April 16 all over again

A strange sense of deja vu for me tonight in Section 121 -- the game being virtually over before it got started. Matt Cain gave up a homerun on the first pitch of the game and was down 3-0 before he even got the second out. The Giants would not score until Pablo Sandoval clobbered a homer in the 9th.

I was also there on April 16 when the Phils got 4 in the first on Tim Lincecum on their way to a 5-2 vic.

It's the one advantage visiting teams have -- they can essentially win the game before the home team even comes to bat.

By the way, after the April 16 game, I saw the Giants win the next two and then I saw them win the last four by shutout. So my record is pretty respectable this year.

"Let's go, Giants!"

In my experience, you can tell that the Giants are going good when you're leaving AT&T Park on the ramps and the "Let's go, Giants!" chant erupts spontaneously.

I've had the good fortune to be at all four games, up on the top deck. I was in 317 tonight and even from that remove, it was easy to see the Madison Bumgarner was in command. No one even ventured to the pen as he mowed down the Reds on an epic 1-hitter.

Additional excitement came in the 9th as the Mets held on for a 3-2 vic at Chavez Latrine with our old buddy Andres Torres driving in the winning run.

The scoreless wonders

That's 27 innings of Dodger humiliation, ladies and gentlemen, by the back 3 guys in the Giant rotation -- Zito, Vogelsong and Lincecum. How humiliating were the three consecutive shutouts? Try never before.

I had the good fortune to witness today's game in Section 313 as the Giants made it into first place. Yes, you heard that right. First place. Way to go, Dodgers. It seems nothing but appropriate that the guy who went 0-4 last year against the Dodgers, the guy who Dodger fans want to see fail, that guy was the one who pitched seven shutout innings today.

JC Parsons at Raising (Matt) Cain offers up some nice observations about Tim --


Tim Lincecum may very well have refound his "freak." Today was his best start of the season ( game score 75 ) and his second consecutive quality start. The only extra base hit was by Chad Billingsley and he was stranded at third, which, by the way, was the only smog sucker to get that far all series long. Tim seemed to have all his pitches working. He certainly had movement; sometimes too much. Hector Sanchez, catching Lincecum for the second straight game, took a beating trying to block some crazy pitches in the dirt. Tim unleashed two more more wild pitches, which gives him 9 for the season. One of them lead to a collision at the plate with Timmeh taking the hit but getting a generous call. I sure wish he would quit doing that.

Dravecky and LaCoss

Readers of this blog know that I'm a sucker for recalling great moments in Giants history, so the title of this post has to do with the last time that the Gmen shut out the Dodgers out home back to back -- 1987, when Dave Dravecky and Mike LaCoss pulled it off.

Tonight, it was Ryan Vogelsong following Barry Zito. How does that taste, Dodger fans? Mmmm-mmmm. Tasty! That team went to the postseason - the first Giants team in 16 years to do that.

Anyhow, the Dodgers look anything but invincible, at least based on what I saw tonight from Section 310. What Henry Schulman's game story doesn't mention is that Clayton Kershaw won 4 games last year from the Giants in head to head confrontations with Tim Lincecum. But this year, Vogelsong has won both times. That's Ryan Vogelsong, as in a guy who was pitching in Japan in 2010.

The least tense game of the year

I had the good fortune to attend last night's humiliation of the Dodgers in section 315 and it was an odd feeling -- the game was pretty much over by the end of the second inning with the good guys up 7-0. The only real nervousness had to do with whether Barry Zito would revert to his never-surprising crappiness, but instead, he threw one of his occasionally superb games, with only a few Dodgers making anything close to solid contact.

Henry Schulman's recap in the SF Chronicle -- probably mostly hammered out before the sun went down around the 6th inning -- notes that the Gmen are only 2 games out of first.

At least the Dodgers lost ....

.... and at least it wasn't the Dodgers who beat the Giants on a 9th inning two-out two-strike walk off today.

That's what I revert to when the Giants lose -- a Dodger hater. The Angels beat them 5-3.


