Pitching, pitching, pitching. Pitching was once again the main factor for the San Francisco Giants winning the series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Barry Zito, Matt Cain, and Jonathon Sanchez, all had great starts for the team. Barry Zito has continued his transformation this season pitching six strong innings. Following in Zito's footsteps, Matt Cain had a similar game... pitching 6 strong innings. To close out the series, Jonathon Sanchez had a wonderful game. In 8 shutout innings, Sanchez only allowed 3 hits, and recorded 11 strikeouts. He had control of the game, and completely dominated.
Edgar Renteria's hot streak has mellowed out, yet he still hitting .382. He made a costly error in the Giants lone loss of the series, but overall his defense has still improved over last season. This is extremly rare to say for a player who is in their mid-30's. Bengie Molina has taken off since Renteria has cooled down, now leading the team with a .455 batting average. Pablo Sandoval has also begin to destroy the ball recently, prompting my conclusion that he will become an all-star, for the first time, this season.
New addition to the team Aubrey Huff has played well. He is currently 4th in the National League in runs scored. This statistic is vital to the Giants, who finished last season near the bottom of the league for runs scocred. Huff also hit an inside-the-park homerun in the series finale. It was his first homer in a Giants uniform. The Giants now have 10 players who have hit a homerun this season, however not one of these 10 players has managed to hit more than 1 homer.
San Francisco is currently tied for the most wins in the major leagues this season. Hensley "Bam Bam" Meulens, the Giants new hitting coach has a lot to do with this. In every game this season, the Giants have scored at least 5 runs, except for two. In comparision to last season, through the first 9 games of the season, the Giants scored less than five runs in 7 of those 9 games! New additions to the team have helped the team produce runs, but the change in batting coaches seems to be working out terifficly. It's still extremly early in the season, however if the Giants can continue to score runs, there will be no stopping this team considering the way they dominate on the pitching mound.
The Giants will play their next series in Los Angelos to take on the much hated Dodgers. Last season, the Dodgers won the season series 11-7 over the San Francisco Giants.
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