Giantsblog

Nothing like a last to first push with a nice eight game winning streak.  The Giants kept it going though despite being on the road against their arch-rivals.  And it wasn’t anything special though.  The Giants got just enough pitching and just enough hitting to hold back the Dodgers.

On Tuesday, Matt Morris improved to 3-0 with 7 1/3 solid innings.  He gave up three runs on six hits and two walks with two strikeouts.  Dave Roberts was the hitting star at the plate and he went two for five with a homerun and two runs.  Bengie Molina went three for four and Randy Winn finished with two hits and two RBIs in the 5-3 win.

On Wednesday, Barry Bonds inched closer to making history with his seventh homerun of the season.  He drove in three runs and Pedro Feliz helped out with a solo shot in the 6-4 win.  And Noah Lowry wasn’t great, but he was good enough to pick up the win.  He gave up four runs on seven hits and five walks with four strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings.

Yesterday was more of the same.  Ray Durham and Molina each drove in two runs in the game and Omar Vizquel scored twice in the 5-4 win.  Russ Ortiz gave up three runs in 5 1/3 innings and Kevin Correia picked up the win with 1 1/3 shutout innings.

Now the Giants lead the pack and they head to Arizona for three games with Diamondbacks.  Barry Zito gets the start today and hopefully he can keep up his current solid stretch.

Talk about a nice run.  It wasn’t that long ago that the Giants were floundering in last place and now they’ve pushed their record over .500 with five straight wins.  The last three all came at the expense of the Diamondbacks, who not that long ago sat in first place and are now behind the Giants.  You have to love these big swings when the season is less then 20 games deep.

And the Giants got some great pitching in all three games.  On Friday, Russ Ortiz got it done against his former team with seven quality innings.  He gave up just two runs on eight hits and two walks in seven innings and the win pushed his record to 2-0.  Bengie Molina drove in two runs and Barry Bonds finished with two hits and two runs in the 4-2 win.

On Saturday, Barry Zito got it done for the second straight start.  He threw 7 1/3 shutout innings and he picked up his second win of the season.  The lone Giant run was a solo homerun by Barry Bonds and that was homerun number 739.

Then yesterday, it was Matt Cain’s turn.  Cain went the distance and he gave up just one ninth inning run on three hits.  Bonds did it again with homerun number 740 and Pedro Feliz hit his second of the year in the 2-1 win.

Next up is three against the first place Dodgers.  There’s an off day today and then Matt Morris will go for win number six in a row against Derek Lowe.

The Giants are still in the cellar, but they’re doing their best to crawl out.  They’ve now won four of their last five with last two coming in a sweep over the Cardinals in their two game series.  Bonds hit number 738 yesterday and he drove in two and scored twice in the 6-5 twelve inning win.  Rich Aurilia also had a solid game with two hits, a run and an RBI.  Matt Morris was touched up for five runs but just one of them was earned and it was Jonathan Sanchez who picked up the win.

Ryan Klesko and Rich Aurilia got it done this afternoon.  Klesko had three hits and two RBIs while Aurilia drove in two and scored twice in the 5-2 win.  The pitching was a touch better as well.  Noah Lowry gave up just two runs on four hits and two walks with four strikeouts in seven innings of work.

Next up is three against the Diamondbacks who got off to a great start.  They’ve tapered off though so hopefully the Giants can pounce all over them and pick up another couple of wins.

The Giants can’t manage to get out of the cellar but at least they’re finally winning.  They split a two game series with the Rockies this week.  On Monday, Barry Zito finally earned his paycheck with a really nice outing.  He gave up just three hits and three walks with four strikeouts in six shutout innings, and it’s his first win in a Giant’s uniform.  Ray Durham and Benjie Molina both homered in the 8-0 win and Omar Vizquel went four for five with two runs and two RBIs.

Last night’s game was a major drag.  Matt Cain was awesome.  He threw seven innings and gave up just two hits with seven strikeouts, unfortunately he threw too many pitches early and came out to see the pen blow his win.  Three different relievers all got tagged for runs in a five run Rockies eighth inning.  Barry Bonds walked three times and Rich Aurilia had two hits and an RBI in the 5-3 loss.

Next up is two at home against the Cardinals.  It’s a shame because if looks like a lot of the good teams are in the NL West and I don’t see the Giants keeping up.  Already we’re five games down and if that number goes up much more, the Giants season is going to be over very early.

I swear, east coast teams should play all of their of April games in either the south or the west.  The Giants flew out to Pittsburgh in their only series there and played only one game.  It was a good one though as Barry Bonds went yard twice and he drove in four runs in the 8-5 win.  Rich Aurilia went two for five with a run.