The Giants offense consisted of a Posey's 2-run HR, single and walk, plus 3 other singles. Brandon Belt, who I've been gushing over, went 0-for-3 with two Ks. 

Giants are now 40-33, which projects out to 89-73. That's probably good enough to make the wild card.

Decent tweet from Andrew Baggarly --  Andrew Baggarly ‏@CSNBaggs

Casilla's blown save just his 2nd in 22 attempts. "You're going to have a hiccup. This is part of being a closer." Casilla unavailable tmrw.

What about Aubrey?

You know, there's this guy named Aubrey Huff on the Giants who leveraged a stellar 2010 into getting paid more than anyone else on the team except Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito. He's on the DL right now after injuring his knee after the Matt Cain perfect game but it's hard to believe that he's going to be playing much more now that Brandon Belt has truly arrived. Belt already had a 1.4 WAR this year. 

Huff hasn't been the same player for the past two seasons, plus he's had the recent anxiety problems. Giants fans everywhere hold a special place for Huff, who was the best player on the 2010 team. Perhaps no longer having the pressure of being an everyday player may help Huff get back some of his mojo.

Meanwhile, Belt is finally looking like the real deal. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chron has a pretty entertainment game story that notes there were five Brandons who played in the Giants' 9-8 vic in Oakland tonight. Here's a key part -- 


Bumgarner (9-4) went six innings and gave up 11 hits, a walk and four runs in earning his fourth consecutive win. He also took some credit for Belt's homer - Belt had zero until following Bumgarner's homer 12 days ago with one of his own. Now, Belt has four.
Belt said that Bumgarner did have an impact. "I was pretty upset that he hit a home run before me, so he kind of lit a fire under my butt," Belt said.
Belt has hit safely in a career-high 11 consecutive games, driving in 12 runs in that stretch.
 

The turning point for the Orange and Black?

Man, what a game tonight! I was listening to the Oakland broadcast coming home from a long week at work and they were THRILLED at how the game started in the first -- Giants going down 1-2-3 and the A's scoring three off Tim Lincecum and having the bases loaded with no one out. They were gleeful that Shane Loux was already warming up in the pen and speculating that Lincecum was about to lose his spot in the rotation.

So Tim struck out the side. Yes, he did. You should have heard me, yelling "**** you" at the radio after each strikeout. Tim needed 42 pitches to get out of the first and then blanked the A's for the next five innings.

Lord knows, Tim may not be out of the woods yet but I'm thinking that he may have finally figured this out.

JC Parsons at Raising (Matt) Cain has a nice recap of the fine night. Here's the first paragraph --   

 This game, much like the pitching performance of Tim Lincecum, started like crap but finished just fine.  Hell, it ended a little bit better than just fine.  In a rather stunning ninth inning 4 run outburst, the Giants came back to take the opener in Oakland,  5-4.  A big win at a crucial time of year and especially sweet as it ends the horror of nine straight losses with Timmeh starting.  Shit, it was also the first time we won in that crappy stadium in two years!

Thanks, Oakland

I don't really care about the Oakland A's except for exceptions -- which is this week. And with the Giants coming to town, the Oakland A's are red hot. They just swept the Dodgers, which is a thing of beauty. 

The Giants have gone 5-7 this year in interleague play and the only series they've won so far was a month ago in SF against the A's. 

Loux as in losing team

The Giants put on a pretty dismal show tonight in Anaheim, where the Angels whomped em 6-0. Henry Schulman notes in his game story that interleague play has been embarrassing for the Orange and Black. All true but I'm wondering why we're insisting on playing guys who have no business being at the MLB level such as Justin Christian (who made an easy out as a pinchitter) and Shane Loux. 

Schulman didn't mention it but Loux got smacked around in the 8th as the score went from 3-0 to 6-0 on back to back homers on 2 pitches, followed by two more hits -- including the first extrabase hit in something like 160 MLB at bats by Bobby Wilson.

