SF 5, ARI 3: Mota Good, Zito Baaaad

Barry Zito only lasted 1 2/3 innings tonight after spraining his foot catching a bunt pop up. It remains to be seen whether Zito will make his next start or even go on the DL, but reports say he was walking on crutches after the game. Unfortunately, Zito probably wouldn't have lasted long either way because in the little time that he did pitch, he looked pretty terrible.

This is the first start of Zito's I've seen this year, so I am basing this assessment on an extremely small sample size, but considering his ERA was 5.56 coming into tonight, I think it's safe to assume he hasn't been very good so far. The most shocking thing to me was the velocity on Zito's fastball. Obviously he's never thrown hard, but if I remember correctly, Zito's fastball velocity was around 86-88 at the start of last season. Tonight it was 82-84, with most of them closer to 82. Velocity is a very overrated aspect of pitching because pitchers can succeed with good command and movement on their pitches, but wow, an 82 mph fastball is just really, really slow. Considering he keeps losing 1-2 mph on the fastball every year, what is he going to have a 79 mph heater in 2 years? Obviously I'm exaggerating, but not many pitchers survive with a fastball that soft. Not only that, but his pitches weren't moving and he wasn't controlling his offspeed stuff at all.

I don't want to sound like an irrational Zito hater, because that's exactly the opposite of what I am. I still think Zito is one of the best 5th starters in baseball and better than a lot of No. 4s. I thought Bruce Jenkins' notion that Zito might be cut was beyond ludicrous. I scoff at those who think the Giants have a better option in the minors. I do feel bad for the guy. He's making $18 million a year but it can't be easy going through the amount of criticism he gets and it's not his fault that a team was stupid enough to give him that much money. And most importantly, I do realize I've personally only seen 1.2 innings of his work. He did have a pretty good start to the season after all, the 1st inning notwithstanding. But being a Zito apologist who kept thinking he could put together a season better than the year before, I can't pretend like I'm not a little concerned. He looked baaaaaaaad today.

Again, I refuse to react crazily to SSS(small sample size). Just an observation.

Anyway, the Giants did win this game, so I should point out the happy from today. Buster Posey hit a 2-run homer in the 1st and Freddy Sanchez drove in 3 runs with a double and a single. And Guillermo Mota absolutely saved the bullpen by coming in and allowing just 1 ER in 4 1/3 IP, the most of his career.

The Giants go for the sweep tomorrow against Barry Enright, who is one of those mediocre pitchers that always makes the Giants offense look bad. Bumgarner is pitching for the Giants, so it'll be interesting to see if he can put together his first quality start of the year.

SF 4, ARI 2: Isn't This Fun?

Tonight's game didn't look so hot at first. Jonathan Sanchez started the game by walking the first batter on 4 pitchers and walked 4 Diamondbacks in the first 2 innings. His control was obviously terrible, but worst of all, he was missing high in the zone. Giants fans everywhere were calling for his head, but yours truly believed in Dirty the whole time and in the end, he made me look good. In 6 innings, he allowed just 2 runs. It may not have been pretty but all that matters is that he minimized the damage. People remain remarkably impatient with a guy who has a 3.15 ERA and tonight became the 4th Giants lefty to have 200 K's in a season. Sounds pretty okay to me for a 4th starter.

Andres Torres got the scoring started with a leadoff triple in the 3rd, scoring on a Mike Fontenot RBI single. The big hit that really seemed to turn around the game was Juan Uribe's home run an inning later that tied the game 2-2. It was a bomb hit into the left field stands that really got the crowd going. In the 6th, pinch-hitter Nate Schierholtz brought home Pablo Sandoval on an RBI single, giving the Giants the lead. An insurance run was added in the 7th on a Pat Burrell RBI single. Insurance runs are always nice and fluffy.

