Bad loss for the Giants. They needed this game. They had the winning run at the plate in the bottom of the 9th with nobody out and couldn't deliver. Heck, they had the tying run on the bases. Nate Schierholtz struck out on a 3-2 fastball. It was ball 4 but he swung. "Obviously, this was the biggest at bat of the year for me," he said. "You always want to be up there in the bottom of the 9th."
The Giants fall to 3 1/2 behind Colorado and I've learned my lesson. I won't write them off although things get pretty tough from here. They have 16 games left, so consider this a 16-game playoff.
For what it's worth these are some Giants who did not play well in this important game: Renteria, Rowand, Torres, Cain.
Note. As I mentioned in a previous blog Jeff Fletcher has set me up on Twitter. I see a bunch of you are following me on Twitter. For the time being my Twitter tweets will be limited to alerting readers I've posted a blog. Jeff said he'll actually teach me to "go to the next level" when he thinks I'm ready to tweet real Twitters or twitter real tweets -- you know what I mean.
Renteria and Rowand playing poorly. Shocking.
Next year please play Schierholtz regularly. Either Molina shares time with Posey or he moves on. If there's no place to trade Rowand have him run into the outfield wall until he can be put on the IR.
Get a real bat for the outfield. Either trade or free-agent, or someone get that huge hole out of Bowker's swing.
Give Randy Winn his watch and push him out the door.
The Giants had way too much great pitching this year to be saddled with such a weak batting order.
And, sorry, either get rid of all the dead wood on the roster or at least get rid of Bochy, who seems obligated to play over-the-hill players for sentimental purposes.