Giants get the last laugh. Padres go home losers!

GIANTS 3 - PADRES 0

Jonathan Sanchez hates the Padres so much he smoked a triple and scored the Giants first run of the game.  He pitched 5 shutout innings and got the win on the last day of the season to propel the Giants into the playoffs as the NL West champions and send the Padres home.  

Their miracle season got them the same playoff result as finishing in last place all those years!

It couldn't be sweeter for the Giants to clinch against the Padres since the Giants single-handedly kept the Padres in the playoff hunt until the last day.  If the Giants had even gone .500 against the Padres this season then they would have won the division by 5 games.

Anyway, it's a great feeling.  Even the last two games the Giants lost have been exciting.  This team has kept it close all season long.  They didn't disappoint.  Now it's playoff time.

So Giants fans get out your champagne, your beer, or whatever your poison is.  Kick back and celebrate the Giants first postseason since 2003!

Playoffs baby!

Something to ponder for the next few days:

Giants record Vs. the NL playoff teams:

Phi: 3-3

Cin: 4-3

Atl: 3-4

Giants rally comes up short

PADRES 6  - GIANTS 4

You knew it was gonna happen.  The Giants were gonna have to stretch the season out just a liiiiiitle bit longer.

Matt Cain just didn't have it tonight and the Padres capitalized.  He gave up all 6 runs in 4 innings.  In a way I'm glad Cain got this hiccup out of the way.  Better have it come during the regular season than in the playoffs.

The Giants, to their credit, made it a game.  The big hit of the night came from the least likely source of all.  Aaron Rowand.  I'm glad he got a moment to shine.  Despite what we all think about his play, the guy is a gamer and he goes about playing the game the right way.  The bullpen came through and pitched 5 innings of shutout baseball and the Giants got the tying run up to the plate in Aubrey Huff who somehow managed to fly out into a double play.

Anyway the champagne will just have to chill on ice for one more day.  It wouldn't be a fitting end to the 2010 Giants season if they just won it in the first game.

Go Giants!

Giants: win one more and they are in!

GIANTS 4 - DBACKS 1

All the San Francisco Giants need to do against the San Diego Padres this weekend is win one game.  That's it.

One win and they are in the playoffs.

All season long, baseball fans on the West Coast have been pointing towards this series as the one that will decide the NL West.  This weekend the baseball world will be focused on San Francisco while the Giants will    have 3 chances to close out their first NL west title since 2003.  They will be throwing Cain, Zito, and Sanchez against Richard, Staufer, and Latos.

The Giants are riding a four game winning streak into this series while the Padres have lost 3 out of 4 to the Chicago Cubs.  The Giants are riding the homerun ball while the Padres are struggling to score even one run.

All this points to good things for the Giants.

I'm going to say the Giants close it out tomorrow behind the arm of "Big Game" Matt Cain and the bat of Pablo Sandoval.  Cain has been the Giants' most consistent pitcher this season and Pablo could use some more good mojo heading into the playoffs.

See you guys tomorrow!

Sanchez, Sandoval, Schierholtz all Deliver to stretch the Giants lead to 2

GIANTS 4 - DBACKS 2

The Giants' final homestand of the season kicked off in winning fashion last night. That, along with the Padres loss to the Cubs stretched the Giants lead to two games for the first time since April 18th.

As has been the case with the Giants this season, a new set of Giants came through to win this game.

The tale fall of Pablo Sandoval has reached epic proportions this season. But with 2 out in the 6th inning, the Kung Fu Panda Karate chopped a two out double. Bruce Bochy continued his lack of faith in the ability of the offense to put runs on the board and pulled Jonathan Sanchez for pinch hitter Nate Schierholtz. Big Nate stroked a single to left field and the Panda rumbled home to put the Giants ahead to stay.

Jonathan Sanchez raised a big middle finger to everyone who was crying for his trade this season by becoming the first Giants lefty since Ray Sadecki in 1968!