The Padres lost tonight and the Giants now lead the division by 2 games. As I mentioned before, the crowd was really into this game. Everybody knew the implications and what was at stake. It felt like the playoffs and it was great. For a few years now, late September games haven't really mattered for the Giants and I'm glad that's over. This is really, really fun.

ARI 3, SF 1: Every Game Is Crucial Now

It seems a bit silly to care about each and every game right now and to react so strongly when the Giants lose. But it really isn't silly at all. This is the last month of the season and when you have a chance to sweep a very, very bad team on the road, you better capitalize. And you know what else? San Diego still scares me. They may have had a 10-game losing streak, but they're about to sweep LA and I don't doubt that they can still shut down our offense and score just enough runs to beat us. With the Rockies slowly creeping up behind us and the most important series of the year so far coming up, tonight's loss was very disappointing.

The loss was that much worse because Barry Zito pitched well for the first time in over a month. It seems like right now he can do no right, as he was hounded by Giants fans on Twitter early tonight when he gave up a couple of runs, but his start was solid. He went 6 IP, giving up 4 H, 2 ER, and 3 BB with 7 K's. That kind of performance should normally be good enough to get the team a win, but the offense failed the Giants tonight.

The only run came from a Freddy Sanchez home run. Surprise!

Tomorrow is the start of an absolutely CRUCIAL series against the Padres. It would've been nice to have been ahead in the standings before facing them, but the Giants have a chance to do some real damage this weekend anyway. It's looking like by the end of the night, they will be 2 games back in the West. It's a 4 game series, so the Giants will need to win at least 3 games to be tied or ahead of San Diego. On the other hand, if the Giants completely fall flat, they'll be in big trouble. Let's hope the pitching staff and the offense bring their A-games this weekend.

SF 6, ARI 3: Tim Lincecum Is A Nasty Man

So, Tim Lincecum might be back. Yeah, I'm thinking he's gonna be okay. Ignore the fact that he had a rough 7th inning, giving up a 2-run homer and an RBI triple. Tonight he looked like the former Cy Young winner, giving up 5 H and 0 BB with 11 Ks in 6 2/3 innings. He was nasty.

Of course it helped that he got some early run support. The Giants put up 3 runs in the first inning, the first 2 coming on an Aubrey Huff home run. After Buster Posey doubled, Jose Guillen singled him in to make the score 3-0. Now, you make think I'm lying, but Freddy Sanchez hit an opposite field homer in the 5th. Yeah, I was surprised too. The Giants weren't done yet as Pat Burrell hit his own 2-run shot to give the Giants a 6-0 lead. All the scoring was significant because the last time they faced Barry Enright, a game I had to sit through, they couldn't hit anything.

Tonight is already a great night. It could be greater if the Dodgers would beat the Padres, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. God, they're useless.

SF 2, ARI 0: My Pitching Rocks. Your Pitching Sucks.

I love it. For the past few years, our offense has not been very good. It's been better this year, but still not the strength of the team. And rightfully so, people have wanted more offense for a long time. But damn, I'll take good pitching and bad offense over a good offense and bad pitching any day. There's just nothing more beautiful in baseball than a well-pitched game and the Giants have been having a lot of those recently.

In case you couldn't tell from my introduction, Madison Bumgarner and the bullpen pitched really, really well. Bumgarner was able to hold the D'Backs to just 5 H and 0 ER in 7 1/3 innings, while striking out 7. In the 8th, Bumgarner did give up a leadoff double to the pitcher, Ian Kennedy, and he was promptly taken out of the game. After a flyout that moved Kennedy to 3rd and a walk issued by Sergio Romo, there were runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 out. It was probably the most difficult situation in the game for the Giants and Javier Lopez and Ramon Ramirez came in to shut down the next two batters. It doesn't really matter if John Bowker even becomes a future All-Star as long as Lopez and Ramirez keep contributing like this to help the Giants into the playoffs.

