SD 6, SF 4: Torture 'Til the End

I hadn't been this excited for a Giants game since probably 2002, when of course the Giants were playing in the World Series and I was an 11 year old kid listening to the game on the radio on my CD player. Remember CD players? Of course the Giants also went to the playoffs in 2003, but it was definitely no 2002 World Series. Anyway, this game felt big and it was exciting. There's a joke in there somewhere. Every single pitch mattered, every single runner on base was crucial. But early on, it was looking like the game was not going to live up to my lofty expectations.

Throughout the month of September, getting great pitching from the Giants was pretty much a given, which is why Matt Cain's bad start tonight came as such a surprise. Cain has pitched in pressure situations before, so it wasn't the pressure getting to him. And I doubt Cain was thinking about the really fun birthday party he was going to have after the game. It was just one of those games and it came at a horrible time. In 4+ IP, Cain gave up 9 hits, 6 ER and 3 home runs, including Adrian Gonzalez' 3-run homer in the 3rd that really opened the game up. The Giants had shown the ability to come back this year, but coming back from being down 6-0 seemed like a tough task.

Right at the beginning of the game though, it seemed like Clayton Richard also didn't have his best stuff. His command wasn't great and the Giants were hitting the ball hard, they just had nothing to show for it. It was only a matter of time before they got a couple of breaks. Freddy Sanchez drove in the Giants' first run, bringing in Cody Ross in the 5th to cut the Padre lead down to 6-1. In the 6th, Aaron Rowand hit a pinch-hit 2-run homer. Boring. Happens all the time. Also in the 6th, with runners on 2nd and 3rd, Andres Torres hit a ball so weak that it scored a run. The Giants were now within 2 runs, down 6-4.

Guillermo Mota pitched perfect 7th and 8th innings to keep the Giants within 2 runs, and Heath Bell was in to pitch for the Padres in the 9th. The first hitter of the inning, Freddy Sanchez, walked. Aubrey Huff then lined a pitch to right field and Freddy Sanchez completely misread it. Normally, the ball by Huff probably would've hit off the wall, but Will Venable was playing the line, and caught the ball. Sanchez was already on his way to 3rd, and the Padres easily completed the double play. It was an awful, unnecessary risk taken by Sanchez at a terrible time. The Giants needed baserunners, and in one play all of their baserunners were out. Buster Posey grounded out to end the game.

This game was on it's way to being extremely depressing, but fortunately the Giants fought back. Coming into the series, it was extremely unlikely that the Padres were going to sweep the Giants at home, and it still is. Still, this game was painful because you have to figure that tonight was the Giants' best chance to win. Matt Cain has been our best starter this year and in the next 2 games the Giants are going with Barry Zito and Jonathan Sanchez, two guys who have struggled with consistency. And the worst part is if the Giants do manage to clinch tomorrow, the game is going to be called by awful FOX announcers who make awkward comments and just don't know what they're talking about. It won't be as exciting as it would be if Kruk and Kuip were calling it. Thinking optimistically, I do have some confidence in Zito. If the pressure affected the Giants in ANY way tonight, it won't affect Zito. He's pitched in more big games in his career than anyone on the staff and the Padres don't exactly have an intimidating offense. The Padres still have to win 3 more games in a row to go to the playoffs. The Giants just need 1.

FJM Friday: Helllloooo, Marchman...

So sorry about skipping Fire Joe Morgan Friday last week. Anyway, here we are, on a day the Giants could clinch the division, and Tim Marchman of SI is here to tell us we shouldn't be excited. Go for it, Tim!

This year's NL pennant races are the kind that could one day inspire songs: dour songs, about futility and lack of meaning, sung by moping teenagers.

Huh?

In theory, this has not been an especially dull race. In practice, September has been a month of listing apathy.

I'd say that in PRACTICE, it has been a very exciting month, and that it is your THEORY that states otherwise. No?

Teams winning out on the basis of being less mediocre than others will never be any more compelling than a bicycle race run on flat tires.

Bicycle races with flat tires sounds GREAT. Much better than normal bicycle races. I think this statement bothers me more than anything else in the article, because it at least SEEMS to be suggesting that the great runs by the Phillies and the Giants in September are just those teams being "less mediocre" than their rivals. The Phillies finally got everyone healthy, and are clearly the best team in the league. And the Giants, well, the Giants pitching staff has had one of the most impressive runs of superb pitching in the history of baseball. That's not mediocrity. That's excellence.

...take BR's SRS stat, which adjusts run differential for strength of schedule and rates teams by how many runs per game better or worse they are than an average major league club. By this measure, the 95 win Phillies are as good as the 87 win Red Sox, the 88 win Reds are as good as the 77 win A's, and the 88 win Padres are as good as the 82 win Blue Jays.

