The San Francisco Giants beat the Texas Rangers Sunday, 3-2, to complete the three game sweep over the American League West leaders, the third such series outcome in a row for the Giants after being swept in three straight by the Los Angeles Angels.
Barry Zito (4-7) pitched no-hit ball into the seventh before surrendering a two run homerun to Andruw Jones (8) to tie the score. Randy Winn drove in Aaron Rowand with an RBI single off losing pitcher Kevin Millwood (7-5) in the bottom of the frame for the final score. Brian Wilson pitched a perfect ninth for his 19th save of the season.
In the opener, the Giants rallied around homeruns by Aaron Rowand (7), Travis Ishikawa (3), and a go ahead, two-run shot by Fred Lewis (4) in the bottom of the sixth off Rangers starter Scott Feldman (5-2) to get starter Randy Johnson off the hook and make a winner out of Sergio Romo (1-0). Romo combined with four other relievers to toss 3 1/3 shutout innings with Brian Wilson pitching the ninth for the save. Michael Young hit a homerun, his tenth, in a losing effort.
In the middle game, Matt Cain continued his dominance of MLB, surrendering one run in eight innings, striking out eight. However, Rangers starter Dexter Holland matched him, going seven strong. The game went into extra innings and ended in the eleventh, when Nate Schierholtz scooted home with the winning run on a wild pitch by Jason Jennings (2-3). Sergio Romo tossed a shutout inning for the win (2-0).
It was nice to see the pitching return after the series with the Angels. The biggest litmus test will be how Jonathan Sanchez does on his next start against the Athletics. Ishikawa’s RBI between the homerun in the opener and the fielders choice groundout tonight were welcomed and should give the team more confidence in him. Also, he made some nice plays that I don’t think Pablo Sandoval would have. Still don’t like seeing Rich Aurilia starting at first, as he did in the middle game. Again, nice to see them do well against a stacked AL offense who were leading their division coming in. Hopefully they can continue the momentum going into the next series. Final thought, between Brian Wilson and Romo, this team has the back two innings sealed. They’re both awesome.
The Giants next play on the road, Monday night, against the Oakland Athletics. The Rangers will play on Tuesday at Arizona.











July 5th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
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