Great Beard of Zeus, Giants win!

At the end of the broadcast, AmyG talked to Brian Wilson and complimented him on his beard. He called it "The Beard of Zeus." That's the sort of thing it took tonight--divine intervention. Matt Cain pitched six top-notch major-league innings and one piece-of-shit inning, and the 4-0 pasting looked permanent until Buster Posey boomed a big one off Ted Lilly leading off the 7th inning. Edgar Renteria, who had looked like a resuscitated drowning victim at shortstop, led off the 8th inning with a solo bomb off Lilly, and the Dodgers went to the bullpen. Pat Burrell, pinch-hitting for Cain, launched a space probe off Octavio Dotel and all of a sudden the torture reached a new level. Would we fall short most agonizingly? Were we really mounting a comeback? Is this just another tease? Anguish, I tell you, anguish! Hong-Chih Kuo dashed some hopes by finishing off Huff and Posey, and you knew Jonathan Broxton was coming in for the final three outs. Broxton is pretty impressive, but he's had his share of struggles, too, so the idea of scratching out the tying run wasn't completely insane. Sure, I was down, and I thought the gig was up, but Cody Ross then legged out an impossible infield single with one out. The Giants had a pulse--just barely--but a pulse nonetheless. Juan Uribe stepped up next and delivered the biggest hit of the year, a no-doubter, a massive blast to straightaway center to make it 5-4 San Francisco. Brian Wilson scared the crap out of us all by putting two guys on in the 9th, but with the tying run at 3rd base he got the next two guys for the save. The Giants hit FOUR HOME RUNS and score five times to beat the Dodgers in an epic pennant race clash. With San Diego losing their 9th straight, the good guys find themselves two back in the West.

Make the proper sacrifices, lads, the gods are petty and cruel. Do whatever it takes to keep rolling!

--M.C.


p.s. Final line on Cain: 7 IP, 7 hits, 4 runs, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts, 28 batters, 100 pitches, Game Score 52

p.p.s.Wilson's 125th save ties Greg "Moon Man" Minton.

Step one a little shaky

Chad Billingsley is a good pitcher. That's a fact. Getting beat by a good pitcher happens to all teams, not just slop-hacking also-rans. That doesn't take the sting out of last night's loss in the LAtrine, though. Barry Zito got himself in trouble, then worked his way out of trouble with strikeouts, only to bury himself and the team with 2-out, 2-RBI hits. The HR by Rod Barajas wasn't just more of that Rod Barajas Has Our Number stuff--it was a fat pitch over the plate that he was obviously looking for. I figured the Giants could scratch back the two runs, and they did with a clutch hit by Buster after some Dodger-esque dink ball. But the hit by Billingsley was an abomination, not just because he raked a fastball (a Zito fastball, not the other kind) on a two-strike count, and not just because it was a fat fastball (a Zito fastball, not the other kind), but because I thought our RF would catch it. I mean, the pitcher was up, the OF is playing in, it's just the kind of line drive that gets cut off in that situation. But our RF was Jose Guillen instead of Cody Ross or Nate Schierholtz and he lumbered over in his concrete galoshes and clanked it with his iron glove. Thus were the good guys doomed. Barry Zito needs to have a Tim-like resurrection soon, or he'll keep dooming us. And blown play at AT&T or no, I'd rather have Ross out there.

Mr. Consistency goes tonight. Let's hope he brings his A-game. GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

This Is It!

Tonight we start a stretch of 13 games against division rivals, with the first 10 on the road. Following that, we play 6 against midwestern teams (vs Milwaukee and in Chicago) and then a final 9 more in the division. I do not need to remind any constant reader of the less-than-stellar record of the Giants against the West, but here it is anyway: We are 6-6 vs LA, a pitiful 2-9 against San Diego, a fortunate 8-4 against Arizona and 7-8 against Colorado, for an overall record of 23-27. We're getting better, though - at one time we were 1-5 vs the smog-suckers and 1-7 vs the puds.

Henry Schulman in the Comicle this morning had a good explanation of how many games need to be won based on historical precendent to win a division or wild card. He concludes that the Giants need to win 90 games and that takes an 18-10 run through the remaining games. There is just no way that we can be in this without taking it to our rivals. If we go 1-5, say, against the puds (and is anyone else out there hating this team in that deep, dodger-loathing sort of way?) we have to have a 17-5 (.773). Not very likely. But, if we split with them 3-4, we need only to go 15-6 against the other teams. Difficult, but not implausible. Here is another way to look at it. We have 9 series left (guess which fucking team we have to play one 4 game series against?). If we win each series, even if we split the four gamer, we are 18-10. See above.

Or, we have to play better than San Diego by 4 games (at least 3 to tie). If they go .500 (hopefully with some help from us) they end up 91-71. We have to win 19 to tie, 20 out of 28 to win the division outright. A tough order.

The facts of the matter are these: We have to have our starters be the tough, gritty perfomers that we know that they can be, Tim, Barry, Matt, Jonathan, Madison, all of them (and all have shown the stuff to do it in their last outings, Barry excepted). We have the arms for relief as long as they are not over-used. We have Runsler back, and some other help if we need it (Sosa, for example). We have to play good defensive baseball. No more right fielders taking a route towards the left field foul pole on a deep drive towards 421. We have to avoid taking ourselves out of an inning when we have runners on base. We have to take advantage of opportunities (see: September 1). We have to use what muscle we have at the plate. Pablo has been looking better lately, although he can still be prone to swinging at horrible, horrible pitches. Huff needs to get back in the groove (the July Huff was really much better than the August Huff). Sanchez needs to continue not being death at the plate. Burrell, Guillen, Ross, if these guys are in the game, they need to contribute. And Posey needs to continue to be Posey.

The Giants could easily play themselves out of it in the next 10 games, or shine like the bright lights of the future that will swell our innocent hearts with pride, make grown men weep and women tingle. Time to stand up, grow some cojones, be counted and BEAT THOSE ANNOYING SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TEAMS.

Re-Freaked Tim!

The Giants win a huge game with a unique combination: The Freak and The Speed Freak!!!

A old, familiar Tim Lincecum and a new, fleet footed September call up have combined to produce one of the most exciting and significant wins of this season. The Freak was his old self with a dominating line (game score of 76!): 8 innings, 1 run, 5 hits, 1 walk, and 9 strikeouts. Tim was actually better than those numbers imply; most of the hits (and the only hard hit one) were by one guy, Carlos Gonzalez (arguably the most exciting young hitter in baseball). One of the best signs was Tim's improvement as the game went on...a 7 pitch seventh inning and a one pitch denial of Gonzalez in the eighth. Sweet stuff for a thirsty crowd and when Tim came up to bunt in the eighth, the crowd sure poured out the love. Man, it was a long month! After a well documented and disastrous August, Tim has turned the page and thrust his team back into the hunt.

Obviously, Tim needed a little help to win this one...not much, but a little. The biggest contribution came from the most unlikely source, a classic September call up, the super speedy Darren Ford. Displaying the boldness that only the incredibly fast have, Ford took over the game as a pinch runner!! The guy didn't get to the ballpark til the second inning...don't you love September??

p.s. puds lose AGAIN!! We are 3 games back. Do I smell some dogger meat for the holiday weekend???