I have a hard time thinking that the A's are as good as the Reds, or that the Red Sox are as good as the Phillies. But still, I get it: the AL is better than the NL. So? The amazing Yankee dynasty of the late 1990's won the division with 87 wins in 2000. Were they a mediocre team? There are countless other examples through the 100+ year history of AL/NL baseball which show teams much worse than the 2010 Reds going to the playoffs. And there have been just as many collapses that are far worse than the Padres this season. Your sepia-toned view of the teams of yesterday is inaccurate.

NL partisans will protest, but there's lot of reason (sic) to think that a team like the A's would do quite well if dropped into the Senior Circuit next year.

Please don't do that. The Padres are boring enough. The last thing I wanna watch is Wade LeBlanc pitching to Mark Ellis.

The 2nd point is that the irrelevance of the Dodgers, Cubs, and Mets, 3 teams with enormous natural advantages -- makes for a huge, sucking void in the standings.

Those teams might be irrelevant THIS year, but each of them has had very recent success. The Cubs were a 97 win team in 2008. The Dodgers played in the last 2 NLCS. And the Mets were one of the best teams in the NL from 2006-2008. Of course, the real point here is that there is no precedent for THESE teams making baseball exciting. The Dodgers, like the Giants, are one of the most storied franchises in baseball, but just like the Giants, they have had as many miserable seasons as great ones. And the Mets and Cubs? Posterboys of painful mediocrity for most of the 20th century. When they are not in the NL bracket, they are not missed.

...it takes villains to make heroes: How much more meaningful would a Reds division win be if it came over a bullying Cubs team, vaunting over the money minted along Clark Street?

I understand there might be a rivalry between the Reds and the Cubs (though certainly not at the level of the Cardinals and Cubs), but still, I don't think the Reds fans care one bit about sticking it to Chicago. I mean, the Reds are the oldest franchise in baseball history, and have had periods of ENORMOUS success. They don't need to prove anything to anybody. Certainly not the Cubs.

Broad equality among teams, with none standing out as especially good or especially bad, and a diminishing of the power of big city clubs are essentially the goals of the apostles of competitive balance. In the ideal game of the parity preachers, all teams would be average, with some just being slightly less average than others. Each year, there would be hope and faith for all, and each year a cluster of slightly above average teams would trip into October questing for a large trophy.

I don't know who these "apostles of competitive balance" are. I do know that many people, quite rightly, protest the fact that Boston and New York won 13/14 AL East titles from 1994 to 2007. People want every team to have the chance to be great. That's all. Of course they can't all win at the same time.

As baseball's races this year show us, though, a game actually built on this line is on par with roach fighting, without the illicit kick -- one has interest in the spectacle, but unless money is involved, less in the outcome. A great race needs great teams; it needs the swagger of wealth; mostly, it needs the prospect of a team playing spectacularly well and still losing out on what it wants.

I don't see the races this year as being akin to a roach fight, although I've never seen a roach fight. In fact, it is insulting to hear you say that. Did you watch the series the Giants just played in Colorado? It was magnificent. It was great baseball. So sorry the fucking Mets weren't playing.

SF 4, ARI 1: Giants One Win Away From Playoffs

Madison Bumgarner was able to get through 5 innings allowing just 1 run, but every inning was stressful, which meant an early exit for him. Yet he won his first home game of the year, thanks to a strong showing by the bullpen. Santiago Casilla pitched 2 perfect innings, followed by perfect innings by Romo and Bodie Broadus. Brian Wilson got the day off, although if the game was closer he'd likely have come in for the 9th.

But it wasn't closer, because the Giants kept hitting home runs today. Pablo Sandoval started it off with a splash hit. I won't say that he's "back". We've said that enough. Then Andres Torres made the score 2-1 in the 5th inning. He is back. And Buster Posey, who has been hitting the ball hard, but seen his average drop about 15 points in the last week, hit a typical deep left center Posey HR with Aubrey Huff on base. The man has a beautiful swing.

The Giants magic number is 2 now, meaning they can clinch a playoff spot with just one victory this weekend. 2 victories, or a Padres loss tonight along with 1 victory against them on the weekend, and the Giants would win the division.

SF 3, ARI 1: Closer

When Stephen Drew led off against the Giants by smacking a hanging curve ball into right field, nobody panicked, but it certainly felt a little weird. Lincecum has been in Cy Young form all month, but we've seen left handed D-Backs hit HRs against him a lot. He had trouble in the early innings, and the game was 1-0 into the 4th inning. There was plenty of time left, but it may have started to feel like one of those games. My mom, the sudden Giants fan after 50+ years of complete disinterest in all sports, thought the game was completely lost. Give her a break, she's only been watching a couple days. So even thought my dad and I were relaxed and knew there were plenty of outs left, we both may have had that lingering feeling of a 1-0 loss. And then Pat Burrell happened.

