Giants 14, Mariners 8, March 15th

I am going to keep this one short, many of you probably saw the game on TV anyway. Besides, my readership is dropping daily, so I think many of you are getting tired of Spring Training.

Once again, the Giants' offense bailed out the pitching. Now THAT'S a phrase I didn't think I would be typing that many times this year. Today was the "Tale of Two Zitos" at Scottsdale Stadium. "Bad Zito" pitched the 1st, 5th and 1/3rd of the 6th innings. In those innings he gave up 7 runs on 4 hits (2 HRs), 3 walks and threw 48 pitches, only half of them strikes. "Good Zito" pitched the 2nd, 3rd and 4th innings. In those innings he gave up zero runs on 3 hits (2 of which were erased on a DP and a pickoff) and walked none. In the "good" innings Zito threw only 31 pitches all but 8 of them strikes.

When you only throw the ball 84 MPH, you need to have pinpoint accuracy. You can not afford to only throw 50% strikes as he did in the "bad" innings. The Grand Slam in the first inning came on an 2-0 count and the HR in the 6th inning came on a 2-1 count. Fall behind in the count, throw an 84 MPH meatball down the middle........it gets hit VERY hard. Sounds reasonable to me.

The Giants brought their hitting shoes to the park today as 5 players had multiple hits (Durham, Winn, Molina, Rowand and Aurilia). When your 2, 3, 4, 5 hitters all have 2 hit days........you are going to score some runs. In the good news/bad news department, offensive category; The good news is that Durham, Winn and Rowand all hit opposite field HRs. The bad news was that the wind was again blowing pretty hard out to RF. None of the hits would have been HRs at ATT Park.......and probably 1 or 2 of them wouldn't even have been a HR at Scottsdale on a calmer day. Still, 14 runs is 14 runs........and 8 of them came off of Erik Bedard who was #5 in the AL Cy Young voting last year.

As an aside, Ryan Rohlinger came in to play 3B late in the game. He went 1 for 2 with a 3 run double. Ryan is from the Minor League camp and has only played in split squad games this spring. In his 7 ABs, he has 4 hits, including 2 doubles, a HR, 3 runs scored and 7 RBI. Lest you get too excited about the Giants having found the answer at 3B, Ryan hit only .235 at Augusta (low A) in 506 ABs in 2007......but he is having a heck of a spring!!

That's it for today. A ton of hitting and runs......not much pitching. Just the opposite of what most of us thought we would be seeing.