The 2009 Giants are 50-41: Will Need to be Brave

After the disappointing series against the Pirates, the Giants play four games in Atlanta. The Giants will need to bust out to even break even this series, we are facing some good starters and the Braves have been hot over the past two weeks.

Game 1: Sanchez vs. Tommy Hanson

Hanson has been pretty good in the majors except for his first start and his latest start, though that one was in Colorado, so that is probably the problem. Otherwise, in 5 starts, he has given up, in consecutive starts, 2 runs, 0, 0, 0, and 1. He has been a bit wild, walking a lot of guys, but for the most part, he has not given up many hits, limiting that damage.

Sanchez had his no-hitter but other than that has not been terribly good this season, in fact, has been pretty terrible. If he can build on what he did in his last start, the no-hitter, then we have an even chance of winning, else we don't have much of a chance.

Game 2: Sadowski vs. Derek Lowe

Lowe is the Braves ace of the staff, even though his stats this season has been OK, not great. But that was because of some bad starts he had in mid-June, otherwise he has been the ace that the Braves needed when they signed him. We cannot expect The Big Sadowski to come out and shut down teams like he as, though that would be great if he can continue to beat expections borne of unimpressive minor league stats. We should be losing this game.

Game 3: Lincecum vs. Jair Jurrjens

Jurrjens has been outstanding this season, what a steal he was for Edgar Renteria (and they got Gorkys Hernandez too). It is going to be a battle for Lincecum, we have probably an even chance of winning. Still, the Kid keeps on pulling great starts out of his knit cap, so we have some hope here.

Game 4: Zito vs. Kenshin Kawakami

Kawakami has been pretty good this season, and particularly so over the past two months. He doesn't last that many innings though, so we would get to the bullpen quickly with him but the Braves bullpen is actually pretty good. Zito has been up and down all season long, so who knows who will show up in this start. However, he has usually been much better in the second half than the first, so there is hope that he will be equal to the job of matching Kawakami, or perhaps bettering.

Giants Thoughts

It does not look good for the Giants this series. It looks like it will be a battle just to split the series, let alone win it. That's why we needed to win the series against the Pirates. But spliting is not the end of the world, the Giants would still be 3-4 for the trip, not great but doable, except that we then face Colorado, where the Giants have usually had problems there.

But there are a lot of widely varying variables that could change things positively for the Giants. Sanchez, Sadowski, and Zito could prove to be able to continue their nice starts. Hanson could prove to be exposed in his last start, that it was not just all Coors. Lowe could revert to his bad starts a month ago. Kawakami could reverts to his early season struggles. We will see.

Go Giants!