A pattern is starting to emerge.
For the past two seasons, The San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics exchanged series sweeps against each other. The Bay Area team who played at home was the club who brought out the broom.
The two teams play each other six times per year, three in San Francisco and three in Oakland.
History appears to be repeating itself.
Game 1 and Game 2 of the Bay Bridge Series were like night and day. Offense erupted in Game 1, where the Giants held on to beat the A's 8-6.
Game 2, however, was more of the light offensive game you would expect from these two clubs.
The Giants and A's took a scoreless tie into the seventh inning. Ryan Vogelsong would outlast Tyson Ross in a classic pitcher's duel.
Ross escaped a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the first inning. With one out, he induced an infield popout from Angel Pagan, followed by a strikeout from Brandon Belt.
In the second inning, the Giants left another runner in scoring position, as Brandon Crawford struck out swinging.
San Francisco broke through in seventh inning. With the bases loaded and one out, Melky Cabrera hit a sacrifice fly into deep right-center field, giving the Giants a 1-0 lead.
The Giants tacked on three more runs in the inning. Buster Posey's RBI ground-rule double knocked in Vogelsong from third base to give the Giants a 2-0 lead.
The next batter, Pagan, delivered the big blow in the game. With Blanco at third and Posey at second, Pagan blooped a single to center field, which scored both runs and made the score 4-0.
This would be more than enough for the Giants.
Vogelsong gave up just one hit and no runs in seven innings, with five strikeouts and one walk. Ross was the hard-luck loser, pitching six innings of two-run ball.
Javier Lopez and Clay Hensley pitched a scoreless inning each to preserve the shutout against the A's. The Giants now have won eleven games in a row against the Athletics at AT&T Park.
Brandon Crawford continued his hot-hitting from the two-spot in the order. On Saturday, he went 2-for-4, and since being inserted into the two-hole, Crawford is 5-for-14 (.357)
The Giants will look for their fourth straight home series sweep against the A's Sunday. Tim Lincecum (2-3, 5.77 ERA) will take on Bartolo Colon (3-4, 4.13 ERA).
...
My respect for Bruce Bochy and the Giants just went up. The fact that this team is 21-19 is simply a borderline miracle.
The Giants have 2011 Fresno Grizzlies or minor leaguers at the following positions in today's lineup: first base (Belt), second base (Emmanuel Burriss), shortstop (Crawford), and third base (Joaquin Arias).
Notice anything? That is the entire Giants' infield.
San Francisco is also 21st in the league in runs scored with 153.
Even more remarkable is the Giants lead all of baseball in errors with 42. Usually, this spells disaster for any ball club, but they are third in the National League in ERA with a 3.36 clip.
More often than not, the pitching bails out the Giants' errors.
It will be interesting to see the moves the Giants make to improve their club.
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