Corey Hart, who was the guy the Giants were most likely to get for Sanchez at the trade deadline, had 28 homers at the deadline and is now sitting at 30.

Everything is going right for these Giants right now.  They are getting great pitching, just enough hitting, and the Padres continue to play themselves out of the postseason.  Now, that all could change by this weekend, but I am going to be watching, or at least checking in on gamecast from work, all the way.

Let's see how this rag-tag bunch of misfits led by a manager with a big head pulls this off!

Its a six game season!

The San Francisco Giants will begin the final 6 game stretch of the season with a 1 game lead over the San Diego Padres.  That one game advantage, plus the fact that the last 6 games are at home while the Padres last 6 games are on the road give the Giants a nice advantage coming down the homestretch.

It's great isn't it?  The last 156 games have all led up to this point.  Think of everything that has gone on this season.  Todd Wellemeyer, Bengie Molina, The Posey controversy, Torres' appendectomy, the losing streak to the Padres to start the season, the great pitching run, the sputtering offense.  All of it has been getting us ready for these last 6 games.

I would love it if the last 3 games of the season were merely exhibition games, but the only way for that to happen would be if the Giants swept the D-backs and the Padres got swept by the Cubs.  An unlikely scenario.  So most likely the season will be decided this weekend when the Padres roll into town for the final 3 games of the season.

The Giants-Padres saga has really been THE storyline this season.  The Padres, the team nobody thought would even be good, have been battling the Giants for first place over the last few weeks.  This after the Padres dominated the Giants to open the season and having leads of 735 and 6 games at two different times in the season.  Hell, the Giants were 6 games back exactly one month ago on August 28.

So get your popcorn, your beer, head down to the yard, read your favorite blog, whatever you need to do to get ready for this 6 game stretch.  We don't know what is going to happen, but it's going to be fun finding out!

Giants to Padres: Our Ace is better than yours

GIANTS 6 - PADRES 1

The game was supposed to be a tight pitchers duel just like the two previous games were.  After all, the Padres young up-and-comer Mat "Hey there's a T missing" Latos was facing the defending 2 time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum.

That pitcher's duel never materialized.  Instead the Giants broke both of Latos' streaks today.  The first streak they broke was Latos' record streak of consecutive starts of allowing 2 earned runs or less.  They also broke his 16 start unbeaten streak.

On the other hand, Lincecum has been struggling this season.  He had a streak of 5 straight losing decisions in August and at 3.69 his ERA was at the highest it had been since his rookie season.

Instead, the Giants lit Latos up for 5 earned runs over 4 innings and looked like he had no idea where the strike zone was. Lincecum meanwhile allowed 1 run in seven innings and struck out 9.  It cemented Lincecum as the answer to the question: "Who would you rather have on the mound to start one must-win game?"  there is no question that this was as close to a must-win game that the Giants have played all season.

On Offense, the Buster Posey show continued.  His 2 run HR got the scoring started and had Latos reeling in the first inning.  Posey's habit of carrying the offense and getting the hits at exactly the right time only have added to his case for rookie of the year.

Tomorrow is an off day for the Giants who can take the day to figure out what they are going to do to replace Andres Torres over the next 10 days at least.  Bochy jumped at the chance to give Aaron Rowand a start in center and he was vintage Rowand going 0-5 and left 4 runners on base.  On the positive side, he only struck out one of those times!  I think the Giants would be better off with Cody Ross patrolling centerfield and the Giants would get more for the $13 million they were paying for Rowand if they released him and he stunk it up for another team.

Tuesday marks the start of a 3 game set against the Dodgers at AT&T.  Kershaw against Zito.  Hopefully the Dodgers lay down and die for us like they did against the Padres the other day.

Giants back in second after terrible offense catches up to them. But all signs point to a win today!

PADRES 1 - GIANTS 0

The Giants are 6-3 on their current road trip including last night's loss.  The crazy thing is they are batting a meager .205 on this trip.  

