The Series: St. Louis Cardinals

The San Francisco Giants bounced back nicely from a sweep in San Diego. They took 2 of 3 games from the St. Louis Cardinals, despite only managing to average 2 runs a game in the series.

Barry Zito appears to be back his Cy Young form. In his four starts this season, Zito is 3-0 with a 1.23 ERA, and and amazing 0.84 WHIP. His WHIP is 4th in the NL though this point in the season. To put this stat in perspective, Tim Lincecum's WHIP in his four starts is 0.93. Having any stat better than Tim Lincecum is very impressive. Barry Zito has not allowed a homerun all season, a problem he has had since putting on a Giants uniform. Zito's dominating start in this series against the Cardinals is extraordinary. In 8 Innings pitched, Barry allowed 0 Runs , 3 hits, and recorded 10 Strikeouts. One thing that I think needs to mentioned about Zito is that this season is basically a contract year. After this season, the Giants have a 7 million dollar buyout option that if purchased would terminate the rest of Zito's contract. Zito has not lived up to to his 7 year-127 million dollar contract he signed over 3 years ago, but if he has an incredibly season, the Giants would most likely not purchase this option, and let him play through the remaining three years of his contract.

Continuing on the dominance of starting pitching in the series, Tim Lincecum also had a monstrous start. The Freak pitched 7 innings, allowed only one run, 6 hits, and stroke out 8. The earned run that was allowed caused Timmy's ERA to soar to 1.00 on the year. Lincecum has received a win in every start this season making him 4-0 on the year. Opposite of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain -- who started the series finale against the Cardinals -- received his first decision of the year. Of course that decision was a loss. Matt pitched a season-low 5 innings, and despite numerous quality starts, failed to pick up his first win of 2010.

After a surprising offensive start to the season, it seemed this might be the year the Giants could manage to score runs effectively. This has been taken back into reality over the past two series, in which the Giants have averaged 1.6 runs per game. Edgar Renteria who began the season as one of the hottest hitters in the world, has seen his average drop to .273. John Bowker who started the season as a the opening day right fielder has seemed to have lost his job. Bowker who took a roster spot away from Fred Lewis, is batting .175 for the year. Once Aaron Rowand returns from injury, it will be interesting to see if Bowker -- who has one minor league option left -- will be sent down to the minors.

Another key note for the Giants is that Pablo Sandoval is batting .361 for the year, and is currently 3rd in the NL in batting average. He is 7th in the NL for OBP (.432), and 9th in OPS (1.015). Pablo cannot carry the team by himself, and for the Giants to be successful this year, the team will need another player to step up his batting.

San Francisco remains 1 game behind San Diego in the National League West standings. The Giants will play the Philadelphia Phillies in their next series.