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.