Johnson Wins #299

Randy Johnson went six innings and only gave up one run en route to his 299th career win. The Big Unit had good command; he walked just one batter and struck out five.

The Giants bullpen pitched well and did not allow an earned run. Brian Wilson picked up his tenth save in fourteen opportunities.

San Francisco's lineup was able to overcome some shaky defense to cement the win for Johnson. Juan Uribe put the Giants up for good in the second with an RBI single that scored Fred Lewis. The "ground attack" struck in the third inning when Aaron Rowand scored on a double steal. Rowand and Nate Schierholtz drove in two more runs in the sixth to make the score 4-1.

But Emmanuel Burriss' error in the top of the seventh nearly cost the Giants the game. What looked like a routine groundball skidded under his glove into right field. Instead of having nobody on and one out, the Braves got their leadoff man on base for free.

Two walks later the bases were loaded for Garrett Anderson, who hit a two out single to bring Atlanta back to within one.

Burriss attoned for his sin by driving in a run in the bottom half of the inning. Andres Torres tacked on another RBI to give San Francisco a 6-3 lead, and that's how the game would end.

Tidbits

• Randy Johnson will go for his 300th win in Washington D.C. against the Nationals.
• Aaron Rowand continued his hot streak with two doubles and an RBI. In the week leading up to this game Rowand hit .375 with two home runs.
  
• The Giants fourth and fifth outfielders both had RBIs in this game.
  
• I'm pretty sure I saw Chipper Jones use two different bats depending on which side of the plate he was hitting from. His right handed bat was black and his left handed bat had a natural color. Maybe I was seeing things but I don't think so.
• It feels good to sweep the Atlanta Braves:)
  

No Sweep? No Problem.

Sunday the Giants avoided a ball-busting four game sweep on the strength of Matt Cain's 4th victory of the year.

The young right-hander threw six shutout innings, and struck out two while allowing three hits and five walks. Cain littered the diamond with baserunners, as the Mets leadoff hitters managed to reach base four out of the six innings he pitched, but managed to wiggle his way out of tight spots all day.

The Giants starter helped himself with the bat in the fifth inning, by hitting an rbi single. Bengie Molina drove in Pablo Sandoval in the first, for the Giants only other run of the game. Two runs were all they needed though, as Brian Wilson saved the shutout in the ninth, his ninth save of the year. San Francisco improved to 15-0 in games when they score first.

Kevin Frandsen, who was called up from Triple A Fresno and started at shortstop, went 0 for 4 but played well in the field.

Twittergate Is Over

One of the funnier non stories of the season has now been put to rest by Brian Wilson himself (You can read the first part in this post). Andrew Baggarly made a post on his blog, Extra Baggs, asking Wilson to clarify the Twitter situation. My favorite quote from the whole thing is this, "Obviously I’m not doing things like going toe-to-toe with a ninja. Find me a ninja, for one." I'll let you read the rest.

I for one am disappointed that Brian will no longer be tweeting it up with random updates about ninjas and Reebok pumps, but at least we still got to watch him strikeout the side against the bums!

Last night before the game, Eugenio Velez was optioned to Triple-A Fresno and relief pitcher Osiris Matos was called up. Matos pitched 8.2 innings in Fresno, posting a 1.04 ERA and 10 strikeouts. The thought was the Giants needed some fresh relief arms after the bullpen got chewed up in Sunday's game.

Unfortunately, Velez will not be gone for long. Andres Torres tweaked his hamstring running after a pinch hit and will have to go on the 15-day DL. That means we will get to see Eugenio's softball beer league batting stance and nonsensical route running for another two weeks!

Monday Updates

Lots of interesting links today. Henry Shulman has a post over at The Splash about Brian Wilson's Twitter . Basically people are upset that Wilson is up at 12 am posting updates like this,

"i respect fighters. does that mean people who wear affliction are all fighters. you need a blackbelt right? no way this guy next to me has."

And,

"he didnt have a blackbelt. he said my hair was stupid and i said his girlfriend liked it. 38 wins. she said she liked it uhhhhhh!"

While it does sound like Wilson was out someplace in Scottsdale being a tool the night before he blew a 3 run lead in the bottom of the ninth, I find this situation more funny than concerning. 38 definitely sounds like he would be hilarious to go out with, and bullpen meltdowns happen. I don't mind if he wants to go around acting like a hardass, I just hope he can flex on people when he's on the mound as well.

Andrew Baggarly has a nice write up on some possible roster moves and the lack of work for Merkin Valdez. Valdez has completely fallen off the radar over the last two weeks. I almost forgot he was even on the roster.

El Lefty Malo also has some good ideas on which relief pitcher may be getting called up for the Dodgers series.

Nothing will ease the pain of a tough extra innings loss like a win over the bums tonight, Go Giants!