Other than July, when the Giants scored more runs than anybody in baseball, runs have been extremely hard to come by for this team.  Since the additions of Cody Ross and Jose Guillen they seem to be having even more trouble scoring runs than they did before.  Now I'm not blaming the Giants lack of offensive production on the acquisitions of those guys but the timing sure is odd.

The bottom line is the offense needs to produce.  The Giants realistically could have won every game on this road trip.  The most games they gave up in a game was 4, which they gave up to the Dodgers in back to back games, in the two 4 run games they were 1-1.  It's not as if the Home/Road BA splits for the Giants as a team are that dramatic (.269 home/.248 road), they hit more home runs on the road (62 home vs. 74 road), but they strike out slightly more on the road (443 or 19% of the time at home to 529 or 21% of the time on the road.  K% are necessary to get a true understanding of the strikeouts since the Giants have about 300 more ABs on the road than they do at home since they don't bat in all 9 innings in a home win and do in a road win.  they also have played 5 more road than home games to this point)  They also score more runs on the road (305 to 315 road) again since they have played more games there.

So the Giants, according to the statistics, should be able to hit better and score more runs than they have been doing over the last 9 games.

They haven't.  So this bodes well for the Giants in a number of ways.  First, they are due to score more than 1 run today (although the Padres probably are too) second, Mat Latos has allowed 2 runs or less in 15 straight games which is a record.  He is also due to give up a few more runs than he has been.  (So was Josh Johnson the last time the Giants faced him and they snapped his streak). Tim Lincecum owns a 2.15 career ERA against the Padres while Mat Latos owns a 0.96 ERA against them. (although Lincecum has thrown 79.1 innings against the Pads compared to Latos' 28.1 IP against the Giants).  Latos' ERA against the Giants is the lowest against any other team he has thrown more than 12 innings against in his career. (the lowest being Arizona with a 0.75 ERA in 12 IP)

What do all these random statistics mean?

Well, on the surface they point to a Giants victory today.  The Giants, statistically speaking, score more runs today and give up about as many runs as they have been allowing.  Mat Latos is due to see his ERA vs. the Giants spike and Tim Lincecum is on track to have his stats against the Padres remain roughly the same.

But this is baseball and they play the games for a reason.  So sit down with your favorite beverage, some good food, a few friends, and watch the Giants battle for their share of first place in the N.L. West!

Aubrey Huff wills the Giants into first place

GIANTS 1 - PADRES 0

From the moment Jonathan Sanchez took the mound and rubbed out the "SD" logo that the grounds crew puts on the back of the mound, you knew it was going to be a tense game.

For the second time this season a Giants - Padres game has ended 1-0 with the deciding run having been scored without the benefit of a hit.  After what has to be the worst 5 inning 1 hit shutout pitching performance I have ever seen the Giants were able to be the ones to score the run that decided the game.

The game was a statement game.  It told the Padres that you can't just come out and beat us whenever you want.  It also secured at least a series tie with the Pads which seems to be a minor miracle given the way the Padres have owned the Giants to date this season.

Leading off the 7th inning Aubrey Huff got hit by a pitch in the back of the right arm.  He looked like he was in tremendous pain, but when the trainer came out to look at it Huff ran away from him and took first base while trying to work the pain out of his arm. “Funny bone. Tingling and numbness,” Huff said. “Just suck it up. I didn’t want to Roger Dorn it too much out there.”


With Pat Burrell batting, huff decided that he would steal second base.  He barely made it to second kicking the ball out of David Eckstein's glove when Burrell swung trough the pitch for strike three.


The next batter was Jose Guillen and Huff violated the cardinal rule of not running to third on a groundball hit in front of you but he wound up being safe.  “It was actually a dumb play on my part,” he said. “I thought it’d be in the hole. Once you go, you can’t stop. Good call there, I was safe. It’s not how you draw it up, not a smart play, but it worked out.”