Russ Ortiz had a solid start but it looked kind of bad in the box score because of a ninth inning three run shot he gave up.  He picked up his first win of the season though, and he gave up five runs on ten hits and a walk with seven strikeouts in 8 2/3 innings.

So the Pirates are now 3-7.  They”re still in last but they can do some damage as they head to Colorado to take on the Rockies.  Barry Zito will try to pick up his first win of the season and he’ll go up against a tough left hander in Jeff Francis.  Matt Cain gets the start in the second game.

The Giants need to stop the bleeding pretty quickly or they’re going to be out of the race by the end of April.  The Giants lost another series and they’ve now won just two of their first nine games. 

Monday’s game was probably the most disappointing.  Matt Cain gave up just a single run on one hit but the Giants were shutout on five hits.  Bengie Molina had two of hits in the 1-0 loss.

The Giants then finally got their bats going on Tuesday and picked up a 6-5 win.  Bengie Molina drove in two runs and Omar Vizquel and Rich Aurilia had two hits in a piece in the 6-5 win.  Matt Morris picked up the win and he gave up two runs on seven hits and four walks with three strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings.  He’s now a perfect 2-0.

Then yesterday, the Giants got shut out again.  Dave Roberts had two of the Giants six hits and Noah Lowry had a mediocre start in his second straight loss.  The final in this one was 4-0 and all four runs were given up by Lowry.

The Giants get a day off  to travel to Pittsburgh for a three game series with the struggling Pirates.  This could turn out to be an important series because if they can’t get it done against the Pirates, I’m not sure who they can get it done against.

I know it’s early, but this has the makings of a long season.  The Giants dropped three straight to the Dodgers and they have just one win in their first six games.  The end result is, the Giants are sitting at the very bottom of the NL West.

Friday’s game was the closest.  Noah Lowry had a nice start and he gave up just two runs (one earned) on six hits and two walks with four strikeouts in seven innings of work.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough because the Giants picked up just one run despite getting twelve hits.  Omar Vizquel singled home Rich Aurilia for the Giants’ run of the game in the 2-1 loss.

It went downhill from there.  On Saturday, the Giants were held to just one run but this time, the starting pitching wasn’t as good.  Russ Ortiz was tagged for three runs in five innings as he took the loss.  The lone run came in second when Rich Aurilia doubled home Ray Durham in the 4-1 loss.

Then Sunday happened.  Let me just say, so far, Barry Zito hasn’t earned all that money we’re paying as he had his second straight rough start.  He was tagged for eight runs on nine hits and three walks with four strikeouts in six innings.  The Giants did score a couple of more runs though, although it really didn’t matter.  Pedro Feliz hit a two run shot and Todd Linden finished with two hits and a run.

Now, the Giants travel to San Diego for three more against the Padres.  Jake Peavy won’t be on the agenda so that will be nice but the Giants need to a win a series here to dig themselves out of this hole.

The Giants scored four runs in the fifth inning and then got some solid pitching from Matt Morris last night.  Morris picked up the first win for the Giants and gave up just one run on five hits and two walks with two strikeouts in six innings of work.  Armando Benitez got the final out of the game and he picked up the save.

Barry Bonds doubled, scored and drove in a run.  Ray Durham drove in two in the 5-3 win while Ryan Klesko had three hits.

The Dodgers come to town with the series opener tonight.  Noah Lowry gets the start and he’ll face Brad Penny.

Okay, so this isn’t all that great of a start.  Matt Cain was given a lead but he eventually gave it up.  The Giants came back but the pen couldn’t get it done and the end result was a 5-3 loss.

The Giants scattered seven hits and they were all by different Giants.  Dave Roberts triple and scored and Barry Bonds hit a solo shot to put the Giants on the board.

On the mound, Matt Cain was solid through six but like I said earlier, the pen gave up the lead.  Cain struck out six in six innings and he gave up five hits and a walk.

The rubber game is tonight.  Matt Morris will be on the mound to try to make sure the Giants don’t get swept.

This game was kind of ugly.  Barry Zito had a lackluster start, the pen did even worse and then the Giants never got their bats going.  Zito gave up three runs (two earned) on four hits and two walks with two strikeouts and Jonathan Sanchez gave up three runs in his single inning.

At the plate, Barry Bonds and Randy Winn were the only Giants to reach base twice with a walk and a hit a piece.  All seven hits the Giants put up were singles.  It was nice to see Bonds steal a base though.  Man does he look ready.

Tomorrow, it’ll be Matt Cain on the mound and he’ll go head to head with Chris Young.  I like our chances in this one.