Meanwhile Heath Hembree keeps blowing them away in the minors. There's no excuse for a team to have an MLB-caliber player in the minors.

How bad was Zito?

Bay Area Sports Guy has a pretty funny post about it as part of a contest (free T-shirt to the winner) to forecast how Zito would perform: 


 Nobody predicted Barry Zito would be this bad, but a couple of you came close. Zito allowed 8 earned runs and struck out only one Anaheim Angel over 3.1 innings. It was a terrible performance, the first time Zito’s given up so many runs since July 16, 2011, when he allowed 8 earned runs over 3.2 innings in San Diego. In the process Zito’s ERA jumped from 3.61 to 4.35. Zito’s ERA was 2.98 after blanking the Cubs for 8.1 innings on June 3.
Now it’s up to Tim Lincecum to trade places with Zito again. Any day now…
 .

Zito = raising the white flag

Well, that headline is pretty harsh -- but so was Zito's pitching tonight in the 12-5 buttkick that the Giants received from the Angels tonight. I didn't attend but as I drove away from work in the early innings, the Angels broadcasting crew were marveling at how hittable Zito's pitches were. Whatever magic he had earlier in the season is gone. There's no surprise when he gets hammered.

Anyhow, it was 5-1 when he left with the bases loaded in the 4th for Mark Trumbo, who hit a triple off George Kontos and scored a few seconds later on a sac fly.

And now I'm back to wondering about if there's another Ryan Vogelsong out there, if Brad Penney can get his act together in Fresno.

Matt Cain -- escape artist

First off, a warning -- I attended last night's game at Angels Stadium in Anaheim and decided to use public transit. It's feasible but truly a challenging experience once it gets late at night. Which is always going to be a potential problem when the game has a DH in it and a pitcher coming off a perfect game.

Even with the Giants bullpen being perfect -- 12 up and 12 down -- the game was well over 3 hours long. 

Henry Schulman's game story for the SF Chron focuses largely on Matt kind of bobbing and weaving his way through five innings.

Jury: Feds wasting taxpayer $$$

Roger Clemens has just been acquitted on every count in the federal government's insane campaign to demonize Clemens along with Barry Bonds.

The jury decided that the feds case was no damn good. This should be a clear message to dingbat prosecutors like Jeff Novitsky to stop wasting taxpayer dollars and go after real criminals.

My bet is that the insanity will continue 

Over-managing in Seattle

I don't care for Tony LaRussa, who thinks he's about a million times smarter than everyone else. Bruce Bochy is far easier to take and he'll always have Game 6 of the NLCS in 2010 to prove that he's sometimes a genius. 

But this game really blew up in Bruce Bochy's face -- with one out in the 8th and the score, Buster Posey got a single as the DH. Bruce decided to pinch-run the pretty useless Justin Christian for him and it didn't work. Pagan made out, Belt singled and Hector Sanchez was out on a good stop by Justin Smoak.

OK, so when the Giants loaded the bases in the 9th and had two out, who was up at the plate? Justin Christian, who was replaced by Nate Schierholtz, who grounded out.

POSEY IS THE GUY YOU WANT UP IN THE 9TH, BRUCE

The 2-1 hell game

If you're a Giants fan, you're going to have a couple of 2-1 hell games every year. There was second one of the year today in Seattle with Madison Bumgarner losing -- seven weeks after Matt Cain lost to the Marlins, 2-1.  

You've got to be a pretty good pitcher to lose a game, 2-1. In the Marlins loss, Matt gave up both runs, while the pen lost this one in the 9th today. Anyhow, Matt was 1-2 after that game. He's 8-2 now and faces the Angels in Anaheim tomorrow night.

The BB guys

After watching Pablo Sandoval strike out on an eye-level pitch last night with two guys on base, I wondered -- who are the leaders in walks for the Orange and Black?

The answer -- Gregor Blanco with 26 and Brandon Belt with 25, followed by Posey with 21 and Cabrera with 18. Sandoval has nine.  In case any is wondering why stat geeks like Belt so much ....

