Giants are 39-32: Brew Crew Whew!

After that scintillating series against the A's, the Giants face the Milwaukee Brewers. The series probably hinges on what Bochy does with Sanchez.

Game 1: Cain vs. Yovani Gallardo

Cain is 9-1, 2.28 ERA but Gallardo is 7-4, 3.00 ERA. Going to be tough to win, he's basically the same home and the road: 2.97 ERA at home, 3.02 ERA on road. But one of Cain's improvements has been his good pitching on the road: 2.44 ERA at home, 2.06 ERA on road. Looks like we should win, but with the Brewer's lineup, it is really a toss-up.

Game 2: Zito vs. Seth McClung

Not only has Zito been scuffling lately, but McClung has been pitching well since he's been put in the rotation, 3-1, 3.24 ERA. However, McClung only has 27 strikeouts in 41.2 IP with a whopping 23 walks (though 36 hits) with 5 HR, so he looks like he's been lucky, particularly in light of how he has performed in the past. Looks like he will regress though should be good, around 4 ERA.

However, Zito is a flyball pitcher in a park that punishes those types of pitchers (or so says Dave Fleming on KNBR). Zito has been horrible on the road so far too. He also has a bad history in Miller park. However, 5 HR and 21 hits total in 14.1 IP would normally do that. He did have 10 strikeouts and only 5 walks, so he was OK in that way. I think that he should be better than his career, but that's not hard to do when his ERA there is 10.05 and his WHIP is 1.81.

But I still think he should be able to do better. He now has his fastball. He has a bit of his swagger back. He's been on a good streak of strikeouts per IP, which is when he tends to be at his best, overall. But he has to be a lot better to beat McClung, it appears.

Game 3: ??? vs. Jeff Suppan

We should be able to beat Suppan with anyone in our rotation, except Sanchez, because Suppan is 5-5, 4.65 ERA. There is really no one to bring up for a spot start, so the Giants, if they skip Sanchez, would be throwing Lincecum against the Brewers, which should be an easy win if so.

Giants Thoughts

Does not look good to win this series, it will hinge, clearly, on how Cain does and whether Lincecum starts the 3rd game or not. I think the decision on what to do with Sanchez will probably hinge on what the Giants have done in the first two games. If they are facing being swept, I have to think Bochy would skip Sanchez and start Lincecum, as we are battling with the Brewers for the wild card.

But we are also kind of battling the Cards too, as they could be overtaken by the Brewers, so if the Giants somehow had pulled out two wins already, he might pitch Sanchez anyhow and save Lincecum to go against the Cards.

Good to see both Ishikawa and Schierholtz in the lineup today: they are batting 5th and 6th, big RBI spots in the lineup. I think this is the 2nd or 3rd time Ishikawa has been put there recently. Uribe is playing SS and batting 7th, as he should, he's not that good a hitter, though he's been good for the past month or so. Winn is now batting 2nd, but he's been good against RHP so that's good. We could have a solid block of hitters up top: Rowand, Winn, Sandoval, Molina, Ishikawa, Schierholtz. Not like Milwaukee's lineup but we should be getting a lot of hits going, so who knows, it's not like they are winning that many games with their lineup now, just about as many as our lineup.