Giants 5, D'Backs 4

We knew that the first victory following yesterday's nightmare wouldn't come easy. Indeed, it looked like it was going to be another agonizing defeat tonight after Nate Schierholtz overthrew the cutoff man allowing the go-ahead run to be in scoring position with Brian Wilson losing steam. But Sergio Romo came in and promptly made all Giants players and fans breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The pitching matchup of Dan Haren against Matt Cain lived up to the hype. Both of them pitched brilliantly. Matt Cain received well-deserved run support in the 1st half of the season, but all of that has disappeared. In his last three outings, he's allowed only 5 earned runs in 22.1 innings, but with no wins to show for it. Cain lowered his already sparkling ERA down to 2.39 with his effort tonight. Cain is a strikeout/fly-ball pitcher, but tonight, he was able to get the D'Backs hitters to pound the ball into the ground. Tonight Cain got 12 ground-ball outs against 4 fly-ball outs, the reverse of his usual ratio. I can't even imagine the frustration of the Giants' Big Three of Lincecum, Cain, and Zito as they are routinely denied victories by this shabby lineup. But all they can do is keep the opposition from crossing the plate as little as possible.

Player of the game: Travis Ishikawa, who hit a go-ahead 3-run bomb in the 8th inning, but also played some nice defense on a pickoff move from Jeremy Affeldt to nail down Ryan Roberts. Ishikawa has had a few of these all-around excellent games at home this season, but overall, he has been a very inconsistent player for the Giants this year. But the Giants don't win tonight without him.

The Giants cannot settle for 2 out of 3 this series. They have to beat down the bad teams, and the D'Backs are one of the worst in baseball. Let's look for Jonathan Sanchez to continue his run of excellent pitching tomorrow.