The San Francisco Giants are now in first place!! They made their way from fourth place in the division to first place. This is the first time that they have been in first place this season since May 6th. Amazingly, the last time the Giants were in first place by themselves in the month of September was in 2003, which was incidentally the last time they made the playoffs.
It is the Giants division to take and after an impressive three game series with Los Angeles Dodgers in which pitching was the recipe for success they will need to keep the pitching on a roll and bring the offense that showed up in the final game of the series.
The Giants pitching staff only allowed four runs during the three game series with the Dodgers in which the Giants won 2 out of 3. Interestingly enough, the loss came in the first game of the series where Barry Zito threw a one-hitter and did not give up an earned run.
Although, Zito’s one-hitter was one of the best pitching performances we have seen out of him in a while it does not compare to what happened last night, the third game of the series.
Jonathan Sanchez showed why Brian Sabean and the Giants have been reluctant to trade him even though fans have been clamoring for it to happen, me included, for the past two years. Sanchez threw seven innings with zero walks, yeah I said zero, and had 12 strikeouts. The only other pitcher with more strikeouts in a single game was Tim Lincecum who had 13 on May 4th against the Florida Marlins.
Let’s not forget about Matt Cain who was pretty impressive in his win in game two when he took on the Giant-killer, Chad Billingsley. Cain went seven innings and gave up only three hits. Cain probably could have gone longer but was pinch-hit for in the seventh by Travis Ishikawa who came up with a big hit. Ishikawa was pinch-run for by Emmanuel Burriss who later scored on a Mike Fontenot blooper.
Those three games was probably the best pitching I have seen from the Giants in a long time. The month of September has been pretty impressive too. 14 games into the month of September the pitching staff, including bullpen, has an ERA of 1.94 with a WHIP of 0.863. Compare that to August, when the ERA was at 5.13.
The offense has been another story. So far they are having their worst month all year. For the month of September they are batting .223 with an OBP of .277. If they Giants hope to make it to the playoffs someone else is going to get hot besides Buster Posey.
Now, the Milwaukee Brewers come to town. They just came from Houston where they lost two out of three from the Astros and are likely looking to play the spoiler against the Giants. Especially, since the Giants came into Milwaukee in July and swept them at their place.
The season has been pretty disappointing for the Brewers. They are currently 11 games under .500 and 15 games back of the leading Cincinnati Reds. The offense is there for the Brewers it seems to be their lack of pitching that is the source of their problems. Their ace, Yovani Gallardo, has an ERA of 3.64 which is an off year for him but the larger issues is that all the other starting pitchers have ERA's over 4.
The Giants will need to be careful against the Brewers and not take them too lightly. These games are trap games and if the Giants overlook the Brewers they could find themselves back in second or third place after the series. This is a time when the Giants need to work on increasing the lead between the Giants and the rest of the division by sweeping the Brewers.
The Giants will need to take advantage of the other team’s failures within the division. The NL West Division crown is in the Giants view and with nine of their final fifteen games on the road they hold their destiny in their hands. Compared to the San Diego Padres and the Colorado Rockies the Giants have possibly the easiest schedule the rest of the way. They play the Brewers at home then go on a six game road trip to play the Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies and come back home to finish the season against the Arizona Diamondbacks and their final series against the Padres.
Meanwhile, the Padres have a tougher road to hail. They play eight of their fifteen on the road which starts today with the Cardinals in St. Louis, then to Los Angeles to play the Dodgers and back home to take on the Reds and Cubs and then up to San Francisco to take on the G-men.
The Rockies are going to be the road warriors of the bunch. Minus a six game homestand against the Dodgers and Giants they will are on the road against the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, and a four game season finale against the Cardinals. The Giants and their fans are going to become some huge Albert Pujols and Cardinals fans the rest of the way.
Pitching Matchups:
Tuesday: Randy Wolf (11-11, 4.53 ERA) vs. Madison Bumgarner (5-5, 3.28 ERA)
Wednesday: Yovani Gallardo (12-7, 3.64 ERA) vs. Tim Lincecum (14.9, 3.60 ERA)
Thursday: Chris Narveson (11-7, 5.05 ERA) vs. Barry Zito (8-13, 4.02 ERA)
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