Thursday, May 19, 2011

Nate Schierholtz saves the day

No disrespect meant to Madison Bumgarner, who was brilliant tonight, pitching his best game of the year. After 8-2/3 shutout innings, MadBum gave up a bloop hit to Rod Barajas. Ol' Boch let the youngster pitch to one more hitter and rookie Jerry Sands launched an RBI double to the wall in left-center. In came Brian Wilson who walked the next two guys and then gave up a sure hit to the extremely pesky Jamey Carroll. Fortunately the Giants not only had the outfielders drawn in, they had speedy, sure-handed Nate Schierholtz in right. He snared it with a nifty sliding catch and the drama was over. At normal depth, that's a game-tying hit. Wilson isn't filling anyone with confidence lately. Sergio Romo warmed up in the 8th, but MadBum was pitching so well that he wasn't needed.

The Giants wore down Chad Billingsley and worked up a 3-0 lead with single runs in the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th. Madison Bumgarner chipped in a double and a run scored along with pounding the strike zone all night long. And he got his all-important first "W" of the season. It looked, for a while, that Wilson would blow the game, and it looked, for a moment, that he had. That would have been tough to take. Fortunately the lads hung on for the win. The Giants are .500 (14-14) on the road and are 5-4 against the Dodgers, which is half the season series. They don't play LA again until after the ASB (July 18-20 in SF), with the final six (three home, three away) coming in September.

--M.C.

2 comments:

Brother Bob said...

Torture, grind, call it what you will.Ridiculous, amazing baseball.

Zo said...

Although it is not entirely logical to feel OK about making up losses to the Rockies by beating the doggers, somehow I'm OK with it.