Monday, September 27, 2010

Off Day Wrap: Scoreboard Watching

I couldn't help myself. Tuned into the Cubs-Padres game in the 9'th inning just in time of Carlos Marmol to give me chest pains twice as bad as anything Brian Wilson has handed out. But, all's well that ends well and the Cubs gave the Giants some huge help in beating the Pesky Padres at their own game, 1-0. I'm not a Carlos Zambrano fan at all, but he was golden tonight. Meanwhile, the Choking Dogs somehow managed to hold off the Reeling Rockies 3-1 and push them a step closer to joining the Dogs in the elimination station. I guess miserly loves company, huh? The Dodgers must really want the Rockies to join them in their misery. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, but Rockies future after this season looks a whole lot brighter than the lads from LaLa Land.

The only downer of the night came as the Braves outlasted the Florida Marlins 2-1 in 11 innings to jump over the Padres by 0.5 games in the Wild Card race.

More good news on the home front:

Freddy Sanchez' shoulder seems to be nothing serious. He might get a cortisone shot and sit tomorrow, but is not likely to miss an extended period. Fontenot is a pretty good backup plan in case he does.

Andres Torres is apparently feeling better and will be good to go tomorrow.

Brian Sabean addressed the rotation issue on KNBR. The Giants don't think switching Timmy and Zito will help anything, and I agree. What they might do is jump Timmy ahead of MadBum on Wednesday. Timmy would be pitching on full rest while MadBum would get an extra day. What this would accomplish is that Timmy would then be on full rest for a potential tie-breaker game whereas if they stick with the regular rotation or even flip-flop Zito and Timmy, MadBum would have to pitch the tiebreaker. Not that I don't have faith in MadBum, but it's probably better to have Timmy pitch the tiebreaker or first game of a playoff series than the rook. It sounds like Sabes is saying that the Giants would make the Timmy-Zito switch if a rested Zeets could then pitch the tiebreaker but he would still be on 3 days rest. The notion that Zito is not good does not seem to in the equation.

After giving it some more thought, I still believe that it's just as important to win against the D'Backs as the Padres. If the Padres beat the Cubs and the Giants lose, no difference than H2H. If the Padres lose to the Cubs and the Giants win also no difference. The only scenario where the Giants might want to improve their chances against the Padres at the expense of losing to the D'Backs is if they both lose in games this week. Couple that with the fact that Zito has pitched much better against the Pads than the Snakes and I think it's best to leave well enough alone. Bottom line: The Giants have 6 games left. Winning any combination of 4 guarantees a tie with the Padres while 5 wins guarantees they are NL West Champions. Even 1 more game of help from the Cubs would be most welcome.

Addendum: Barry Zito's career splits vs D'Backs- 3-8, ERA= 5.15. vs Padres- 3-7, ERA= 4.23.

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