Giants overcome the cubs in 11

GIANTS 4 - CUBS 3

The Giants managed to put the Cubs away when they finally managed to score 4 runs in a game for the first time since August 3rd.  They weren't able to win the game in regulation despite a decent start by Madison Bumgarner and 5+ excellent innings by the Giants bullpen.

After the offense was held down by some pretty good pitching in Atlanta, you could make a case that it was the excellent pitching and not the necessarily the Giants offense that was responsible for not scoring.

Last night, against the horrible Carlos Zambrano, the Giants had no reason for not putting up runs on the board. Cubs pitchers walked 11 Giants last night, gave up 11 hits, and the Giants had the bases loaded in every inning. (well at least it felt that way)  hell, Travis Ishikawa was even thrown out at the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning.

The bottom line is the game should never have got to the 11th inning, or the 10th for that matter.  I'm going to wait until the end of the Cubs series before I get too worried.  But the offense is officially in a slump.  The best available option is Jose Guillen and he doesn't sound like he is all that great of an option anyway.  At least not if we have to give up anything for him.  So this is it as far as the Giants offense is concerned.  I think it will be enough to get us in to th post season but after that it's a crapshoot.

Tonight is another winnable game against Ryan Dempster who is OK but not great.  The Giants will be throwing Timmy out there tonight and he should be racking up the Ks.  Hopefully the Giants can muster a few runs against Dempster who is better than Zambrano at this point so it's likely that the Giants won't be receiving 11 free passes tonight.

Link of the Day:

If you haven't seen it already, this is classic.  This guy at a Houston Astros game flinches when it comes time to catch a foul ball and it winds up hitting his girlfriend.  The Astros version of Amy Gutierrez interviewed the couple in the stands and promptly gave the guy the nickname Bo "the bailer". It doesn't stop there.  She calls him a little chicken and tells the girlfriend that his actions tonight may make her want to reconsider their future together.  Funny stuff.