That's not out of the norm from his career -- he only had 32 walks in all of last year and 144 in a total of 2,000 career plate appearances. Baseball Reference calculates he's has 1.0 offensive WAR this year and a -0.7 defensive WAR.

No 4-run magic

Usually, when the Giants score 4, that's enough for a reasonable chance at a vic. Unfortunately, Tim Lincecum was pitching tonight. He wasn't horrible but he wasn't very good either, per Henry Schulman's game story for the SF Chronicle. 


One of the commentors made an intriguing point -- maybe he's tipping his pitches. It sure looks like batters  know what's coming. 

The non-flukiness of Ryan Vogelsong

Hard to believe that this guy is now a formidable part of one of the best rotations in the bigs. Grant at McCovey Chronicles has a post about how he's like finding a $20 bill unexpectedly in a pair of pants. I like that--

  The Mariners’ radio guys were talking about his ability to stay out of the middle of the plate. His pitches cause hitters to use either the tip of their bat or the handle of their bat to make contact. It seems pretty clear that all pitchers are trying to keep the ball off the fat part of the bat, but the way Vogelsong (and, indeed, all the Giants) pitches looks quite deliberately as an attempt to stay at the corners and down. Cutters, sliders, and changeups are great weapons for this strategy and it’s no wonder the pitching staff to a man has either this exact repertoire or some approximation of it (I would say that they don’t all have cutters, but they all have two-seamers)

Back to earth fast

That didn't take long for the afterglow of Matt Cain's perfecto to wear off, thanks to Barry Zito. Who else to be a buzzkill for Giants fans?

It looks like the illusory Barry Zito -- one who can actually get MLB hitters out -- is gone. He gave up a grand slam in the third today to the immortal JD Martinez, and that was the game right there. Nice going, Barry. Thanks for flushing any false hope about your competence down the drain. 

As for good news, this was it per the mlb.com story --  Brandon Belt started a Giants rally by homering in his third consecutive game after having gone the entire season without a home run. He hit a two-run blast to McCovey Cove in the fourth for the Giants' 61st Splash Hit and the first by a Giant this season. His last home run before the Astros series had come against the Rockies on Sept. 27.

Greatest pitching performance ever?

David Schoenfield of ESPN says maybe so. Online voters say 40% in favor of Matt, 24% in favor of Don Larson and 24% in favor of Kerry Wood. 

Here's what he said about Gregor Blanco's catch --  The greatest I've ever seen. Gregor Blanco did not catch that ball. Impossible. Not where Jordan Schafer hit it, leading off the seventh inning. We yelled and cheered as Blanco ran forever, hauling in the uncatchable with a miraculous diving grab snared in the fingertips of his glove. My wife came downstairs, wondered what happened. We showed her the replay and counted Blanco’s strides: 15? 18? No, maybe 20. What is that, 60 feet, 70 feet?

Willie Mays, you have company.

What a horse!

That's a comment on the Fan Graphs about Matt Cain getting the second highest game score of all time

The perfect man ....

for a perfect game -- A Great post by Lefty Malo...

 Let me throw a few names at you: Christy Mathewson. Carl Hubbell. Juan Marichal. Gaylord Perry. Tim Lincecum. None of these Giants ever threw a perfect game. Which proves that a perfect game does not a perfect pitcher make -- not even an historically great pitcher. Let me throw a few other names at you: Len Barker. Philip Humber. Dallas Braden. Tom Browning. Dennis Martinez.

Matt Cain might end up part of the first group, and he might end up part of the second. But tonight, momentary perfection confirms our most loving biases: Matt Cain threw a perfect game because he is Matt Cain. If you're peeking in from the outside, that might seem ridiculously parochial. But consider a pitcher who has quietly endured some of the most historic lack of support in the game's history. Not just for a year, but year after year. Consider a kid whose skills never fit into the sabermetric box of goodness -- so many fly balls, so few home runs, must be lucky, ergo he's bound to regress -- and delayed the recognition he's been due for a long time. As good old Dusty might have said, Dude can pitch.

