Preview: Los Angeles Dodgers (71-73) @ San Francisco Giants (81-63)

For some reason, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants series has been happening all year at a critical point in the season for the Giants. They have been the type of games that are labeled as “must wins” for the Giants and that moniker has never been truer statement at this point of the season.

The Colorado Rockies are 9-1 in their last 10 games and prior to last night’s game they had won 10 in a row. They are now in process of making their annual push to the playoffs.

What a bunch of jerks for not just laying down like the lowly Dodgers.

The San Diego Padres meanwhile are imploding; they should have run away with this division but in the interest of making things interesting for the month of September they decided to lose 10 games in a row. The Padres are now 5-5 in their last 10 games and could be in the process of losing their chance to make the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the Giants are 7-3 in their last 10 games and just took 3 out of 4 from the Padres in San Diego and now sits a half a game behind the Padres. While the Rockies and the Padres are beating each other the Giants will need to walk all over the Dodgers and hopefully take sole control of first place.

But, that is easier said than done.

Umps were wrong last night

According to Henry Schulman, who spoke with a league official, the umpires made a mistake in the way that they removed Jonathan Broxton from the game.

The official said that the rule requiring a pitcher to be removed after two mound visits should have been superseded by a comment underneath Rule 8.06 that says if two mound visits occur while the same batter is up, the umpires must eject the manager and require the pitcher to face that batter. Only then, should the pitcher be removed.

Lucky for the Giants that the Dodgers didn’t protest the game otherwise it would have to be replayed.

In related news, Torre is serving his 1 game suspension tonight but Clayton Kershaw was given a 5 game suspension and is appealing it.

Giants-Dodgers rivalry is back

Great game last night.  Probably one of the best games I have seen all year.  What is also great about last night’s game is it probably will build the rivalry back up to where it belongs.  Hatred between fans and hatred between players.

Prior to this game it didn’t seem like the “new” Giants really had much of an understanding what the rivalry meant.  Well, they were introduced last night when the beanball war began.

It began in the 5th inning when Lincecum threw high and tight to Kemp and then on the following pitch hit him.  Kemp to exception to that and appeared to walk towards the mound in which Lincecum responded by walking toward Kemp.  Since Kemp is a real wussy anyway nothing happened.  He was probably worried that if he got beat up by a 5′ 9″ pitcher that Rihanna would have broke up with him.