Huff scored when Juan Uribe beat out the tail end of a double play thanks to Nate Schierholtz's takeout of every Giants' fan's least favorite second baseman.  “I had it in my mind at first base,” Schierholtz said. “I knew on a ground ball, I had to go into second hard. I was able to slide late and he was right on top of the bag. I was able to get a piece of him."


Back to Jonathan Sanchez's strange outing.  As I said earlier it was the worst 5 inning one hit shutout performance ever. It may not have been the worst shutout performance I have seen from a Giants pitcher.    On Sept. 4, 1999 Russ Ortiz went 6 innings, walked 7 batters, allowed 2 hits, and struck out 8 Pirates.  Now his outing could be classified as better since he lasted 6 innings and struck out 8.  But he gave up 2 hits as opposed to Sanchez's one so I think Sanchez did  a better job.


Brian Wilson had two great quotes to sum up the game and to talk about Sanchez's performance:


On Sanchez's brief night: "He knows we've got a lot of arms in the bullpen, He went 100 percent on every single pitch. You can't ask for anything better than that. And then our sixth-inning guy throws 100 mph. That's not bad, either."


On the game and his 5th 5 out save of the season:  "This is what you prepare for. If you need a breather or a day off, go to bed early. You'll have to suck it up and play to win from here on out."


Bumgarner Vs. Stauffer this afternoon

Giants clobber the Padres!

GIANTS 7 - PADRES 3

Look at all those Giants fans in the stands!

The Giants launched four homeruns to whip up on the once-again reeling Padres.  After the useless Dodgers gave all of Giants nation indigestion by letting the Padres sweep them and making it appear the Padres had righted their ship.

This game was absolutely huge for the Giants mentally.  They hadn't scored more than 2 runs in a game against the Padres since a 7-6 win waaaay back on May 18.  it took 13 innings for them to score those 7 runs.  Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe, Buster Posey, and Pat Burrell each went deep in consecutive innings which is something that the Giants hadn't done since 2007 against the Braves.

While reveling in all the offensive glory, I almost forgot to give credit to Matt Cain who did nothing but shut the Padres down on three hits going into the 9th inning.  If it wasn't for giving up homers to Venable and Ludwick, we would be talking about Cain's dominant performance.  But it will be sufficient to say that he did exactly what the Giants needed him to do at exactly the right time.  He is still, at least in my book, the Giants' best starting pitcher this season.

The final and most emberassing statistic for the Padres had to be the attendance figures for the game.  You figure a team has to sell out a home game against the second place team who are only two games back with 20 games left in the season.  Right?  Even the Oakland A's could sell all their tickets for a game like that right?  

Well, you would be wrong.  Even with the 10,000 or so Giants fans who made the trek to San Diego for the game.  The Padres only managed to draw 28,456 people to fill their 42,000 seats.  That has gotta be depressing for a home team.

Tonight Jonathan Sanchez faces Clayton Richard in a battle of lefties.  Ol' Dirty will be gunning for his third straight quality start while the Giants offense will try to figure out Richard who is 3-0 with a 2.05 ERA against the Giants this season.  But just like the Padres record against the Giants this season, the numbers need to do a little evening out.

Gotta give credit to the Crazycrabbers for giving me the idea but here is my ode to the Padres:

Hard Luck Zito

ARIZONA 3 - GIANTS 1

Barry Zito pitched well enough to win.  He went 6 innings, gave up 3 runs, and struck out 7 against the Diamondbacks.  If you had told any Giants fan that this was going to be Zito's line before the game they would have jumped up and down.  If you would have told them that Freddy Sanchez was going to hit another homerun they would have said the Giants were gonna go into San Diego riding a five game winning streak.

If I told  that same Giants fan that they would continue their terrible hitting with runners in scoring position by going 0 for 6 then they would have groaned.

That's what the Giants did last night and as a result they only managed to scratch one run across the board last night on Freddy Sanchez's solo homerun.

