Manny Haunts The Giants Yet Again

Manny was lurking on the dugout bench and you know that Joe Torre was waiting for the right moment to use his star slugger. In true Hollywood fashion, Manny Ramirez belted a 2-run HR off of Sergio Romo in the bottom of the 8th inning to give the Dodgers a 2-1 victory and 2 out of 3 wins in this first series between the two rivals. You can't blame Bruce Bochy one bit for bringing in Romo in relief of Barry Zito. Up until serving up the homerun to Manny, Romo hadn't given up a run all year. Romo didn't throw Manny a hanger either. It was simply the case of a great hitter beating a well-placed pitch.

After the first two wild games of this series, it was nice to watch a pitcher's duel. Barry Zito was FANTASTIC again and deserved his 3rd victory of the year. He had command of all of his pitches and he attacked the strike zone all day. Unfortunately, his walk of Garrett Anderson in the 8th inning was his lone misstep. Zito after 3 starts sports a 1.86 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP. Let's hope he keeps pitching like this.

The Giants scored 17 runs in the first two games of this series, but were able to get only 1 run across today on a solo HR by Juan Uribe. Clayton Kershaw, who's only 22 years old, was dominant as he struck out 9 Giants in 7 innings. However, the Giants had chances to score more runs off of Kershaw. They stranded Nate Schierholtz and Aubrey Huff in scoring position in the 3rd and 4th inning, and left the bases loaded in the 8th inning. They weren't able to execute with good situational at-bats, which are even more important against a commanding pitcher such as Kershaw.

It's time for the Giants to put this tough loss behind them, regroup, and play tough against the San Diego Padres, a team that is much worse than them. With Cain and Sanchez lined up to start the first two games of the series, the Giants have a great chance to at least take two out of three.

***I bow down to Tim Lincecum's greatness. Not only did he completely dominate the Dodgers for 6 shutout innings yesterday, he also collected 3 hits and drove in 3 runs. He's unbelievable.