Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Southwest showdown

Matt Cain must be glad Madison Bumgarner is around. The young lefty has been the best pitcher on the staff this season and has eight losses to show for his efforts. The big righty, the very embodiment of the "tough luck" starter, so much so that "getting Cained" is part of every Giants fan's baseball lexicon, racked up his team-high sixth win of the year after giving up five runs in Arizona. The Giants, fortunately, scored six runs, and with all the changes to the game over the years it is reassuring to know that six is still more than five and you still win when you get more than the other guy. A three-rum bomb by smoking hot Miguel Montero in the 6th and too many booming fly balls to the outfield in the 7th finally chased Cain. Jeremy Affeldt ended the threat and superb relief work from Javier Lopez set it up for Brian Wilson, who struck out Stephen Drew to end it. He had to walk two guys and wild-pitch them to second and third before getting the final out, but I suppose that's just how the dude rolls. It was a team effort--everyone in the starting eight got a hit, and Cain chipped in an RBI sacrifice bunt. Cody Ross was the big star with the bat, and some outstanding glove work by Andres Torres and Emmanuel Burriss (I understand he wants to be called "Manny") kept things from getting out of hand. The Diamondbacks can sure hit the ball hard and that park plays like an AL bandbox. Arizona had won 22 of 30 before last night. That was a big win and it just goes to show that when you bitch long enough and hard enough about the offense they will finally listen and deliver the goods. My favorite play was the 2-4-3-6 rundown of Brandon Crawford that let Ross score from third, and my second favorite play was the RBI double by Nate Schierholtz off reliever Aaron Heilman. Nate had been blind against Joshua Collmenter, striking out twice and hitting a weak pop fly. The rookie righty had only allowed four runs in his previous six starts.

MadBum gets his chance tonight against lefty Joe Saunders. The Giants love to face southpaws--they are 13-5 against them. The Giants are 6-1 against Arizona and 19-10 against the NL West. Pablo Sandoval got a nice line drive RBI single in the first inning to get things going. Welcome back, Panda.

--M.C.



p.s. It is The Franchise's 27th birthday today! Happy Birthday, Timmy. Thank you for being a Giant and leading us to The Promised Land. Get your Freak on, lads!

3 comments:

Ron said...

From Extra Baggs today:

"Neat stat on Cain: He is 17-0 with a 2.36 ERA when receiving at least three runs of support."

Zo said...

I was glad to see Cain get the win. It seems like 5 runs against him would have handed him at least 3 losses. Perhaps he did not pitch as well as last time out (tough to imagine him much better) but his real mistake came in the sixth, putting two men on and giving up a home run to Montero. But the Giants did enough to win it.

M.C. O'Connor said...

The Giants racked up the runs they needed, that's for sure. I hope they can keep it up! MadBum could use some support, don't you think?

Huge win--they have been hot and they look like a tough club esp. at home. The Padres pushed the Giants until the bitter end. I wonder if AZ will do the same this season. No more injuries, please. Keep all the arms healthy and maybe some guys can find their lost bats and put it together at the end. Like, uh, Huff, for example.

(I'm posting this via my PS3. I robbed the wireless KB from my Delll and am lounging on the couch and using the TV!)