Retiring 27 Houston Astros in a row on a cool night in a friendly yard doesn't prove anything, except that a guy with a hammer for an arm and a deep, cool reservoir inside can make baseball history with a little luck and a little help from his fast friends. Line drives to the warning track end up in gloves, squibbers to third end up as outs. So random. The perfect game is a night of loopy, dramatic perfection. But the years and years and years prove Matt Cain's, well, mattcainness. Tonight wasn't the proof, it was the reward.

Thank you, Matt Cain. You deserve it.

"I was wondering what he was doing in right center"

That's what Matt Cain said about Gregor Blanco's wondrous diving catch in deep center tonight to perserve the perfect game. It's doubtful that any other current MLB rightfielder could have gotten to the ball. Bill Ripken of The MLB Network just said, "He's a centerfielder playing in right field."

"I'm always thinking about it"

Matt Cain has just thrown the 22nd perfect game in MLB history. He was asked by Harold Reynolds on the MLB Network when he started to think about a no-hitter and responded by saying, "In the first inning. I'm always thinking about it."

That's the kind of guy he is -- setting a standard of excellence. He tied Koufax's record for the most strikeouts in a perfect game with 14.

We Giants fans are fortunate to have Matt Cain in the Orange and Black.

Your young San Francisco Giants

What a fine, fine, fine vic tonight -- courtesy of a stellar outing from Madison Bumgarner, who cranked out his first MLB homer. The broadcasting team has always raved about the kind of batting practice show that Madbum puts on. Tonight's blast went 397 feet.

And finally, finally -- Brandon Belt blasted his first 2012 homer and off a lefty, too.  Here's some verbiage from Steve Korner's recap for the SF Chronicle -- 

Bumgarner became the first Giants pitcher to homer in a game in which he recorded at least 10 strikeouts since Mike Krukow (also 12 Ks) did so in a 4-2 win over Houston on Aug. 13, 1985.
The 16-game home-HR drought was the longest in the majors since the 1990 Astros went 16 games without going deep in the Astrodome.
Even without balls sailing over fences, the Giants went 10-6 in those 16 games.

The broadcasting noted during the aftergame show that Bumgarner is only a year old at 22 than the Giants No. 1 draft pick. Yet he's now become an elite pitcher.

The No. 1 pick, Chris Stratton, signed today for $1.85 million.  

Belt is 24 with a tremendous upside. Perhaps the best thing about Aubrey Huff's and Brett Pill's problems is that they've forced the Giants to play Belt all the time.

Julian at Giants Nirvana has a fine post on MadBum 

Boosting the Orange and Black bullpen?

John Shea of the SF Chronicle believes that the Giants are most likely to look for more help in the bullpen over the next 7 weeks up to the trade deadline, if past patterns are any indication. Here's the key verbiage -- 

Sabean acquired closer Roberto Hernandez in July 1997 even though Rod Beck was aboard. The following summer, Sabean brought in closer Jose Mesa to complement Robb Nen.
More bullpen add-ons included Doug Henry (2000), Scott Eyre (2002), Matt Herges (2003) and Javier Lopez and Ramon Ramirez (2010), and the Giants reached the playoffs in each of those seasons.
It figures that Sabean would expand the bullpen again, especially with the absence of Brian Wilson and the recent wounds of Santiago Casilla, Sergio Romo and Jeremy Affeldt. Possibly available relievers: Huston Street, Jonathan Broxton, Matt Capps, Rafael Betancourt and Brandon League.
If it's going to be tough for the Giants to score runs, they might as well make certain it's the same for opponents.

Kontos in the Orange and Black

Well, that was the highlight of yesterday's disastrous game -- George Kontos made his debut with the Giants and pitch a clean inning in relief. He's the guy that came up in place of Steve Edlefsen.

He logged seven games last year with the Yanks.

A sensible view of Tim's struggles

Scott Ostler -- who usually veers off into vapidness -- has written a fairly sensible column on what to expect from the Tim Lincecum situation, which is: wait for his start Saturday in Seattle.

