Friday, September 24, 2010

SF 2, COL 1: Pitcher's Duel at Coors. Huh?

Both pitchers tonight, Tim Lincecum and Jhoulys Chacin, were great. Fortunately for us, Chacin made one mistake in location and Pat Burrell made him pay. With a runner on 1st, Chacin hung a fastball and Burrell smashed it for a no doubt homer to give the Giants a 2-1 lead. And it was glorious.

The mistake pitch came after the Rockies were able to get a run off of Tim Lincecum in the 6th inning. Lincecum actually had a perfect game going through 5 innings until he gave up a leadoff double to Seth Smith. On a groundout, Smith moved to 3rd and scored on a single that Aubrey Huff couldn't quite get to. At the time, 1 run from the Rockies seemed like a death sentence, as the Giants were showing no ability to score. It only made Burrell's homer that much sweeter.

The Giants did win, but let's point out that the same lineup that scored 13 runs last night could only manage 2 tonight. So many people are so quick to criticize Bochy's lineups these days, but I don't see what he's doing wrong. Everyone was so happy that he used the same lineup again tonight, but that lineup mostly failed to score. What is he supposed to do? What batters would people rather see? Maybe you wanted him to bench Pablo Sandoval in favor of Renteria or Fontenot? He did that, but really, how much of a difference is that going to make? The fact is, Bochy is playing the same guys he's been playing all year. Huff, Posey, Burrell, Guillen, Uribe, and Sanchez are in there every day. For whatever reason, they aren't consistently scoring runs right now. That's not on Bochy. With Torres out, the Giants are not going to have a good leadoff hitter. You can't expect Bochy to come up with a magical replacement for him. It sucks, but sometimes star players get injured and teams have to overcome it. There's nothing Bruce Bochy can do besides relying on this historic run by his pitching staff. Rant over.

Huge Win! Tim Lincecum was huge when he needed to be, and so was Pat Burrell. Let's all root for the Reds tonight!

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