Game Recap

In the second edition of the Jordan Schafer PlayerCast, I will profile the three-game series against the St Louis Cardinals.

I will include pivitol at bats (runners on, leading off, etc.) and his statline for the series.

Statlines will be AB/H/BB/K/R/RBI/SB/pitches seen.

Game One (4/27/2009)
(batting eighth)

After returning from a successful series in the desert against the Diamondbacks, The Giants returned home Monday to take on the hated Dodgers. The Dodgers are off to a great start and their offense is a good reason why.

On a cold Monday night at AT&T park, the stage was set for the two rivals to square off for the second time this season. The Dodgers come in toting their explosive bats against what is shaping up to be one of the best rotations in baseball.

It is true.  Major League Baseball has scheduled road games for the Arizona Diamondbacks this season.  As much as they’ve grown comfortable living at home for the first 18 of 21 games, it was bound to happen. 

Save for one short road jaunt to San Francisco against the Giants, the Diamondbacks will finally get to take to the road for eight games in three cities.

Boston Red Sox veteran John Smoltz, still recovering from June shoulder surgery, will avoid batting practice (again) this Thursday.

In fact, he’ll likely sit out of all baseball-related activities for the next week or so, according to manager Terry Francona.

For anyone that still had doubt that Yovani Gallardo was capable of being an ace for a Major League team, I submit to you Gallardo's performance on Wednesday afternoon against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Gallardo followed up his first career complete game in his last start against Houston by dominating the Pirates.

He pitched eight shutout innings, struck out a career-high 11 batters, and only gave up two hits. Oh yeah, he also hit his second home run of the season, which turned out to be the Brewers' only run in the 1-0 win.

Today, we saw another example of a game that got away. I am not as upset at the fact that the Mets lost as I am about how they lost. I am going to place the blame on the shoulders of one of the youngsters who is supposed to be the new leader and spokesman for this team, and that is their third basemen, David Wright.

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4/29/09 – The Seattle Mariners finish season series No. 7 in slight disappointment, losing the series 1-2 to the Chicago White Sox. 13-9 is our record heading into the Oakland A’s series after a day off.

Cheer! – Rain outs mean double headers and the White Sox even switch up the rotation to give us a better pitching match up, M’s Chris Jakubauskas vs. the Sox Bartolo Colon and moving John Danks to the night cap to face off vs. M’s Felix Hernandez.

So much for it bending our way.

New York pitcher Johan Santana didn't pitch a gem, but he did well enough for a win.  He gave up two runs in the first, including Jorge Cantu's third homer in two games, but pitched shutout ball the next six innings after that.

But the bullpen (a.k.a. J.J. Putz) had different plans. Putz allowed a two-run single to Cody Ross to be the deciding factor as the Mets lost 4-3 Wednesday afternoon and lost the series to the Florida Marlins.

The Pittsburgh Pirates just finished a series against the Milwaukee Brewers, 0-3. Although they are unlikely to lose every season series, or suffer a sweep in every series loss, the story that was told was not a pretty one. Based on the grid that I posited the other day, the Pirates will not be even a .500 team this year. The series loss by itself drops them to 11-10.

Scoring only a combined three runs over the last two games, the New York Yankees finally broke out of their offensive struggles and defeated the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night, winning by a score of 11-0 and snapping a four-game losing skid.

Scoreless up until the top of the seventh inning, the Yankees exploded for 10 runs in the inning, breaking out and taking command of the game.