Tim continues to tantalize with ace-quality pitching before descending into hellishness a la Barry Zito, vintage 2007-11

I give up

Not that it matters much, but I've decided to bench Tim Lincecum on my fantasy league team. I was reminded on the postgame show by Mike Krukow that he went through a similar stretch in August 2010. But this is more prolonged. Krukow admitted that Tim's release point is all messed up now.

So here's hoping that he'll work it out. But I'm increasingly skeptical. This is the MLB and when you make a mistake, the other guys kill you. End of story.  

Strange stat o' the day -- 20-6

That was a great win today at the yard for sure. I heard the last 3 innings where the score went from 3-0 to 5-2 -- thanks to HRs in the 8th and 9th by Mitch Moreland and that catcher the Angels let go.

Anyhow, the Giants have hit a grand total of six homers all year at home while opposing teams have hit 20.

They've hit 16 homers out on the road, including those three at Petco on Thursday. Brandon Belt still doesn't have a homer. Good Lord.

Andrew Baggarly of CSN Bay Area has a long post noting that the Giants have gone almost 500 ABs without a home homer and are 10-5 over that stretch.

The white flag lineup

Well, that's one way to go -- start a lineup against the Rangers that doesn't have anyone who played against the Rangers in the 2010 World Series. 

Zito turned in his usual crappy outing and the offense was shut out on five singles. I'd say the Comeback Player ofthe Year award is in doubt.

Actually, there were two guys from the World Series team that played tonight -- Nate Schierholtz (who went 1 for 5 in the Series) started in right and went 0 for 3; Aubrey Huff (who homered in Game 4) pinch hit and made an out. 

Chris Haft's story says Sandoval (who homered twice tonight for Fresno) will be back as will Posey. Henry Schulman's game story for the Chronicle says Brett Pill has been optioned to Fresno -- about damn time, say I. Classic example of a guy who can tear it up in the minors and can't hit MLB pitching.

Matt's long trek

It's been more than 5 years since Matt Cain had a record above .500, the San Jose Mercury News notes.

"Seven resolute innings"

That's how Chris Haft of mlb.com just described Matt Cain's performance today in San Diego in what turned into a relatively easy 8-3 vic at Petco. He now has seven wins this year and is at 76-75 for his career.

Gregor Blanco hit his third homer of the season -- his second in two days -- and now has six in his career. 

Back to Cain -- Here's a great tweet...

 John Shea ‏@JohnSheaHey

Stat of day: Cain 12 straight starts 6+ innings, longest by Giant to open season since Atlee Hammaker had 21 in 1983.

The Timmy question

Steve Berman at Bay Area Sports Guy does what any conscientious Giants fan would do -- he collects a bunch of links about Tim Lincecum's maddening season. Then he advances the narrative at the end --

Lincecum seems close, that’s clear. However, that’s been the case for a while now. Plus he was facing the Padres, a team that, besides Quentin, have a decidedly minor league-esque offense* (Lincecum’s last win was an 8-inning, 0 ER performance against the Padres back on April 28). Lincecum’s next start comes on Sunday vs. the Texas Rangers … pretty sure we all remember what happened the last time he faced that team.

For those of you wondering -- it's Game 5 of the 2010 World Series.  

The starting lineup that night was - Torres, F. Sanchez, Posey, Ross, Huff, Uribe, Burrell, Renteria, Rowand. All gone except Huff (who's barely here) and Posey.

The no-homer guy gets a homer

Gregor Blanco, of all people, hit the first homer in eight games for the Orange and Black, who paid back the Padres with a 6-5 vic -- reversing last night's nightmare loss. 

He now has four homers in 995 plate appearances over 4 years in the bigs. It's his second HR this year for the Giants.  

Good Lord -- the Giants are again on track to get less than 100 HRs this year.  

The 2008 Giants wound up with 94 HRs...seriously embarrassing. 

