Giants Stumped in SoCal

For the second year in a row, the Giants have rolled into Southern California for their first road trip of the season and have had their hands full with the Dodgers and Padres. The Giants suffered their first series loss of the young 2010 season over the weekend in LA, then were defeated Monday night in San Diego in the first game of that series.

The Giants' pitchers made just a few mistakes in LA which really ended up costing them the series. After another brilliant Barry Zito outing Friday, in which Zito went 7.1 innings allowing just 4 hits and a run with 3 strikeouts. However, the man who came in to replace him in that 8th inning, Sergio Romo, surrendered a 2-run homer to Manny Ramirez that ultimately won the game for the Dodgers, 2-1. In the other two games, the Giants offense exploded for 17 runs, but they still only managed to win one of them. The game they did win was the Tim Lincecum show in the series opener on Friday night. Timmy went 7 shutout innings, allowing just 4 hits while striking out 7, but that wasn't his only strong showing that night. He also went 3-4 at the plate and drove in 3 runs. Now the fact that the Giants lost 2 of 3 in LA didn't bother me too much, because had a few things gone a bit differently, they easily could have swept the series. What does concern me is how well the Dodgers played. They have been looking to really hit their stride in the early season and they may have done it against the Giants, cause they did really outplay the Giants.


It was even more disturbing to see them roll into San Diego Monday night and lose in extra innings via a David Eckstien walk-off home run off of Jeremy Affeldt. Matt Cain must be feeling a little bit of the '07-'08 curse he was struck with; lack of support from the bullpen and offense. Cain's thrown 3 quality games to start the year, including a 6 inning, 2 run, 4 strikeout performance on Monday night, and has nothing to show for it yet. I still have high hopes for Matty this year, and still believe he can improve on last years huge step forward. I just hope he doesn't start losing any confidence whatsoever, and I don't think that will be an issue. What is an issue though, and something we've discussed a few times here already is Andres Torres' lack of contribution. Bruce Bochy is still giving the guy a bunch of starts, and I understand that he's the only true center fielder with Rowand out, but the guy is just not hitting. Torres is just 2-18 so far with no runs or RBI. I also wouldn't mind seeing Darren Ford thrown into the fire so to speak. He isn't exactly hitting well in AA to start the year, but after the spring he had with the Giants, I think he'd come up with the confidence that he belongs.

The Giants must salvage these last two games in San Diego, as I'd hate to see them lose both of their series' down south, especially after such a strong start. They'll send Jonahtan Sanchez, who's coming off a dominant outing vs. Pittsburgh last week, to the mound vs. young Padres righty, Mat Latos. In Wednesday's finale, the Giants will again hand the ball to Todd Wellemeyer who really lost a lot of his room for error in his last start, to the mound hoping he can rebound from his outing in LA.


Note: I've recently been experiencing major computer problems, and haven't had full access to a computer over the last few days, hence the lack of posting over the last 5-7 days. I apologize for the inconvenience and we should be back to a normal posting schedule shortly!