Unfortunately, Bumgarner didn't get any run support. He couldn't even get measly Felix Hernandez-type support. He got nothing. The Giants got shut down by Ian Kennedy and a couple Diamondbacks relievers and couldn't score until the 11th inning. In that 11th inning with 2 outs, Aubrey Huff singled. Then Buster Posey. And then Nate Schierholtz hit a 2-run triple. Wait, sorry that was a typo. Ha, hahaha, silly me. Not Nate Schierho....OH WAIT IT WAS NATE SCHIERHOLTZ! Holy crap, the guy who's been pretty much forgotten on offense among the 57 outfielders on the roster hit a triple to put the Giants on the board. Brian Wilson finished it off, as usual. Game Over.

The Giants can be tied for the division lead after tonight, with a little help from our enemies down south. Break out those red rally thongs, people.

SF 9, ARI 7: That's How It Should Be. Kinda.

So, Matt Cain is good. The bullpen? Not so much. That was the story of this game.

Matt Cain is our only starting pitcher that can be trusted right now. I have confidence in no one else, but Matt Cain, he's been very good. He's been a rock. Tonight he went 6 1/3 innings, giving up 6 H, 3 ER, 1 BB while striking out 7. It was a pretty good performance considering the garbage the rest of our staff has been throwing throughout the month of August. Now the only issue is getting Cain to channel his thoughts of good pitching to his fellow starters. All they need to do is have 2 good starts in a row and maybe they can get back on track. One can only hope.

The bullpen screwed up though and made this game way closer than it should've been. With the score at 5-2 and having thrown 108 pitches, Bruce Bochy pulled Cain with 1 out in the 7th. When the 7th inning was over, the Diamondbacks had a 6-5 lead. So, obviously the bullpen fell apart. Javier Lopez, Santiago Casilla, and Jeremy Affeldt combined to allow 4 runs, giving up the lead and once again costing Cain a win. Afterwards many people were upset at Bochy for pulling Cain too early, but no matter what, the bullpen needs to perform better. Luckily, the Giants scored a couple of runs in the next half inning and eventually got the win.

The Giants won, but this was still a terrible series. The Diamondbacks are terrible, yet they beat the Giants easily in the first 2 games and came close to sweeping the series. That won't cut it down the stretch. The Rockies come to town on Monday for a HUGE series. They are probably the hottest team in the West right now and if the Giants fall flat against them, they could find themselves in 3rd place come Wednesday. The Rockies are much better than the D'Backs, so the Giants are going to have to step up.

I'm kind of thinking about adding Adam LaRoche to the Hate List. What do you think? Even if he hadn't killed us in this series, everything about him really bothers me.

By the way, Eli Whiteside is really bad. Really, really bad.

ARI 6, SF 0: Seriously?

The Giants are not a great team. Great teams don't lose down the stretch to the 2nd worst team in the National League. Great teams feast on weak opponents. The Giants are not a great team. At least not right now. It's so disappointing that the strength of this team, the pitching, is what's faltering as the Giants fight for a playoff spot. Tim Lincecum maybe showed a little improvement, but not enough. Maybe it's time to consider skipping one of his starts. Oh wait, the Giants don't have anyone to come up and make a spot start. I don't know. I'm just in a ranting mood. I was at this game and it was miserable. It was a terrible performance against a terrible team. The Giants are not a playoff team right now. They can be, but they aren't. Sorry for all the negativity, I try to be positive as much as I can, but there was absolutely nothing positive about this game. Everything tonight was extremely discouraging.

And they couldn't even strikeout enough guys to get me some Italian sausages. Like I said, there was absolutely nothing positive about this game.

Game Recap: SF 3, ARI 2

After a 4 game sweep on the road, a 6-1 road trip, and a 16-6 beginning to July, it's only fair to be positive about the Giants. If you're looking for Bruce Bochy to meet his end like Savonarola of Florence, skip to the last paragraph.

