Giants 6, Texas 8

I am going to cut this one short tonight. The game turned into a surprisingly entertaining affair after Lowry left the game. The Giants scored 2 in the first inning on a double by Durham, a walk to Winn, a single by Rowand, a walk to Aurilia and a SAC fly by Alfonzo. They lost a chance to do some big damage when McClain watched a called 3rd strike with men on 1st and 3rd.

The Giants scored 2 more in the 5th on singles by Roberts and Durham, a walk to Winn and a 2 out 2 RBI double by Aurilia. Through 7 innings, the score was tied 4-4 and the Giants pitchers had limited the Rangers hitters to only 2 hits.

Steve Kline pitched the 8th and gave up 2 runs on 2 hits and 2 walks to give the Rangers a 6-4 lead. But the Giants came back to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th with 2 runs on singles by Leone, Denker, and Alfonzo and a double by Schierholtz.

We knew we were in trouble in the 10th when Randy Messenger walked the first batter he faced. Never a good sign. Messenger ultimately gave up 2 runs on 2 walks and 3 singles. Interestingly, Messenger only got 1 batter out in the inning that didn't TRY to make an out. The first out of the inning was a SAC bunt. The second was a pickoff, Messenger finally ended the inning by inducing a ground ball to SS. The Giants made it semi-interesting in the botom of the 10th when Brian Bocock lined a 1 out single to LF. Unfortunately, he was quickly erased as John Bowker grounded into a game ending 4-6-3 DP.

Defensively, Brian Bocock had a great game. By my count he had 8 flawless chances, including 2 deep in the hole that I was sure would be bang-bang plays at 1B. Turns out on both of those plays Brian threw ROCKETS for perfect strikes to 1B and got both runners easily. He didn't do too badly offensively either as he went 2 for 5 (both singles) to raise his spring average to an even .300.

The Giants did not make very good use of their hits as they got only 6 runs off of 13 hits. The Rangers did, tallying 8 runs on only 8 hits. Of course the 15 free passes issued by Giants pitchers didn't hurt either. Take away Lowry, Kline and Messenger's 3+ innings and Giants' pitchers gave up zero runs on only 3 hits and 2 walks. Good and bad.....good and bad.