I'm not going to lie, it wasn't the type of performance that I want to see the Giants have on the eve of the 4 game series in San Diego against the suddenly hot Padres.  It's actually the type of performance that the Giants have had in just about every game against San Diego this season.

The Giants sit 2 games back of the Padres in the NL west and the only way that they can even leave San Diego tied is to win 3 out of 4 games against the Padres in Petco park.  It will be the toughest task that the Giants have faced yet.  The Giants pitchers are all coming off of solid starts so it's safe to assume the Giants pitching won't be the concern in this series.  

Although it hasn't been in the season series against the Padres so far.

There is hope.  The Giants and Padres talent level is just about even.  Odds dictate that the Giants should not continue to get dominated by a team that is so similar on a talent level.  But then again this is baseball and since when do odds mean anything?  Consider this:  The Giants and Padres have played 11 games so far this season and the Giants have faced Matt Latos and Clayton Richard in 8 of them!  Yes they will both be facing the Giants in this series.

The Giants will not win the NL west if they can not figure out the Padres

PADRES 8 - GIANTS 2

There is no way around it.  if the Giants can't figure out the San Diego Padres they will NOT win the NL west.  End of story.  They may not even win the wild card when you consider that the current lead that the Giants enjoy is a measly .5 game.  Then you consider that the Giants have 7 more games against these Padres and things start to get scary.

There is really nothing that explains the Padres Dominance.

Do the Padres have better pitching?

Well sort of, coming into today the Padres held the edge in team ERA at 3.24 to the Giants 3.46.

What about hitting?

The Giants are sporting a team BA of .261 which is good for 5th in the NL while the Padres are sporting a .251 average which is good for 13th among the 16 NL teams.

Well the Padres must be scoring more runs than the Giants!

Giants 516 runs Padres 500

Power, that's it the Padres must be hitting more homeruns than the Giants!

Giants again, 106 HRs to 93 for the Pads

There is nothing to explain the Padres dominance over the Giants this season.  The Giants have played every other team well this season.  The lowest win % they have against any other team in which they have played more than 3 games against is .417 which is against Colorado and they are 5-7 against them.

You think the Padres are dominating the NL west?  Nope. They are dominating the Giants and Diamondbacks.  Against the Giants and D-backs the Pads are a combined 17-6.  Against the Dodgers and Rockies they are 9-17.

The Giants bats just fall asleep against the Padres.  they have allowed 40 runs to the Padres in 11 games and have a 2-9 record against them.  They have allowed 43 to the Dodgers and are 6-6 against them.  They have allowed 45 runs to the Rockies and are 5-7 against them.  37 runs to the D-backs and are 7-2 against them.

There is really nothing in the numbers that can explain why the Giants should be getting dominated by the Padres other than just dumb luck.  The Padres and Giants aren't that different that the W-L record should be that different.  Neither team holds a decided edge in any statistical category other than record against each other.

The head to head record is something that is in the Giants heads by now.  Which is funny because snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat like they did yesterday would seem to be the kind of thing that would set them rolling against the Padres but it wasn't maybe this was just karma biting the Giants for beating up on the Padres in all those years the Pads were the laughingstock of the league.

The only good thing about the fact that the Giants and Padres are so statistically evenly matched against one another means that, according to the law of averages, things need to even out.  If that is correct, then the Giants have a lot of winning ahead of them over the next 7 games Vs. the Pads.

Tim Lincecum

Tim Lincecum is another headscratcher.  You would think that a guy who had 6 strikeouts in 3.2 IP would be dominating.  But then you realize that those 6 Ks were sandwiched in between 11 baserunners(8 hits and 3 walks) and you realize that Tim pitched horrible.

Now those 8 hits were all singles so it's not like the Padres were knocking the ball all over the yard, they were dinking and doinking him to death.

I would chalk today's struggles up to just more Padres mojo if Timmy weren't struggling against other teams just as bad.  It's not like he is struggling terribly as the guys at McCovey chronicles show isn't the case.  It's just that he is struggling at inopportune times like today against the Padres.

