps we should be grateful to Bud Selig for getting the Giants focused by announcing he won't bother to show up when Bonds hits Nos. 714 & 715. Hey Bud -- why not just stay away from all MLB games, period? And thanks again for cancelling the 1994 World Series.

BARRY, BARRY

INCREDIBLE pinch HR today by Barry in the 9th off Billy Wagner, thanks partly to David Wright's butchery earlier in the inning. It made me think of reading of how Mays used to deliberately miss a pitch early in the game so he'd get the same pitch later and go deep. It's as if Bonds went into a minor funk in the early season so he could convince gullible pitchers like Wagner that he can't really handle the heat any more. AND two notes from Club section 215: to you Mets fans who show up in team unis at other team parks -- I don't care if you win 20 championships in a row, you'll always be the second team in New York; and to you guys who feel like it's OK to go topless -- no it's not; please give us a break and put on your damn shirts!

Cain is able

A GREAT GAME after the Sunday fiasco. Matt Cain finally delivered tonight on the promise of late last year -- perfect game for 5 innings, great mix of pitches that had the Mets off balance and working out of jams in the 6th and 7th despite making two errors on pickoff throws. I mentioned the perfect game to a woman in a concession line after the 5th so perhaps I jinxed it but I'm confident that Cain is the real deal. And the Mets did their part by walking Bonds 3 times, leading to 5 RBIs by Alou. Bonds has 35 ABs and 23 BBs so his .222 average doesn't reflect his value to the team going 11-8 so far. He's on track to have about 300 ABs, 170 walks and 10 homers this year.

Losing to the Rockies -- never a good thing

It's always painful to lose a game to what's essentially a glorified Triple A team but given the circumstance -- losing Matt Morris on an ejection after 8 pitches -- it wasn't that horrific given the mostly stellar relief pitching overcoming lousy umpiring until an uncalled strike 3 in the bottom of the 10th.

The umps also ejected Ray King late in the game for throwing at Giant batters. The men in blue brought this on themselves by mishandling the Vizquel beaning by psycho Jose Mesa on Saturday night. You have a situation where a guy has threatened to injure another; then he makes good on the threat and there's no penalty at all?

What the hell was Matt Morris supposed to do -- let it slide?

Scoreboard watching at Dodger Stadium

I live in Los Angeles so I wind up seeing about a dozen Dodger games each year, including tonight's 5-4 loss to the Dbacks. In the 5th inning, two notable things happened -- an F went up on the out-of-town scoreboard next to the SF 6, COL 4 score and I picked up a foul ball that had rolled under my seat and gave it to a very cute 3-year-old boy in a Dodger jacket in the row in front of me. About 20 people applauded -- a first for me at Dodger Stadium.

I didn't know that Bonds had hit No. 709 until I got home. No acknowledgement of it on the leftfield Jumbotron, just an unending series of dull trivia such as Jeff Kent being only the 5th second baseman to make four All Star teams. It just underlines what a clueless, classless outfit the Dodgers are.

Kent went 0-for-3, got hit by a pitch and was on deck when JD Drew struck out looking to end the game. My friend Dan the Mets fan would say Drew "Daryl'd" -- a fitting tribute to Daryl Strawberry.

Lefty Malo, who runs a great blog, has a highly entertaining posting titled "To All the G's I've Loved Before" about his feelings towards ex-Giants. Of Kent, Mueller, Tomko, Lofton, Cruz and Colletti, he says simply "You're dead to me." Link is here

Lefty did leave out Ledee, perhaps the most hateful ex-Giant ever and certainly the ugliest.

Opening Day 2006 at AT&T Park as seen from Clubhouse section 212. Barry Bonds at bat.

George, the world's hairiest Giants fan, says "The orange and black rule!"

Worst game of the year

Losing to the Rockies is unacceptable under any circumstances. This is not a big league team, despite the 4-run 9th.

And here I thought HR 709 was imminent. Bonds flied out to CF in the 1st with Vizquel on. At least Feliz is finally hitting. He got the first Giant hit in the 2nd inning and then went yard twice.

Hopefully, the Giants can take this chance in the next 2 games to remind the Rockies that they are the Rockies.

Strange game in Phoenix

Just when you've given up on Pedro Feliz, he gets a big hit. Bizarre to see him batting 8th!

Dodger loss

The LA Dodgers gagged away a sure victory tonight to the Cubs, 5-4, thanks to errors by Baez and Repko.

Words to live by

An SF Giants victory is a thing of beauty