Giants Win Two In A Row – When’s The Parade?

Welp, that was the first time in two weeks that the Giants were able to string together more than one win. And you know what? I kinda liked it. Felt tingly.

Madison Bumgarner is fucking awesome, by the way. Not only because he’s a fine pitcher, but, he takes shit from nobody. NOBODY. Did anybody see how Brewers starting pitcher Randy Wolf threw Madison a bunch of off-speed junk after Bumgarner drilled a fastball foul? Madison, not to be outdone, pitched Wolf like Prince Fielder his next time up. As Wolf returned to the dugout after a painful and comical strikeout, the camera caught Bumgarner with some obvious satisfaction on his face. Baggs shows off some more Bumgarner jewels:

"I’m told that Bumgarner once threw behind a minor leaguer, and when he got back to the dugout, a coach asked about it.“Were you throwing at him?”“Yeah.”“Why?”“Because he swung too hard.”"

The kid pitched his best game as a major leaguer last night and might have had a chance to get the complete game shutout if it wasn’t for the Giants offense. Bumgarner spent a long time out on the base paths in the top of the 9th and was sitting on 115 pitches. As nice as it would have been to get his first career win capped on a shutout, the smart move was made. Well. Sorta. Denny Bautista came in to close out the game and failed. Failed hard. 8 pitches, 8 balls, two walks, removal from the game. Sergio Romo came in to clean up Bautista’s mess and did so pretty quickly. But I have to think Bautista’s wild control last night (and just in general) might hit him in the wallet pretty soon. With the Giants only having four offensive bench players and the All-Star break looming, there is no need for the Giants to have a 13 man pitching staff. It seems very logical that Bautista might be the odd man out and get a pink slip back to Fresno.

Offensively, despite the runs scored, it was a challenge for the most part. Bumgarner and Wolf locked horns all game until the 6th. After a walk to Pat Burrell which loaded the bases, Pablo Sandoval came up to the plate in the scoreless game and did what he seems to do way too frequently – ground into a double play. But again, as was the case Monday afternoon, the Brewers middle infield had a gaping sinkhole as the potential inning ending ground ball was slung into right field by Craig Counsell. Two batters later, Travis Ishikawa (who looked AWFUL in previous at-bat’s versus Wolf) smacked a seed right over the top of second baseman Rickie Weeks. Weeks actually got a glove on it but only enough to knock it down. Sandoval, who was booking with two outs, scored all the way from second on a very close play. Then the man of the hour, Madison Bumgarner came up and drilled a solid single into right scoring another run. Buster Posey notched a sac fly in the top of the 9th and the Giants came away winners of their second in a row.

One note on Posey for those that missed the game – he took a nasty pitch off his leg in his first at-bat of the night. While he stayed in and played well, there was some obvious discomfort going on, so, I’d expect he’d maybe sit tonight – especially if it swelled up.