Like I said, it's another headscratcher for sure, but it's a headscratcher that the Giants need to solve or it's going to be a long August and September.

Giants win one of the best games of the season!

Wow, what a game!


The Giants finished off the Padres in 11 innings.  This was easily one of the best games of the season given the history between these two teams this season and the fact that the race to the NL west crown is going to basically come down to these two teams.

This game ran the full emotional spectrum for me.  From anger over the Giants inability to score runs, to excitement over Pablo's homerun, to stress over the Padres loading the bases against Romo, back to excitement when Pat "The Bat" tied the score with a heads up RBI groundout, back to anger when Mike Adams mowed the Giants down, to pure excitement when Posey stretched his single into two bags, and to jumping for joy when Juan Uribe hurt somebody's feelings (thanks Kevin Millar) by driving in Buster Posey in the bottom of the 11th to end the Torture!

Hopefully this is the turning point in the Padres - Giants saga for this season.  This is the kind of scratching, clawing, who wants to win it more kind of game that can break a team and propel the other team.  The Padres had to think they had this game won when Luke Greggerson took the mound with a one run lead since  the Giants had never scored a run off him in 14 games.  But the Giants got a sacrifice fly from Pat The Bat to tie the game in the 8th inning.




Then it was Posey time.

After scoreless 9th and 10th innings, including a 10th inning in which Santiago Casilla tried to hand the game to the Padres by throwing 2 wild pitches to put the winning run on 3rd base with only one out, Buster Posey led off the 11th inning with a base hit up the middle that bounced off of second baseman Jerry Hairston's glove and rolled into short centerfield.  When an alert Posey saw the deflection he utilized those catchers legs, which had just caught 11 innings BTW, and stretched that single into a double.  The Giants gave Pablo Sandoval the Barry Bonds treatment by giving him his second intentional walk of the game to bring up Juan Uribe.

Uribe floated a soft single to shallow right field and the suddenly fleet footed Buster Posey scored from second base.

Ballgame.

There are so many performances in this game that are remarkable.  Obviously Buster's baserunning heroics were huge, Pablo's continued power surge was the spark that erased the Goose Egg the Giants had put on the board up until that point, and Pat Burrell realizing the defense was conceding the tying run when he had two strikes on him and shooting a ball to the right side to score Mike Fontenot.

However, I think the biggest clutch performance of the night belonged to Madison Bumgarner.  He wasn't lights out.  He gave up 8 hits in his seven innings of work.  But this game could have easily gotten out of hand and he battled and battled to keep the Padres at two runs.  Unfortunately, he became an official member of the Giants rotation tonight when he got a no-decision thanks to a lack of run support, but without him this game could have been very different.

This puts the Giants in a position to win their first series of the season against the Padres tomorrow.  Lincecum is on the mound and despite his "struggles" this season he is still the team leader in wins.  The 6-10 Wade LeBlanc is throwing tomorrow so this game is ripe for the Giants to make a statement!

Giants lose to Padres again. It's getting ridiculous

PADRES 3 - GIANTS 2

The Giants lost to the Padres for the 8th time in 9 games.  If the Giants had managed to win 3 of the 8 games they lost, which is less than half by the way, the Giants would be sitting in first place right now.   But no, the Giants can't even win a game against the Padres pitcher, Clayton Richard, who has been struggling in his last few starts.

Jonathan "Mr Guarantee" Sanchez pretty much lost the game by way of his horrible bunting in the second inning.  With runners on 1st and 2nd and nobody out, Sanchez bunted right back to the pitcher which enabled the Padres to throw out Juan Uribe at third base.  This is like the 8th time that Sanchez has been unable to execute a bunt properly this season.  I think 7 of those came against the Padres.

