This weekend found our local baseball heroes defending their world championship in Arizona and if the temperatures at Coachella were in the high 90s to lower 100s, one could only imagine that it was at least that hot, if not hotter deep in the Valley of the Sun, home to Chase Field and one of our more annoying National League West rivals, the Diamondbacks. I’d like to take the time to explain to some of our “newer” Giants fans that games against teams such as the Diamondbacks, Rockies, Padres, and Dodgers are extra important because they our in our division and the outcome of these games directly effect our placement in the division a little more than when we play out of division teams. Now that we’ve given our new-found fans a little background, lets look at the highlights of the weekend:
On Friday night, hard luck ace Matt Cain lead the black and orange to a 5-2 victory over the Dbacks with a little help from Pablo “Kung Fu Panda” Sandoval’s third home run of the season, as well as a media darling Brian Wilson’s third save of the season. The Giants kept their streak alive into Saturday’s game, defeating Arizona 5-3 behind an outstanding performance from Gulliermo Mota, who entered the game after the second inning due to scheduled starter and notorious bust of a pitcher Barry Zito sprained his foot and found himself fifteen day disabled list. While nobody likes it when someone is hurt, we would be lying if there wasn’t a giant sigh of relief exhaled by Giants fans nationwide knowing that even those he’s a stand up guy (and rocking a bitchin’ mustache these days), Barry Zito won’t be blowing games for us for at least two weeks. Buster Posey went yard for the second time this season, and B Weezy picked up another save, bringing his total to four for the season.
Sadly, the lucky streaked ended Sunday when the Giants dropped the game to the Diamondbacks 6-5 in extra innings. Apparently the bullpen couldn’t keep the Giants in the game despite home runs from Aubrey Huff, Pablo Sandoval, and Buster Posey, a feat which is rather impressive seeing as how the Giants are a team not really known for their offensive prowess.
The Giants leave Arizona with a record of 8-6, putting them second in the division to the super smoking Colorado Rockies, who are holding down first in the National League West today. The Giants are sending up two-time Cy Young Award winner and fan favorite Tim Lineceum to the mound tonight, followed by probable starts from Matt Cain and Jonathan Sanchez for the remainder. You couldn’t ask for a better three pitchers to hopefully cool the jets of the scorching hot Rockies, but you need runs to win games, so what the Giants are going to need to bring to these games are the red hot bats of Buster Posey, Aubrey Huff, and Pablo Sandoval to support what will most likely be dominant pitching perfomances from three of the league’s greatest starters. Tune in to either CSN Bay Area for the televised games or go super old school and bust out an AM radio tuned to KNBR 680 to see if Los Gigantes have what it takes to knock the Rockies off the mile high horse they rode in on.
