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.