Strong Pitching Prevails Over Brewer Bat's

It's no secret that the Giants offense cannot match blows with powerful teams such as the Brewers, so they need their pitching and defense to be on point in these types of series, and they received some tremendous outings from their starters this weekend.

The Giants finished off the 3 game set on Sunday with a 2-1 win over the NL's top offense behind the arm of 21 year-old lefty Madison Bumgarner. MadBum had a rocky start in the first inning allowing a solo big fly to Ryan Braun, but that was all the scoring the Brewers would do on the afternoon. Bumgarner settled down after that and was nails, going 7 2/3, allowing just the 1 run with 8 strikeouts. Over the whole weekend set, the Giants allowed the Brewers to score just 8 runs, thanks to the starting performances by Bumgarner, Matt Cain and Ryan Vogelsong. Cain and Vogelsong didn't even have their best stuff, but Vogelsong still pitched well and won his 8th game despite some rocky control. Cain did suffer the only loss in the series opener on Friday night, as he was out-dueled by Shawn Marcum, but he didn't pitch badly. I said in Friday's post that this series would tell us a lot about the Giants and whether or not they can beat a team with great offense as well as strong pitching like Milwaukee's, and although they prevailed and won 2 of 3, the Brewers were just a couple swings away from a series sweep, that's how close it was. It also proved a wise move by Bochy to skip Barry Zito's turn in the rotation this weekend, cause I think he would have been doomed vs. this right-handed heavy lineup.

The Giants had very little room for error this weekend, and when they made one like they did on Friday night, it cost them. Overall, they looked strong, they pitched well, got good relief, got some timely hits and played pretty good defense, but I still see room for improvement, especially offensively. Pablo Sandoval came back down to earth a bit this weekend, and Nate Schierhotlz has quieted down a bit but a guy who has really disappeared over the last few weeks has been Cody Ross. The outfielder really has been quiet all year long after exploding in the postseason last year and it could be his spot that's in jeopardy if the Giants indeed add another outfielder like Carlos Beltran. In 9 games since the all-star break, Ross has just 1 home run and 5 RBI paired with a .133 average and a .510 OPS. That's hardly the production the Giants can afford out of a corner outfielder and it wouldn't surprise me to see Ross start to lose a little bit of playing time to Brandon Belt in the outfield. Belt has gotten just one start in the outfield since his return and it came Sunday. He went 2-2 with a walk vs. Brewer ace Yovanni Gallardo and played a nice left field in the process. I said it in out last post and I'll say it again, Belt needs to be playing a near daily basis, whether it's at first base, left field or a combination of the two, he needs at-bats.

Also, speaking of Carlos Beltran, it seems like we can't get through a single post lately without mentioning his name, and with the deadline just days away, things are starting to heat up. According to Yahoo! Sports reports Sunday, the Beltran sweepstakes is narrowing down to just a few teams, and those close to the situation believe Beltran to be on the move and it will be either the Phillies or the Giants that end up with him. The Giants have supposedly been most active because they're willing to take on Beltran's contract but they cannot agree with the Mets on what prospect(s) would got to New York in the deal. The Phills don't have the money to pay Beltran his $6M over the next 10 weeks, so they'd need to give the Mets at least 1 of their top-3 prospects for Beltran's services. I think this gives the Giants the edge in acquiring him if they choose to do so, but they'd still likely need to part with at least one young promising player.