Giants Shut Down Marlins, Return To San Francisco With Winning Road Trip

It was a tale of two road trips for the Giants, who left Milwaukee with a 2-1 series victory and opened their initial game in the new Marlins ballpark with a win. Some questionable defense

and ineffective pitching allowed the Marlins to take the middle two games of the four game series before the Giants capped off the finale with a win, giving them a 4-3 record on the seven game trip.

Winning On The Road – If you want to be a playoff team, they say you only need to be about a .500 team on the road, as long as you play well at home. If only .500 on the road was as easy as it sounds, especially for the Giants who made a nasty two city trip this past week, starting in Wisconsin and ending in Florida. More then just the odd Mid-West to then East coast travel schedule and multiple time changes the team went through, were the difficult venues they played in. Despite the Brewers early season slump, Miller Park has been well known for its home-field advantage, the Brew-Crew putting up a jaw dropping 57-24 home record (.704 winning percentage!1!1!) last season. In addition to the comfy confines of Miller Park, the new Miami ballpark hasn’t been an easy place to win for incoming teams, who’s combined record was only 8-11 before the Giants came to South Beach and split with the Fish.

Cain Continues To Shine – For most teams, 6.2 innings of 1 run ball would be a dominating start, but for the Giants and their fans, we’ve become spoiled. Cain had his moments this afternoon as he seemingly appeared to find himself in danger every other inning or so, but the Giants’ horse danced his way out of trouble every team the Marlins saw a glimmer of hope. The victory was Cain’s fifth of the season and fourth consecutive win after only winning once in his first six starts. It took until June 8th and June 13th in the previous two seasons for Cain to win his fifth game of the season.

Stay Hot, Melky Cabrera – Is there a hotter player on the planet then Melky Cabrera? And the hotness doesn’t only translate to the batters box as Cabrera has been playing gold glove level defense and scorching on the basepaths as well. In the past ten days, the Melk Man has four stolen bases, 22 hits, 9 RBI, 2 HR, 4 doubles and 2 triples. In TEN DAYS. That doesn’t even take into account his fantastic defense, which has littered highlight shows across the country the past few weeks – from shoestring catches to gunning out opposing baserunners. It’ll be something to see when Pablo Sandoval returns shortly and gives Cabrera even more lineup protection.

The Giants have an evening flight out of Miami-Dade before they return to San Francisco and open a three game set with the Arizona Diamondbacks tomorrow afternoon. To those going, have a great time and a wonderful Memorial Day.