From the Porch: Swing, please

May 15, 2012

Rockies 5, Giants 4 at AT&T Park. Split 2-game series.

Rockies (14-21): 000 102 101  5 9 1

Giants (18-18): 001 000 300 4 7 3

WP: Brothers (we are same!) (2-2)

LP: Casilla (0-2)

SV: Betancourt (7)

HR: Scutaro (1)

Guthrie: 5.1ip 4h 0er 4bb 4k 4.85era

Lincecum: 7ip 7h 4er 3bb 7k 5.77era

In the NL West: SD beat WSH, ARI beat LA, so, of course, SF still 6 games back. If LA loses, Giants lose; lately if LA wins, SF wins.

Comments: These are tough, let's stop doing this thing where Giants are behind, work like crazy to fire up that anemic offense and catch up, but can't put it away and end up losing. And on a Marco Scutaro homer! Marco Scutaro!

Pitching: Tired of hearing about Timmy being "close" to being himself. Maybe this IS himself now, not sure. To his credit, he was put in very difficult positions by his teammates' terrible defense.

Defense: Ummmm, awful. Three errors again, that's seven 3-error games out of 36. In past two full seasons they had eight 3-error games. When Joaquin Arias left the game after being hit on the wrist by a pitch (X-rays pretty good -- nothing broken), the infield was Belt, Culberson, Crawford and Burriss at 3B. Nobody, even Fresno, is going to win a lot of games with that infield. No real options to fix anything right away, Conor Gillaspie, who isn't a fix to anything anyway, was just sent down and can't come back up to try to fill in at third.

Offense: Mostly icky. Thirteen runners stranded, 2/17 with RISP. Nice comeback in the bottom of the 7th to tie the game and very nice mini-rally to set things up in the bottom of the 9th for a potential tying run. But, er, Nate (Schierholtz), m' friend, if you get a 3-2 fastball right down the middle, it would be a lot more interesting if you would SWING. Another future Pirate, I guess. Gregor Blanco looks, again, like the actual leadoff hitter Giants have been missing for years.

Baseball Quote of the Day: "I could have played another year, but I would have been playing for the money, and baseball deserves better than that." - George Brett

Next game: 7:15 p.m. PDT Wednesday, May 16, St. Louis Cardinals vs. San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park. Jaime Garcia (2-2, 4.09) vs. Madison Bumgarner (5-2, 2.80). TV: CSN-BA.