Dump Edlefsen

What in the name of  Armando Blownitez are the Giants doing pitching this guy? Can we please DFA this loser? I had stopped to buy gas on my way home after the top of the 9th ended with Buster Posey in a bases loaded groundout, pumped the gas and turned the radio back on and it was already on commercials -- a slight compensation in that I didn't have to listen to that Godawful Padres radiocaster Ted Leitner. He's the absolute worst in MLB right now. Anyhow, I figured that the game the bottom of the 9th had ended both badly and quickly.

So I read John Shea's game story for the SF Chron and discover that it was the second pitch to a guy who had never before homered.

Get rid of Edlefsen. NOW. With guys injured, I have no idea why this guy is being allowed to lose games while a bonafide prospect like Heath Hembree blows away minor leaguers.

Chris Quick at Bay City Ball has a through recap of the game and some nice GIFs but doesn't have a problem with Edlefsen. Well, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Here's what Henry Schulman of the Chron just tweeted --

Henry Schulman ‏@hankschulman

I get the frustration. Edlefsen gave up 2 big runs in Lince's prior loss vs. AZ. Might be time for Plan B.

RIP Pedro Borbon

Count yourself as a real Giants fan if you know that Pedro Borbon -- who was a workhorse bullpenner for the Big Red Machine -- spent most of 1979 with the Giants. Amazing to find a guy who logged 12 years in the LMB and racked a negative WAR of -0.2. 

Condolences to his family and friends.

He also got immortalized in "Airplane!" -- "Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon...Manny Mota...Mota...Mota"  (hat tip to Dodger Thoughts)

Perhaps you're wondering -- Why should I remember such a relatively obscure Giant? Am I a maniac? Maybe so....

Actually, Pedro was the winning pitcher in one of my fave games of 1979 at the Stick. Giants were trailing the Astros on Sept. 15, 3-0 and he pitched a scoreless seventh and eighth. Here's how the bottom of the 8th went --
Dennis Littlejohn tripled; Terry Whitfield pinch hit and singled; Bill North walked; Rob Andrews sacrificed; Willie Mac fouled out; Mike Ivie walked; Darrell Evans singled; Larry Herndon tripled. 

Bam -- just like that, the Giants were up 5-3; Greg Minton got the save in the 9th and Borbon got the W. 

You can never have too much pitching

....even if you're the Giants. 

That's obviously what the Giants front office believes. They've just selected as their first draft pick a pitcher named Chris Stratton, a guy out of Mississippi State who sounds like he's ready to pitch in the bigs, per Henry Schulman's blog post for the SF Chronicle.  

The team really needs more everyday players who can hit but my guess is that there was no one by the time that the Giants pick came around at No. 20. Here's what Andrew Baggarly tweeted --

 Andrew Baggarly ‏@CSNBaggs

Giants draftee Chris Stratton is from Tupelo, a town that is also famous for Elvis and honey.

Suh-weeeeeep

Ok, so it's just the Cubbies. But a 4-game sweep as the Dodgers are stumbling around ....and the offense is struggling to score .... really shows what an awesome pitching staff has been assembled. Bruce Bochy, Dave Righetti and the pitching staff deserve huge props.

It's something like the 7th straight game in which a starter has pitched at least 7 innings and allowed 2 runs or less.

"You were lucky, Hershiser"

Josh Suchon has written an excellent and entertaining post on his We Are Out of Ink blog about his ongoing relationship with Orel Hershiser -- starting with his comment at the end of the 1988 World Series.

Along with Fernando Valenzuela, Hershiser is one of most difficult of the prominent Dodgers for Giants fans to dislike. For one thing, he pitched a year for the Orange and Black and for another, he always seems like a pretty likable guy even before he stopped playing.

The $126 million man returns

OK, so it was only the Cubbies, but Barry Zito actually pitched pretty superbly today -- maybe not quite as well as the shutout in Denver in his first start, but a pretty stellar performance, allowing just 4 hits in 8 and a third. He's now 5-2 on the year.

