GIANTS SMELLING PLAYOFFS NOW - MAGIC # IS NOW "3"

The 2010 San Francisco Giants are a team of destiny. They beat the lowly Arizona Diamonbacks tonight by a score of 3-1 and shaved a game off their magic number. It went from 4 to 3, as the Padres finally won one vs the Cubs at Petco.

The Giants played with their rotation and gave their Ace Tim Lincecum the ball tonight instead of normal scheduled starter Madison Bumgarner. The Giants brass made this decision just in case it came down to the last day of the season with the Giants down 1 game or if the season ended in a tie. They would send Lincecum out there to face the Padres if either of those crucial games come to pass.

This night didn't start off good for Timmy. He began the game throwing 90-91 mph fastballs and had bad location doing it. He gave up a homerun to lead off the game to Stephen Drew on a hanging curve ball. Tim walked a few to make his pitch count grow, but that ended up being the only run that he and the Giants gave up in the game.

The Giants got all 3 of their runs in the fourth inning on a 3 run dagger to the hearts of Padre fans watching all over the World. It happened after Aubrey Huff singled and Buster Posey walked. Pat "Scrap-Heap" Burrell put himself into the historical books of the team he followed when he was growing up in Boulder Creek, CA. By the way, I lived in Boulder Creek for some years, and he must have been GOOD for someone to even notice him! The only thing there is in Boulder Creek is trees, more trees, and.....oh yeah, more trees.

Now back to Lincecum. Tonight he proved to everyone, and more importantly to himself, that he doesn't need to have a blazing fastball to get outs and to make batters swing and miss. The highest reading I saw tonight on his fastball was 92mph, but he kept the balls low and mixed speeds with his breaking balls and changeups, while keeping hitters honest by sticking the fastball on the corners. He went seven innings and struck out 11 batters. He looked every bit like the Giants Ace and looked ready to take this playoff run to a historic San Francisco level!

On another note, Giants closer Brian Wilson got in a little trouble in the 9th, but "The Bearded One", as John Miller calls him, recorded his league leading 47th save, just 1 behind the Giants all time record set by "Shooter" Rod Beck back in 1993.