Who said that 1-0 games were boring? Not me, that's what September games are all about when you are in contention. You might ask why I'm writing this so late after the game, after all, it's 5am right now. Well I'll tell you the truth, I fell asleep. Hey, I had a long day and I got up early. By the way, this game wore me out too! This is for people that want to get up in the mornin and want to read about the game they missed, which I'm sure most of you didn't.
Well, Jonathan Sanchez looked like Jeckel and Hyde, the offense couldn't do a thing against Clayton Richard, and they wasted opportunities with runners in scoring position late, but the Giants still overcame it to beat Padres for the second night in a row to draw even atop the NL West with 20 games left.
This was a little different than the first game where the Giants played homerun derby. This was the old stlye "ground attack" that I was talking about. The only run was scored in the seventh inning. It started off when Aubrey Huff got hit with a pitch by Clayton Richard. It hit him in the funny bone, and when trainer Mark Gruesbeck came out to look at it, Huff ran away from him. He wanted nothing to do with it. After the game, he talked about it, saying he had to "just suck it up. I didn't want to Roger Dorn it too much out there." A quote referring to one of the greatest movies of all time, Major League! He then stole second base as Patt Burrell struck out. Jose Guillen then hit a sharp ground ball in the hole between 3rd and short. Huff thought it was going to get by Miguel Tejada so he took off to 3rd. Tejada fielded the ball and threw to 3rd but Huff just beat the tag. If Tejada went to 1st he would have had Guillen, who runs just about as fast as Bengie Molina out there. Bruce Bochy then put in Nate Shierholtz to pinch run for Guillen, which was a big move in the game. The next batter was Juan Uribe. He hit a ground ball that might have been a double play, but Shierholtz went into second base hard and got a little piece of David Eckstein. The ball was slowed down a little and Uribe was safe at first, scoring Huff.
This was an agonizing game, watching Jonathan Sanchez struggle through 5 innings, walking 7 batters which tied his career high. He did the best he could while not having his best stuff out there. "I wasn't throwing anything over the plate they could hit. I didn't have my best stuff today. I just threw what I had." "I went five innings, but we have a pretty good bullpen and they did the job."
Santiago Casilla, Ramon Ramirez, Sergio Romo, and Javier Lopez bridged gave up no runs and bridged the gap to closer Brian Wilson, who just came in and got a ho-hum 5-out save. This is the 10th time this season he has been asked to save a game of more than 3 outs, way more than any closer in baseball. He is 9/10 in those situations. This was his 42nd save, tyin him for the Major League lead with Tampa Bay's Rafael Soriano. He is now 6 behind Rod Beck for the Giants single season record in saves and 3 back of Rob Nenn for second all time.
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