This was a very dangerous game, and yet the Giants were able to skate through it and win 3-2. It's hard to call Tim Lincecum's afternoon a great performance, though he did end up going 8 innings, giving up only 2 runs. He had a couple innings that looked disastrous, but was able to escape. He gave up 2 runs in the 2nd inning when the 7 and 8 hitter reached base after 2 outs, and Arizona pitcher Barry Enright doubled them in, his first of two hits in the game.

No surprises in the RBI department for the Giants today. Andres Torres had a bad game, striking out 3 times, but the rest of the constants all contributed. Buster Posey had 4 hits, raising his average this year to .371. Aubrey Huff singled in the 5th inning to tie the game at 2. And Travis Ishikawa came through in the 10th inning to give the Giants the winning run, singling in Eli Whiteside.

When Tim Lincecum left after the 8th inning, Sergio Romo got himself into a terrible jam, but found a way out. Brian Wilson closed the game out quietly in the bottom of the 10th. What stands out in this game? Buster Posey had 4 hits. Tim Lincecum pitched a good game. Travis Ishikawa had another big hit. But there was something else...

Bruce Bochy managed like a fool today. In the 8th inning, with the game tied and two runners on, Bochy elected to have Tim Lincecum hit. Lincecum struck out. While I understand Bochy's mistrust of both the bullpen and the bench in that situation, you have to take an opportunity that late in the game seriously, and send up a real hitter. In the 10th inning, Buster Posey got his 4th hit of the day, a double to right field. Bochy immediately sent in Eli Whiteside to run for Posey. We already know that Posey is in fact faster than Whiteside, so what was Bochy's reasoning for replacing his star hitter in an extra inning game with a replacement player. Mike Krukow gave the explanation that Posey's "catcher legs" were tired. This isn't irrational, but it disregards the strategic blunder Bochy made by replacing Posey. By running Whiteside for Posey, Bochy leaves himself with 0 catchers on the bench in a tied, extra inning game. That is not the situation to replace your 23 year old catcher because of "catcher's legs". But Bochy's biggest blunder came a batter later, when Whiteside was on third, with Nate Schierholtz on first and Ishikawa at the plate. Suddenly, Schierholtz ran toward 2nd base, and was caught stealing easily. There are 3 ways to understand this play: Schierholtz got the sign to run, he ran on his own, or Ishikawa missed the sign for a hit and run. Anyway, Bochy loses. Nate Schierholtz should not have a Jose Reyes green light in extra innings with the go ahead run at third. And if Bochy called either a steal or hit and run, maybe he needs to be enlightened by the wise words of Earl Weaver:

"...you get damned little fleas on the fucking bases, getting picked off trying to steal, getting thrown out, taking runs away from you..."

Nate Schierholtz should not be stealing bases. Most of the Giants should not be stealing bases. Their SB rate this year is 64%, which means they are actually hurting themselves by calling for steals. At least they don't do it too often. And the hit and run is kinda stupid. Almost as stupid as trading Dan Haren, one of the best pitchers of the last 5 years, for a 29 year old with one good year and a 1.5 WHIP this year. It's no mystery why the D'Backs suck.

Game Recap: SF 10, ARI 4

Madison Bumgarner is really, really good. Tonight he led the Giants to a 10-4 over Arizona giving the Giants their 3rd win a row and their 8th win in 10 games. The win was Bumgarner's 4th in a row as he went 7 innings and gave up 5 H, 2 ER, and 3 BB with 7 K's. It's been said before, but he's been incredible for a 20 year old. The Giants would like to limit his innings down the stretch to preserve his arm, but that might be difficult to do if Bumgarner keeps pitching this well.

Through 6 innings the Giants were up 3-1, but the big hit came in the 7th inning. With the bases loaded, Juan Uribe hit a grand slam barely over the wall that gave the team a 7-1 lead. Uribe needs to get going, as he's gone cold over the last couple of months, so a few more homers from him would be greatly appreciated.

