This one had all the makings of a classic pitcher's duel. We expected no offense, we expected a lot of strikeouts, and we expected someone would get their second loss of the season.
The Giants struck out a lot, had no offense, and the Franchise got his second loss of the season. As for his end of end of the "duel" Timmy gave up 4 runs (3 earned) in 5 2/3 innings. Not exactly "duel" stuff. The Giants barely scraped together 4 hits, well Pablo Sandoval scraped out 3 hits and the rest of the Giants scraped out 1 hit. Thank you Freddy Sanchez. To be fair, I'm surprised they got any hits. UbaldoJimenez is on the verge of an historic season. I don't remember seeing a guy who could throw 99 MPH on the black with one pitch and then throw an 86 MPH splitter that drops 3 feet on the next pitch. Randy Johnson in his prime maybe but he would have walked 5 guys to go along with the 9 k's that Jimenez threw up today. If the Rockies score runs for him, the fact that they didn't in one game is the only reason he even has one loss, this guy could win 25 games this season. Jimenez is single-handedly the reason that the Rockies are a half a game behind the Giants. The Rocks have 27 wins and Jimenez has 10 of them!
Jimenez was amazing today. Freddy Sanchez, who actually got a hit off of him, looked surprised every time he got an off speed pitch, the called strike 3 that Juan Uribe took in the second inning was unhittable even if he was Albert Pujols, and I swear that I could see Posey, The Savior, say "Wow!" after the first pitch Jimenez threw him was a 99 MPH heater right down the heart of the plate. If Tim Lincecum wants to 3peat as the Cy Young award winner he needs to throw at least 2 no-hitters this season just to get back in the race.
As for Timmy. Sure there is something wrong with him. I'm sure it's something in his mechanics and that he will figure out eventually. All of this tinkering they are doing with him to try to hold baserunners is screwing with him I think. He was sailing along in the first and then he gave up the walk to Tulowitzki to lead off the second and he seemed to have problems from the stretch. I'm not sure why they even bothered working with him on a slidestep because he sure didn't look like he was doing much sliding to me. But he will be fine. Remember, he started the season off rough last year and found out that he was landing like 2 inches off or something and said he would be fine after that and his next start he was lights out.
The Panda is ready to go on one of those tears where it seems like he gets at least 2 hits in every single game. In order to get 3 hits off Baldy the way he was dealing today he had to be dialed in. The numbers over the last few games actually support that since he has had hits in 6 of his last 8 games and in 3 of his last 4 games he has put together multi-hit performances. With Freddy Sanchez swinging it pretty good in front of him the rest of the rest of this series is very winnable with Jason Hammel and Jeff Francis going in the next 2 games.
The Savior went 0 for 3 by the way and I hate that I even have to think it but he may sit tomorrow. I have gone from someone who defended Bochy last season to someone who thinks that, at the very least, Bochy just doesn't know how to set up his young players for success. Aaron Rowand should be nowhere near a starting job at this point and Nate Schierholtz at the very least earned another start with his glove alone yesterday (see yesterday's post). But Rowand was in there again and struck out twice again and then for some reason came out after 2 ABs and the team only down by 4 runs. Then Bochy inexplicably put John Bowker in there instead of Nate. Sure Bowker needs some ABs but so does Nate and he has proven to be more valuable to the team than Johnny B.
The Nate report:
Since I pretty much did the Nate report in the last paragraph, I will fill you in on the guy who will probably be pushing Nate even further down the depth chart very soon, Pat Burrell. Pat the Bat was 1 for 2 with a a double, a walk, a strikeout, and a HBP. He also drove in 2 runs and scored 2 runs. I expect him to be in San Francisco by Friday and he will probably start in right or in left if Posey goes Oh fer again tomorrow with Huff going back to first. I know they said he will come off the bench but I just won't believe that until I see it.
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