Giants 6, Rockies 3

The overarching theme of the 2009 San Francisco Giants has been this team's resiliency. After such a disheartening loss yesterday in Cincinnati, the Giants could have easily carried the disappointments of that game into tonight's matchup against the Rockies. Instead, they forgot about yesterday's clunker, and they responded with ferocity and grit to take the first game of this crucial 4-game series. There's nothing better than drawing first blood and making the opposing team play catch-up early, and the Giants did just that by striking for 3 first-inning runs off of Aaron Cook, who stymied the Giants in their previous meeting. Bruce Bochy called on his veteran players to step up to the task, and they responded tonight. Both Edgar Renteria and Bengie Molina had two hits (Molina with a key RBI double in the 1st inning), and Aaron Rowand banged out 3 hits including an opposite-field 3-run homerun to break the game open (a homerun that completely fooled Duane Kuiper). Tonight's win was huge, not only in terms of gaining ground in the standings, but also in increasing the odds of the Giants leaving Denver with a split of the four games with Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito going on Sunday and Monday.

Jonathan Sanchez followed up his solid outing in New York last Sunday with another very good start, although it would have been nice to see him go more than 5 innings. He struck out 8 batters in 5 innings, at times making some of the Rockies' hitters look silly (that splitter he threw to Garrett Atkins in the 3rd inning was absolutely filthy). The Rockies managed only two hits off Sanchez, lowering his opp. batting average to .222. However, Sanchez took himself out of the game with four walks, including one to the Rockies pitcher Josh Fogg in the 5th inning that made Bruce Bochy livid. Sanchez is blessed with so many gifts, and if he ever is able to gain consistent command of his pitches, he has the potential to be a monster, a pitcher who could easily rack up 15 wins in a season. There aren't many pitchers in the big leagues who have such explosive fastballs that hitters cannot catch up to like Sanchez does. With how dominant he looks at times, we can see why Brian Sabean was reluctant to trade him. He's made such marked improvements this season, and hopefully he can continue this upward trend. Add Sanchez to Lincecum, Cain, and a hot Barry Zito, and the Giants have perhaps the deepest pitching staff in the majors that will keep them in the hunt until the very end.

What more can you say about Jeremy Affeldt? He's been one of the best free-agent signings with a sparkling 1.93 ERA in 55 appearances. He sealed the victory for the Giants tonight by getting Todd Helton to ground into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded. Affeldt has now induced 16 double-play ground balls this season 46.2 innings of work. That's just ridiculous. What a great pickup by Brian Sabean!

Yes, tonight's victory was fantastic, but there are still lots of issues with this team's offense, particularly situational hitting. The Giants had chances in the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings tonight (runners at 2nd and 3rd with 1 out in the 6th and 7th) to really slam the door on this game, yet they didn't come through. Sure, they had a 6-1 lead, but the combination of hitter-friendly Coors Field and the deep Rockies lineup makes no lead safe when playing the Rockies in Denver. Also, very good, playoff-contending teams simply do not squander as many opportunities as the Giants do. All across the board, they have to improve their at-bats with runners in scoring position, especially as they are already a team that struggles to score runs in the first place.

Some final tid-bits: The Giants are catching a huge break this series with the hot-hitting Giants-killer Troy Tulowitzki sidelined with the flu...After an 0-15 slump and a horrible error in left field in the 1st inning, Eugenio Velez, as he should, will probably be relegated back to the bench. The Giants' best chance to win games is when Winn, Rowand, and Schierholtz start in the outfield...Fred Lewis had probably his worst at-bat of the season in the 6th inning tonight with runners on 2nd and 3rd and only one out, and that is saying a lot considering how awful he's been this year. The great Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle has written many times about the marked difference between a good athlete and a ballplayer, and Fred Lewis clearly is not the latter. The time to say goodbye to Lewis was four months ago.