In the 4th inning, Aubrey Huff singled up the middle, and Buster Posey worked a walk. Burrell came up and promptly launched a pitch into the left field bleachers to make the score 3-1. It was just another in a long list of HUGE home runs Burrell has hit for the Giants. And it was vital that he hit it, because after the HR, the Giants hit just like they did before it. In all fairness, tonight WAS one of those games, except for the Burrell magic.

But that was all the Giants needed, because Tim Lincecum was able to get past his early struggles, and finish 7 strong innings. His final line reads: 7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 4 BB, 11 K. Javier Lopez worked the 8th, and Brian Wilson finished a somewhat stressful 9th to get finish the game. The Giants remain 2 games up with 4 to play, magic number at 3. This pretty much means all they have to do is win 2 of the next 4 games. Do it.

Tim Lincecum struck out 11 tonight, raising his league leading strikeout total to 231. He is guaranteed to keep that lead, which will give him his 3rd straight strikeout title. This is something that has only been done twice in the NL since WWII, by Warren Spahn and Randy Johnson. That is amazing to think about. While leading the league in strikeouts is really just one aspect of pitching, it's still fascinating to look at the list of great NL pitchers that failed to do what Lincecum has done. Koufax, Drysdale, Gibson, Marichal, Seaver, Carlton, Ryan, Richard, Gooden, Schilling. 7 Hall of Famers there, and Schilling will be one soon. And J.R. Richard and Doc Gooden were both very dominant in their short careers. And none of these pitchers did what Tim Lincecum has done.

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.

SF 4, COL 2: Cained

Did you know that Matt Cain is my favorite player on the Giants? That's right. I decided in 2006, his first full season. When I am an old man, still a Giants fan of course, and someone asks me, "Who was your favorite Giants player? Who did you love the most?", the answer will be easy. It was Matt Cain. Matt Cain, the one with great stuff, no doubt, but never the greatest stuff on the team. Matt Cain, who got his share of attention, but never the most. Matt Cain, the one with the most heart, the most grit on the team. Yes, I, the David Eckstein hating, stat-quoting baseball fan, I am talking about heart and grit. Because while the "intangibles" can't truly measure who the best are, they can measure what we love, what we admire. And watching Cain pitch for 5 seasons now, we have seen those intangibles show up again and again, whether its accepting a losing record with stoicism and grace, getting out of jam after jam, or pitching shut down innings like no one else. And then, in the biggest game of the year, of his career, hell, the biggest Giants game since Finley's grand slam in 2004, he almost throws a no hitter, and goes 9 innings to secure the win. Amazing.

The Rockies that were smoking the ball last night looked completely helpless at the plate today, as Cain was throwing strikes with his fastball AND curve. CarGo and Tulo could do nothing against him. After losing the no hitter, on a questionable base hit that Juan Uribe double clutched on, Cain gave up a 2 run homer to Melvin Mora. But he didn't lose his composure one bit, and got out of the inning, then, with 100 pitches, went out to finish the 9th. Props to Bochy for having complete confidence in him. He even ended the game with a "Wainwright to Beltran hook" (all curveballs that strike out the last hitter of the game, looking, remind me of Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS). Cain's final line was 9 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, with a game score of 80. It was his 4th complete game of the season. He had 4 last year as well. Not quite Bob Gibson, but impressive for a 25 year old pitcher these days.

Cain has flirted with no hitters many times before, and I believe, one of these days he will get one. While he isn't quite one of the upper elite pitchers, yet, he is definitely one of the hardest to hit in baseball. His lifetime 7.59 hits per 9 innings is 5th among active pitchers, and 2nd only to Johan Santana among active starters. Yeah, he's that hard to hit. Unfortunately, his no hitter today ended rather strangely. Jay Payton his a groundball up the middle, and Juan Uribe double clutched before throwing to first. Payton was safe. It's very possible that Payton would have been safe even if Uribe hadn't double clutched, but, in my opinion, a double clutch like that constitutes an error on the part of the fielder. Oh well. If you want to care about no hitters, you have to accept the idea of official scorers.

The Giants scored 4 runs today, and it could have been a lot more, because Jorge De La Rosa was not good. He kept missing on the outside corner, and seemed to be upset about it. Too bad for him that Tom Glavine is the only pitcher who'll ever get that call. Freddy Sanchez, much maligned on this blog this summer, hit a 2 run HR in the first inning to give the Giants a quick lead. Well done, Singles Hitter. And Cody Ross just might be starting to heat up.

