J Russell Mikkelsen's San Francisco Giants fan blog

Dodgers up, facing Tim.

Unfortunately Juan Uribe has placed Pablo Sandoval at third. We don't yet know why. They showed a replay of Pablo's last at bat and he did look like he was in a little pain during his futile jog towards first on a fly out.

Orlando Hudson has the first hit of the game for the Dodgers. Manny follows him. 

Timmy is clearly nervous facing Manny because his first pitch missed the strike zone by a yard. Manny flies harmlessly out to right. Tim settled down.

They just gave word that Pablo left due to "tightness in the left groin." Let's hope it loosens up over night. 

Another strike out ends the inning. Tim is on it.

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Top of the Fourth"

Giants up, facing Stults.

We are getting a good long shot of Carney Lansford, Giants hitting coach, and Timmy is sitting behind him. Tim has got a cold. He is sucking up snot and coughing up a storm. It doesn't help that it is a cold, cold day in San Francisco. It hasn't effected his pitching yet. At least not negatively.

Aaron Rowand just stole second. Who knew he had the legs to make a steal. Beat the throw by a handful of milliseconds.

Nate Schierholtz, who's starting at right for Randy Winn who bruised his ankle yesterday, slices the ball to left field and it just stays fair. Two out, RBI double and the Dodgers' bullpen comes alive. The fans are chanting already. I like it!

How did Burriss hit that one? That pitch was inches off the ground at the middle of the plate. Burriss already went scuba diving for one curveball, making himself look foolish while doing it, this one he dug out just enough to barely get over Furcal's head and drop in. Lowest, slowest and weakest bloop single I may have ever seen. Oh, with two outs, Nate was running all the way and easily made it home for the score.

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Bottom of the Third"

Dodgers up, facing Lincecum.

Eric Stults is batting EIGHTH! He's the second batter of the inning. The last time a Dodger pitcher did not hit ninth was 1965... 44 years ago. It was Don Drysdale and he bat seventh! But that's because Don Drysdale was a .300 hitter. Look it up. 29 career home runs. Seventh most all-time by a pitcher. Juan Pierre is ninth. No wonder he's not running hard in the outfield. He's been emasculated. 

Pierre hits it straight to Aurillia at first and he's out in a flash. Three up, three down.

Whatever helps the Dodgers lose is a fine strategy in my book. 

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Top of the Third"

Giants up, facing Eric Stults.

The second pitch of the inning made it all the way to the backstop, but not in any ordinary way. Russell Martin would have needed to leap about three feet in the air to have caught that one.

Stults is missing the plate pretty badly, when he's missing. And his throw to first on Lincecum's sacrifice bunt almost made it to right field. Loney jumped off the bag though, and still had plenty of time to tag for the force out.

Renteria has a solid at bat. Laid off the balls, fouled off the strikes until he got a pitch to hit. And he put a soft line drive into opposite field for an RBI. Excellent batting.

DODGERS 0 GIANTS 3

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Bottom of the Second"

Dodgers up, facing Tim Lincecum.

Three outs on ten pitches. Only 4 pitches thrown for the last two outs.

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Top of the Second"

Again I was unable to write during much of the first inning. I'll be picking it up at Bengie's improbable triple.

Who would've thought Bengie Molina would ever hit a triple, let alone to left center. It looked like a home run but, like so many hard hit drives in Giants Stadium, fell short due to wind. Juan Pierre, CF  for the Dodgers, had enough time to get to the ball, but seemed to be convinced that it was well over the wall. He put little effort into running it down made an awkward jump at the ball. In fact, on the replay it looks like he may have jumped at the ball after it hit the wall. 

The ball careemed into dead center field and Pierre jogged after it. Eventually Ethier, coming all the over from right got to the ball but by that time the slowest runner in baseball was just 50 feet from third. There wasn't even a throw.

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Game 3 of a three-game series"

Fred Ohman is pitching for Broxton.

Fred Lewis struck out for the third time. Same thing he did yesterday. Impressive. Randy Winn is out on one pitch with an easy fly to center.

Unless Pablo Sandoval can figure out a way to hit a three run homer with the bases empty, I think we can throw in the towel. Nope. That caught fly to right counted as an out instead of three runs. 

DODGERS 5 GIANTS 3

My final thoughts: Dodgers suck.

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Bottom of the Ninth"

Dodgers up, facing Bob Howry.

Manny's got his third (second lead off) double of the game. Definetely not the type of player we need, right Sabean?

There goes the game. Double for Ethier after maybe 8 balls fouled back in counts 1-2 and 2-2. Dodgers re-take the lead.

Sky high to triples alley. Nobody can get there. Bounces at the base of the wall for an easy triple and this game is as good as over. I'm disgusted. I hate the Dodgers.

I didn't bother watching the rest of the inning but apparently we got out without giving up any more. But even with the top of our order coming up, will it really matter?

DODGERS 5 GIANTS 3

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Top of the Ninth"

Giants up, facing Billingsley.

Pablo hits a grounder up the middle that somehow curves far towards right field. So far that he thought about going two, and a faster runner would've made a double out of it. Sandoval, however, chose to stay at first.

Bengie, the Giants personal wrecking ball, is up with no outs. And he's got no hits so far today... still has none.

Rowand has a great at bat and walks on 4 pitches. But Ishikawa and Uribe bat behind him... Maybe if I bad mouth Ishikawa too, he'll rip one off as well.

Closer Jonathon Broxton is pitching now.

Ishikawa stole Rowand's eyes for this at bat: 3-0. Walked him!

Bases loaded. One out. Uribe's up. Like I said before, might as well call it an inning. 

Fans are chanting. Count's at 0-2. Uribe juuuuuuuuust checked his swing to make it 2-2. Braxton is throwing 97 mph. Full count! Uribe is fighting off strikes left and right. Groundball to third! Throw to home is wide of the plate. Martin lays out to nab it and

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Bottom of the Eighth"

Dodgers up, facing Osiris Matos.

This freaking ump has removed the outside corner off the plate for Dodgers hitters, not to mention, the bottom of the zone. I am pissed. But Matos gets Furcal to swing at and miss two excellent pitches and he's gone.

Three up, three down for Matos.

Continue reading "Dodgers at Giants, Top of the Eighth"