A two run, bases loaded double by Randy Winn in the 13th led to the final decision as the San Francisco Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-5, winning the three game set in LA, two games to one. Brian Wilson (2-0), who blew the save in the bottom of the 12th, surrendering a solo homerun to Casey Blake, earned redemption and the victory by retiring the side in order in the bottom of the 13th. Guillermo Mota picked up the loss.
In the opener, the Giants benefitted from yet another strong outing by Barry Zito (1-2), going six innings and scattering 8 hits while holding the Dodgers to one run. This time, however, he actually picked up the winning decision as the Giants played excellent small ball, scoring twice on sacrifice flies by Aaron Rowand and Edgar Renteria. Dodgers ace Chad Billingsley (5-1) was the hard luck loser, tossing seven quality innings while picking up his first loss of 2009.
In the middle game, Dodger starter Eric Stults (4-1) completely handcuffed the Giants, surrendering only four hits while striking out five in a complete game, 8-0 victory. Juan Pierre drove in three with two doubles and Juan Castro had two doubles and three hits overall, driving in two and scoring twice as the Dodgers hitters feasted upon Giant starter Jonathan Sanchez (1-3) for six hits and five runs in five innings.
Initial impressions of this series are that they played very well. Tim Lincecum didn’t pitch particularily well in the rubber match, but they didn’t panic and actually came from behing for the victory. Emmanuel Burriss is starting to heat up. He had four hits on Sunday and hitting .287 going into tonight’s game (and is actually slated at leadoff tonight). Travis Ishikawa is starting to put some good wood on the ball. Let’s see if he can get out of this slump. Brian Wilson came back from the homerun nicely on Sunday. Nice to see he has some thick skin. Good closers need that. Sanchez is scuffling with his control. He needs to get this worked out. No need to make a change at the #5 spot in the rotation, at this time.
For the Dodgers, Juan Pierre wasn’t horrible replacing Manny Ramirez. However, the balance of power shifts back to the pack with the next 46 games. This series win leaves the Giants 4 1/2 games off the pace. We’ll see how it works out.
The Giants will next host the Washington Nationals on Monday to begin a three game set. The Dodgers travel to Philadelphia to play the world champion Phillies for three, starting Tuesday.
