All Hail Balkin' Bob!

Mike Krukow always calls umpire Bob Davidson (who was at home plate today) "Balkin' Bob" and always talks about how he is more likely to call a balk than any of the other Men in Blue working the bigs. Sure enough, Mr. Davidson called a balk on Indians reliever Tony Sipp with the bases loaded and the Giants scored the only run of the game and won 1-0 over what must be a dismayed Indians squad. They come to San Francisco and get two excellent performances from their starters but lose both games, mostly because of poor play in the field and lack of execution on the basepaths. And Shin-Soo Choo has his hand broken by an errant Jonathan Sanchez pitch, to boot! No, they have to be unhappy with the results in this series. They've had to swallow a bitter pill of très bizarre Giants baseball, where one-run balk-offs are bread & butter. Yeah, I know, it wasn't a walk-off, but the way the bullpen is dealing these days it feels like one when they get a late lead. It was a little dicey in the 8th today, when Javier Lopez looked like he might blow Matt Cain's great start, but they wriggled out of it. Brian Wilson got the final three, the last one a ridiculous catch by Andres Torres who nabbed a deep fly ball while falling down on the track. He was sprinting to the fence but turning his face away from the ball as the sun was blinding him but still made the play. It is impossible not to love that guy. The Giants got a great play from Emmanuel Burriss as well, who grabbed a grounder far to his left in short right field and threw out Orlando Cabrera in the 7th to get the first out. It all started with great pitching, naturally, and Matt Cain racked up a Game Score of 74, even better than his last outing. A giddy Mike Krukow said "hey, just toss it on the pile" when the game was over. In 77 games played the Giants have 33 one-run decisions. They've won 22 of them.

--M.C.