The Giants must win these next two games against the Padres.  If they don't they will be 5.5 games back.  They still play the Pads 7 more times after but if they can't win these next two games then I have no reason to believe that they can win any of the other 7 games they will play against them.

Oh and don't think that Bruce Bochy didn't have his hand in this debacle.  For some unexplained reason, Aaron Rowand was in the starting lineup again.  Not only did Rowand get picked off of second base in the 2nd inning, he struck out to end the game with the tying run on first base.  Rowand should be nowhere near the starting lineup at ever again this season.  If the Giants want to win this thing they can't keep trotting out the closest thing to an automatic out that the Giants have.  I am actually glad that the Giants got Guillen now if it means that Rowand will get even less playing time.

The other bonehead Bochy decision?  Batting the slumping Freddy Sanchez second.  In the 40 games since Sanchez was last at a .300 average, Sanchez is batting .223 with a horrendous OBP of .289.

Pablo Sandoval has been having his own struggles this season but he has been coming on in August.  Even if you go back 40 games with Pablo he is batting over 40 points better than Sanchez .265 to .223.  During the month of August, even with the 0 for 3 last night, Pablo is batting .326.  this would make him the perfect guy to bat in the 2 hole.

Bochy is a fan of saying that he likes to "Play the hot hand" yet for some reason the "hot hand" was hitting 6th and the stone cold hand was hitting 2nd.  A lineup that makes more sense, now that Guillen is in SF, looks more like this:

Torres, Sandoval, Posey, Burrell, Huff, Guillen, Uribe, Sanchez

Oh and the Padres even broke the Giants' Orange Friday mojo by handing them their first loss in the Orange unis.

A disappointing trip

BRAVES 6 - GIANTS 3

The Giants finished the roadtrip 2-4.  They scored 10 runs in one game and didn't score any more than 3 runs in any other game scoring a total of 9 runs during those 5 contests.  No matter how you look dissect the numbers, it was a bad trip.

Looking on the bright side as I try to do in this blog, the Giants are still just 2 games out of first place, they are starting a homestand in which they face the not very good Cubs and have a first place showdown with the Padres.  The NL west could have a very different look after this weekend.

In keeping with the positives the Giants are 33-20 at home and 30-29 on the road.  Even after their bad road trip.  This is a huge improvement over last season when they were 36 and 45 on the road.  Their inability to win on the road likely cost them the division.


The reality of this season is that the NL west is going to come down to September.  The Giants play every game, except for a 6 games against the Brewers and Cubs on Sept. 17-23, against NL west teams.They play 5 games against the Dodgers, 4 against the Padres, 4 against the Rockies and 6 against the D-Backs including the final 3 game series of the season.  This is where the NL west will be decided.  As much as we want to look at games here in early August and predict what will happen to the Giants, the fact of the matter is they won't determine the outcome of the division.

Also, with 7 games against the Padres, the Giants will need to figure out how to beat them a few times.  it doesn't matter how they do against the other teams, they have to beat the Padres or they will not win the division.  That's all it boils down to.

Links of the day:

Image via Wikipedia

Giants prospect Sharlon Schoop had 6 RBIs yesterday for the Giants AA affiliate Richmond Flying Squirrels. Schoop is a little farther down the prospect hierarchy, but he is 23 and a guy that the Giants have some confidence in.  He's hitting .294 for Richmond after hitting .281 at A ball Augusta.  Keep an eye on him while you are looking at how guys like Brandon Belt, Thomas Neal, and Conor Gillaspie are doing.


It also looks like the Giants have called up Emmanuel Burriss to deepen their bench.  No word on who they are moving to make room for him on the roster but I will go out on a limb and predict it's a pitcher.

Speaking of going out on a limb.  After taking the loss against the Braves yesterday Jonathan Sanchez came out and predicted that the Giants would sweep the Padres this weekend.  Hopefully it gives the guy something to focus on when he throws against the Padres this weekend.  But I like it.  It shows a little bit of confidence from the lefty.  Something that is called into question about him every once in a while.