It's a credit to him and Dave Righetti that he's finally become the pitcher he was supposed to be when he signed that massive deal prior to the 2007 season. He was OK for part of 2009 with a 2.3 WAR but we fans had run out patience long before then. 

Meanwhile, the Dodgers 1-game winning streak is over as they gagged 3-2 in Denver on only 3 hits, per the LA Times. The Dodger lead in the NL West is down to 3 games. Tasty. 

The absurdity of the Clemens trial

The dozens of readers of this blog may recall that I have a long aversion to wasting of government resources on such absurdities as the Barry Bonds prosecution, which serve no public purpose other than setting up scapeboats.

There's a long article in the Washington Post today about the battle over the defense seeking to compel testimony from leading Congressional dingbat Darrel Issa. Here's the passage that caught my eye --


Legal experts are split in their opinions on how Walton might rule, but they mostly agree that the showdown highlights a central absurdity of the trial: Lawmakers sought the Justice Department investigation into Clemens’s testimony but won’t appear in court.
“Here you have federal prosecutors going out on a limb to help these guys, members of Congress,” said Roscoe Howard, a former U.S. attorney for the District. “It seems inherently unfair when lawmakers refer someone for prosecution and then don’t show up at a public trial to give their perspective or even tell why this case is as important as they say it is.”

Stepping out of 1912

Matt Cain looked like Christy Mathewson tonight in a vintage uni with a dominating 2-1 vic over the Cubbies.

He's now 75-75 for his career and has racked up a 27.2 WAR over 8 seasons.  

Mathewson -- one of the first five players elected to the Hall of Fame -- racked up a WAR of over 90 over 17 seasons. He won 37 games in 1908.  

Here's what Andrew Baggarly of CSNBay Area tweeted --

 The Giants have hit one home run in their last SEVENTEEN home games. Yet they are 10-7 in those games. Dead-ball era, indeed.

The hit list

Melky Cabrera now has 80 hits in the first 52 games this year, which projects out to somewhere around 245 over an entire season. Here's the all-time list, courtesy of Baseball Reference --

1.	Ichiro Suzuki (30)	262	2004	L
2.	George Sisler+ (27)	257	1920	L
3.	Lefty O'Doul (32)	254	1929	L
	Bill Terry+ (31)	254	1930	L
5.	Al Simmons+ (23)	253	1925	R
6.	Rogers Hornsby+ (26)	250	1922	R
	Chuck Klein+ (25)	250	1930	L
8.	Ty Cobb+ (24)	248	1911	L
9.	George Sisler+ (29)	246	1922	L
10.	Ichiro Suzuki (27)	242	2001	L
11.	Babe Herman (27)	241	1930	L
	Heinie Manush+ (26)	241	1928	L
13.	Wade Boggs+ (27)	240	1985	L
	Jesse Burkett+ (27)	240	1896	L
	Darin Erstad (26)	240	2000	L

Juuuussst enough

A magnificent performance by Madison Bumgarner nearly turned into a nightmare in the 9th just now as the Cubbies cut a 4-0 deficit to 4-3, thanks to a rare offnight from Santiago Casilla. Javy Lopez came on and got the final two outs.

So again -- that 4-run magic works for the Gmen. This is the 10th game of the season in which they've scored 4 and won. 

And the Dodgers are now sucking gas -- they got clobbered by the Rox tonight and have lost 5 in a row. Their one starting pitcher who had been consistently good, Chris Capuano, got hammered.  

Here comes the Panda

This is seriously good news -- Henry Schulman of the SF Chron is reporting that Sandoval may begin his minor league rehab this weekend.

Nothing against Joaquin Arias, who's been adequate, but it will be nice to see No. 48 out there again. 

Blanco > Schierholtz

Gregor Blanco is having a respectable season and getting the starts in right field over Nate. Henry Schulman of the SF Chron notes that he has the second highest OBP in the MLB right now. 

Melky's May

Julian at Giants Nirvana has a nice post comparing Melky's month with Randy Winn's epic 51-hit month in September, 2005.