Giants Look to Salvage a Game, Stay in First Place in Series Finale Against Dodgers

By Vince Cestone
@vintalkingiants






                              VS

The San Francisco Giants sit atop the National League West with a slim one-game lead, but the Los Angeles Dodgers and their new shortstop Hanley Ramirez have plans to share the top spot.

The Dodgers bolstered their lineup by acquiring Ramirez from the Miami Marlins in exchange for pitcher Nathan Eovaldi and a minor leaguer. Although Ramirez is batting just .252 for the season, he has 15 home runs and is 6-for-16 with the Dodgers.

In his first at-bat with Los Angeles against the St. Louis Cardinals, Ramirez tripled and then came in to score. He proceeded to hit a game-winning home run for the Dodgers on a hanging slider from Sergio Romo in the 10th of inning of Friday night's game against the Giants.

So far, the Giants have countered by acquiring Marco Scutaro,who will play third base in the absence of Pablo Sandoval, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list on Saturday with a hamstring strain. Scutaro is batting .271, with four home runs and 30 RBIs.

Although the Giants may be short-handed, San Francisco will send Ryan Vogelsong against the retooled Dodgers in the series finale. Vogelsong (8-4, 2.26 ERA) is 2-0 against the Dodgers this year with an 0.63 ERA.

In order to avoid the sweep at the hands of their rivals, the Giants will have to be on top of their game. The Dodgers' ace Clayton Kershaw (7-6, 3.14 ERA) will face off against San Francisco for the third time this season.

Vogelsong beat Kershaw twice this season by scores of 2-1 and 2-0.

The Giants lost Game 1 in the 10th inning on Ramirez's home run, after they tied the game in the eighth on a Brandon Belt two-run single. Los Angeles routed Barry Zito and the Giants 10-0 in Game 2, thanks to seven combined RBIs from Matt Kemp and Hanley Ramirez.

Matt Cain received a no-decision in Game 1.

Too much great pitching from Chad Billingsley and too little hitting doomed the Giants.

San Francisco has still been hot since the All-Star break. They have gone 9-5 to start the second half, including a strong 4-2 East Coast road trip.

Here are some more news and notes about tonight's rivalry game.

• The Giants outscored the Dodgers 13-0 in their three-game sweep of  Los Angeles June 25-27 at AT&T Park.
• The Giants are 4-4 against the Dodgers this season.
• ESPN predicts the Giants will have a 45% chance of beating the Dodgers today.
• The Dodgers are 2-2 since acquiring Ramirez.
• The Dodgers have not shutout the Giants by this large of a margin since 1997, where they beat them 11-0.
• Kershaw's career ERA against the Giants is 1.45, the lowest all-time--over a minimum of 50 innings.

Weather Report:

The game-time temperature will be a cool 61 degrees. An 11-mph  west-northwest wind will carry the ball to slightly right of center, a spot Dodgers' slugger Matt Kemp loves to take the ball.

Who's Hot:

• Melky Cabrera: 30-for-79, .380, 3 HR, 13 RBI, .414 on-base percentage.

Who's Not:

•  Brandon Belt: 10-for-58, .172, 4 RBI, 25 strikeouts, .258 OBP, .207 slugging percentage, .465 OPS.

 ...

The Giants have been playing good baseball since the break. Although the Dodgers took the first two games of the series, the Giants can still escape with a two-game lead in the NL West by winning one-out-of-three.

Even if the worst happens and the Dodgers sweep, the Giants will still be percentage points ahead of the Dodgers, but if the Giants can continue to pitch well at home and get just enough offense, they should have a great chance of winning today's game.

Of course, they will need to catch the ball too. Shortstop Brandon Crawford committed one miscue in the game yesterday, and Melky Cabrera failed to hit the cutoff man on a play at the plate.

San Francisco must also improve on their situational hitting. Both in the second and fifth innings, the Giants had a runner at second with nobody out, but failed to move the runner over or get him in.

With the Giants needing to play scrappy, especially with Sandoval out of the lineup, they cannot fail in those productive-out situations if they expect to win ball games. Once again, the Giants were plagued with their overaggressiveness with runners on base.

Still, the Giants are in first place by one game. They must realize that the pressure is on the Dodgers--not them--so it is their job to stay loose and look like the team ahead in the standings.



Follow me on Twitter @vintalkingiants

Be sure to subscribe to my blog (subscribe button is on the left side of the web site).

Information from ESPN.com contributed to this article.

Check out my NBCBayArea.com article on the San Jose Giants' Joe Panik.

Giants Look For Third-Straight Series Sweep at Home Versus Cross-Bay Rival Athletics

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.

Giants Score Their First Runs of 2012

By SD Dirk on Flickr (Originally posted to Flickr as "Brandon Crawford") [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The San Francisco Giants were blanked until the fifth inning, when Melky Cabrera hit a two-run home run off of Ian Kennedy to put the Giants on the board at 3-2.

The Giants tied the game at 3-3 on an RBI groundout by Brandon Crawford. Aubrey Huff and Brandon Belt both got hits in the inning, and were moved over on a Ryan Theriot sacrifice bunt.

The game is currently in the bottom of the sixth inning. The Diamondbacks have a 5-3 lead.

...

The Giants did a great job in the sixth inning tying the game on a productive out. Brandon Crawford is definitely an X-factor for San Francisco, and he came up big the sixth inning.

More at-bats like that from San Francisco hitters, and the Giants will be just fine in 2012.