The Giants brought only starters Omar Vizquel, Barry Bonds, Rich Aurilia and Bengie Molina to Tempe to face a team of mostly Angels' starters. In addition, Fred Lewis in LF, Justin Leone at 3B and Luis Figueroa at 2B (players with zero chance to make the team) started and played the entire game. So it wasn't overly surprising that the Giants were missing their offense again and lost 4-3. They scored only 1 run through 8 innings and only RBI singles by Klesko and pinch hitter Chad Santos in the 9th even made it a ballgame. The 7-8-9 hitters (Lewis, Leone & Figueroa) combined for a disappointing 1 for 11 with a walk. Lewis got the only walk.......he also struck out twice. Combine Ellison's 1 for 5 and you have 4 contiguous positions in the batting order going 2 for 16. Hard to score many runs that way. In addition, the players that replaced Vizquel, Bonds, Aurilia, Molina and Linden batted for a combined 2 for 8......both hits coming in the 9th inning.

The pitching, especially the bullpen, was much better today. The only blemish was the only pitcher I didn't get a photo of, David Cortes. Cortes had not given up a run and had only allowed 2 hits in 4 appearances so far this spring. He didn't have the same luck today, giving up 2 more hits while allowing the winning run and only tallying 1 out in the 9th inning. Not a great outing for David.

I pretty much covered the rest of the highlights as captions for the photos. Tomorrow I have a double header scheduled. I will be attending the Giants' split squad game in Surprise, against the Royals, at 1:05 PM. Then I will be attending the Giants' OTHER split squad game in Peoria, against the Mariners, at 7:05 PM. In all likelihood, I will not be taking a camera or a scorebook to either game. If I attend both games and then take the time to post here.......I will be spending 12 hours or so on baseball.......sorry but that is just too much like work. I think I will just enjoy the doubleheader........so shoot me ;-)