Padres Series Preview

The Giants begin the first series of a six game road trip Tuesday against the San Diego Padres. San Francisco will be looking to avenge the three game sweep they endured during their last visit to San Diego. They will send Barry Zito (1-3, 3.89 ERA) to the mound to face Chris Young (2-2, 5.56 ERA) in the opener.

Zito has been pitching well as of late. In his last five starts he has allowed only eight earned runs in 32.2 innings pitched, and has been averaging 5.79 strikeouts and 2.48 walks per nine innings. His revival has been a pleasant surprise for the Giants so far this season, and I expect he will make a strong showing in front of his hometown crowd in San Diego.

His opponent, Chris Young, has not fared as well. The 6'10" right-hander has had control problems in his last five starts, walking six batters per game. He will need to improve his command to slow down a Giant's lineup that has shown signs of improvement lately.

Pablo Sandoval has led the way for the Giants this month with a team leading .387wOBA. The 22 year old third baseman has increased his power output, hitting two home runs, seven doubles, and slugging .554 in his last 65 at-bats.

Other hot hitters include Emmanuel Burriss, Randy Winn, and Bengie Molina. All three have hit over .300 in the past two weeks. Even centerfielder Aaron Rowand has shown signs of breaking out of his slump. The 31 year old Rowand has a batting line of .333/.448/.990 in his last 24 at-bats.

San Francisco has not been able to figure out Chris Young the first two times these teams faced each other, scoring only one run in each game. Despite Young's recent dominance against the Giants and the added advantage of pitching in PetCo Park's spacious dimensions, it seems likely that the Giants will be able to score at least a couple of runs against him in this game. If Zito's resurgence continues they have a good chance to start this road trip off with a victory.

Giants Beat the Padres, 1-0.

The San Francisco Giants ended their five game home stand with a 4-1 record after beating the San Diego Padres in extra innings Wednesday afternoon, 1-0. The win brought their home record to 6-2 this year.

Barry Zito shut out the Padres through seven innings in one of his best starts as a Giant. Zito gave up no walks and struck out five batters. Barry's performance was the fifth straight quality start by a member of San Francisco's rotation, which seems to be rounding into form.

Unfortunately for him, Zito was not able to earn a win as Chris Young matched the Giants' starter pitch for pitch. San Francisco's lineup was only able to muster two hits in seven innings against Young. In his two starts against the Giants this season, Young has managed to pitch an impressive 14 scoreless innings!

The pitchers duel lasted until the bottom of the 10th when Bengie Molina came in and hit a pinch hit ground ruled double to score Andres Torres and give the Giants the win.

After 14 games the Giants are 3-1 when they score four or more runs. They are 5-0 when leading after seven innings. Clearly this team has good enough starting pitching and a strong enough bullpen to win a lot of games if they can just score an average amount of runs. However, the lineup has averaged a meager 3.29 runs/game so far.

The team begins a three game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday, April 24th at 6:40 PM. Tim Lincecum will be on the mound for the Giants against Dave Davis.