Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The rain of pain falls mainly on Cain

Matt Cain labored against a patient Dodgers lineup, finally giving up the ghost with two outs in the 5th inning. It took Matt 105 pitches to get those 15 outs, giving up 7 hits and 4 runs. LA racked up 12 hits in all, and looked poised to issue the coup de grĂ¢ce against Runzler in the 7th, but he struck out Ronnie Belliard and Reed Johnson to end the threat. If only Cain could have done the same with James Loney in the 5th--especially after whiffing Matt Kemp ahead of him. It was the second consecutive poor outing by Cain (Game Score 40), and things get ugly when our starters don't carry the load.

On the 11th of April, Tim Lincecum struck out 10 Braves in his second start of the year on the way to a 6-3 win over visiting Atlanta. The Giants were 5-1. On the 14th of June I saw the Giants whip the Orioles behind Jonathan Sanchez to bring their record to a season-high 36-27 (.571) and tied with the Dodgers for 2nd place, only 1/2 game behind the Padres. The Giants are now 40-36, which means they've played .500 ball (35-35) since the 11th of April, and .308 ball (4-9) in the last two weeks.

Buster Posey got another shot at glory in the 9th after Pat Burrell's homer and Edgar Renteria's single. Once again he was the tying run. Like last night, he fell short, but by gum he looked good doing it --a sharp line drive that Rafael Furcal snagged to end it.

--M.C.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

These losses are all beginning to look the same.

Anonymous said...

We are becoming the Pirates. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Brother Bob said...

Cain remains 0 for ever against the smog-suckers.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I was thinking about all the line drives the Dodgers hit last night. Seemed like every guy in the lineup hit a laser beam.

According to FanGraphs, LA hitters hit have the highest LD% (21.5) in all of baseball. James Loney is the best in the ML with 29.1%. The Giants are in the middle of the pack (18.3%) with Andres Torres the LD beast at 24.7% (5th in ML).