Finally

The Giants got it done. Finally, they pulled out a win against someone who wasn't the Rockies. For once, it was done in the style of play expected out of the Giants without Bonds in their lineup: pitching and defense. Schmidt, although he's still not showing the dominating pitcher he was last season, is beginning to show glimpses of his former self. After allowing a 3 run homer to Chad Tracy, Schmidt settled down and managed to shut down the D-Backs and kick it to the bullpen with the Giants in striking distance. Speaking of that bullpen of ours, something woke them up. The bullpen pitched 7 1/3 scoreless innings. The one criticism I have for this game, is not about the way the Giants played, but more about the way Felipe Alou managed his bullpen. Alou only left Brower in for 2/3 of an inning. Brower used to be a starter, and has the endurance to go 2, maybe even 3 innings out of the bullpen. Instead of leaving him in, Felipe opted for the lefty-lefty matchup. Brower wasn't really in any sort of jam, and yet Alou yanked him just for the matchup. Another pitcher that could have given more than inning, Matt Herges, was left in for only a third of an inning. Felipe burned through his bullpen like child opening presents on Christmas, and it almost cost him tonight's starter.

Speaking of which, going for the Giants tonight is Kirk Rueter. If Rueter doesn't show me something in his start tonight, I'm calling for Foppert. I'm trying to hold faith in the fact that Woody is a veteran pitcher, who knows when his job is on the line. So far this season Rueter has been less than impressive in his last two starts. In his first start of the season, Woody went 5 innings, gave up 3 hits, and surrendered 2 runs. A good performance, except we need him to 7 innings. If he keeps on showing that he can't be effective after the 5th inning, he would be more valuable in the Giants' bullpen more than he would in the starting rotation. For Rueter to show me something tonight, in my opinion he's going to need to last 6-7 innings and I'll be amply satisfied. Hopefully, Kirk feels Jesse Foppert breathing down his neck and lets that motivate him to show us the Woody that won 16 games in 1998.


Niekro Filling in for Alou and then some
Since he started filling in for an injured J.T. Snow, he's gone 6-16 with 2 homers and 4 RBI's. I mentioned in an earlier post how I liked Lance's swing from the get go in spring training. Last night, he hit a home run off of Russ Ortiz a la Richie Sexson. He drove it out to left using Sexson's trademark bent-arm swing. I'll be sad to see him go back down to the minors. He's made some major contributions so far and he's proven that he can hit Major League pitching. Moises Alou was activated from the disabled list today so the Giant's lineup will be all the more potent with him in there.


Let's see how this game plays out. Rueter needs to rebound, Moises needs to get his first hit as a Giant, and Fonzie needs to stay hot. Buckle your seatbelts, this one's going to be wild...