Friday, April 27, 2007

Bummer—Not!

I suppose it’s wrong for me not to have commented on the Giants’ current eight-game winning streak, during which they’ve swept the Cardinals and Diamondbacks at home, then the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Ask me if this upsets me any.

Some of this has to do with the fact that people haven’t been getting hits against Matt Cain, and Barry Zito has looked good lately. Almost every Giants batter has delivered one or more big hits. Omar Vizquel has been amazing in the field. And then there’s Barry Bonds, whose seven home runs trail only Jimmy Rollins (who, inexplicably, has eight) in the National League and who’s been hitting around .500 lately. (I should mention that this all started when Bonds was moved back to the cleanup spot. I have no idea why.)

The last two games each felt like “character” wins. On Wednesday the Giants scored four in the first—base hits by Dave Roberts, Todd Linden, and Rich Aurilia, then a three-run bomb by Bonds—but Noah Lowry looked like he wanted to give them all back early. The Dodgers eventually tied it up, but Pedro Feliz hit a late home run, and Armando Benitez shut the door in the ninth. Then last night the Dodgers took an early lead against Russ Ortiz, who just didn’t look at all comfortable (or good), eventually stretching it out to 3-0, before the Giants tied the game on a bunch of singles and doubles. Big hits by Ray Durham and Bengie Molina gave them a two-run lead. The Dodgers scored another run—who cares how?—but Benitez did his job again. He’s seven for seven in save opportunities, though most of them have been nail-biters.
So the Giants are 12-8 now and sitting atop the NL West, no doubt keeping the seat warm for someone else. Still, they started out 2-7, you know? It’s hard not to enjoy their recent good fortune.

It’s really hard not to enjoy a sweep of the Dodgers, which happens more frequently than visits from Halley’s Comet, but not that much more frequently.

Sorry for the somewhat vanilla tone of this entry; it's just that a really cool winning streak speaks for itself.

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