The Giants off day tomorrow should do them and the fans some good. Arizona is coming to town, and though they are a last place team, remember: they swept the red hot Rockies this past week. I can't think of anything worse than Adam LaRoche hurting us in the last week of the season.

COL 10, SF 9: That Was Not Good, Folks

Okay, maybe this game wasn't as bad as that infamous Ryan Spilborghs grand slam in the 14th inning game, but this one was all sorts of messy. Normally, I might write some sad excuse for a recap, but this game deserves some in-depth analysis.

Right away, the Giants got on the board with an opposite field home run from Freddy Sanchez to give them a 1-0 run in the 1st. It was an encouraging start especially because the Rockies starter, Jason Hammel, wasn't looking too sharp. Unfortunately, Barry Zito didn't have his best game either. In the bottom of the 1st, Zito walked 2 batters and gave up 2 hits, resulting in 2 runs. The Giants got solo shots from Andres Torres and Aubrey Huff in the 3rd, giving them the lead, but Zito couldn't protect it.

The 5th inning was a disaster and that's really where the game changed. The Giants now had a 4-2 lead, but Barry Zito gave up a pair of triples to start the inning. With a 4-3 lead and a runner on, Bruce Bochy pulled Zito mid-at bat to bring in Chris Ray from the bullpen. Some didn't like the move to take out Zito so early, but I had no problem with it. He was wild and could never get on a roll. I did take issue with the decision to bring in Chris Ray, though. All year, Ray has been the pitcher that Bochy goes to when the Giants are trailing by a run or two, not with a 1 run lead on the road. It seemed like an odd choice, especially with guys like Casilla, Lopez, Ramirez, Romo, and even Mota and Affeldt available. Anyway, Ray allowed a 2-run homer to the first batter he faced, Troy Tulowitzki, and the Rockies had a 5-4 lead. The inning wasn't over as Ray gave up another deep flyball, Cody Ross slipped, and the Rockies had another triple. At the end of all that mess, the Rockies had scored 4 runs and had a 6-4 lead. There were defensive issues, bad strike zone calls, and questionable managerial decisions. It was the definition of a disaster inning.

And then the Rockies had their own version of a disaster inning. After losing the lead in such a disgusting way, the Giants didn't seem affected by it. Juan Uribe and Mike Fontenot lead off the inning with singles. Pinch-hitter Travis Ishikawa then blooped a single to score a run. The next batter, Cody Ross, hit what seemed like a flyout to left field, but it turned out to be a home run. Freddy Sanchez then doubled and advanced to 3rd on flyout, eventually scoring on a wild pitch. Five runs and a 9-6 lead. Life was good again.

But then there was more weirdness. I'm sorry for the back and forth, but this is how it felt. The Rockies scored in the bottom of the 6th to make the score 9-7. Fast forward to the 8th inning when the Rockies had two runners on with 2 outs and Brian Wilson was brought in to try for a 4-out save. The batter was Troy Tulowitzki, who hit that 2-run homer earlier to give the Rockies the lead. This time, Tulowitzki lifted a high flyball to right field that hit off the wall. The Giants were lucky that it wasn't hit out, but in any case, the Rockies tied the game and gave Wilson his 5th blown save in 50 opportunities. No one scored in the 9th, so it was on to extras.

Extra innings were no different. Tulowitzki screwed the Giants again. One out, a runner on 1st, and Tulowitzki hits a ball to the left-center gap. It took extra long for Burrell to get to the ball because he was playing the line. He had no chance, and the Rockies won the game.

Besides the constant lead changes, this game was weird on so many levels. After a pitcher's duel the night before, this was a typical Coors Field game. The Giants' streak of 18 games allowing 3 runs or fewer is over. The strike zone was kind of ridiculous and inconsistent all night. It could be argued that in the 5th inning and 10th inning, bad balls and strikes calls affected the game, but I won't make excuses. Andres Torres had to leave the game early with slight discomfort. He hit a home run and it doesn't seem too serious, but you have to wonder if he was rushed back too soon. That's a huge deal. The Braves, Padres, and Rockies all won today, and the Giants are no longer in first place in the West. But I find myself not too upset about the game and I don't really know why. Maybe it's because it was unlikely that the Giants were going to sweep on the road at Coors Field, and out of all the games, this one was the one they were most likely to lose. Of course, that means they need to win tomorrow, but I might have more confidence in Matt Cain than any other starter on the staff.

It was a loss, but this being the most important series of the year so far, it's really lived up to expectations. We've known that this race would probably come down to the wire and this game felt like playoff baseball. It doesn't even matter that much that we're half a game back in the standings because it goes back and forth almost everyday. This is exciting, intense baseball.

Sorry for the very long recap. There was so much to cover and I wouldn't be surprised if there mor then a few errrs in their.