This game also included a very scary moment when Eugenio Velez was hit in the face in the dugout on a bullet off the bat of Pat Burrell. Velez was on the ground for several minutes before being carried out on a stretcher to the hospital. During the game we learned that he never lost consciousness and was alert. Now it's been reported that he has an apparent concussion. Considering how hard he was hit, that is very good news.

Again, the bullpen was shaky. Tonight it was Guillermo Mota who came in and gave up 2 runs. Before the game we learned that Jeremy Affeldt is going on the DL with an oblique strain, so fixing the bullpen has to be an even greater priority now.

Game Recap: SF 7, ARI 4

The sleeping Giant awoke from his light slumber, as Aubrey Huff hit two HR's, raising his season total to 19. But the big hit in the game came in the 7th inning, when the best leadoff hitter in the NL, Andres Torres hit a booming triple that gave the Giants the Giants a 6-4 lead, a huge momentum change after the bullpen gave up the lead in the bottom of the 6th. In the top of the 9th, the Huff-Torres tandem gave the Giants an extra run, when Torres hit a double that was scored an error, and Huff singled him in. That, and a couple of Travis Ishikawa hits, accounted for pretty much all the offense tonight. Congratulations, Giants. You managed to survive without Posey in the lineup.

Jonathan Sanchez ended up only with one earned run in 5 innings, but this was not a pretty start. Sure, he struck out 10, but also walked 5 while giving up 4 hits, and was constantly in trouble. Santiago Casilla was no better, giving up the Giants' 3-1 lead. Chris Ray was able to get out of the 6th inning, and Sergio Romo, while a little shaky, didn't give up any runs. Brian Wilson got another 4 out save to end the game.

During the game tonight, we learned from Henry Schulman that the Giants may have been very close to acquiring David DeJesus before he injured himself. This potential deal apparently didn't involve Jonathan Sanchez. Knowing that, I have to say I'm a little disappointed that DeJesus got hurt. For some unproven minor league outfielders, it would have been really nice to have DeJesus replace Freddy Sanchez as the Number 2 hitter in the lineup. Looks like now the Giants are going to focus on strengthening their bullpen before the deadline.

Lastly, I'll say without shame that I was overjoyed when Miguel Montero cluelessly threw Kelly Johnson's "cycle ball" into the stands. He must understand, deep down in his unconscious, how silly the cycle is.

Game Recap: SF 3, ARI 0

Matt Cain is back. He pitched a gem tonight, going 8 innings, giving up no runs, only 3 hits, while walking 3 and striking out a season high 9 batters. And before you chalk this performance up to fact that he was pitching against the last place Diamondbacks (vbgirlie!), realize that the D-Backs are in fact a pretty good offensive team. They are 5th out of 16 NL teams in OPS, and are 2nd in walks. They've also got a lot of power throughout their lineup. Cain's two magnificent starts this season against Arizona are anything but a product of a weak opposing offense.

It's actually pretty lucky that Cain pitched so well tonight, because the offense had a lot of holes in it tonight. Freddy Sanchez, to put it bluntly, needs hitter's viagra. He is just not swinging a powerful stick right now. And while he's going through this stretch, there's no reason for him to stay in the 2-hole. And so much for Sandoval's magical comeback, huh? But Uribe got a couple hits tonight, so that's good. Do it again, Juan. I want to believe.

At least the Usual Suspects are still producing. Andres Torres, featured early in the day on this very blog, had a Bonds-like HR to center field, and then made a beautiful catch in left field. Buster Posey gave the Giants their first run of the game, and extended his hitting streak to 16 games. I'm happy for Posey, but can we all remember for a moment that hitting streaks are kinda stupid? Until you get to about 30, they're about as gimmicky as the cycle. Or an unearned runs streak. Actually, unearned runs streaks are pretty cool. Can anyone tell me the longest streak of a pitcher not giving up an unearned run? That would be awesome to know.