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05.08.2009

5/8: Better than Billingsley

Giants 3, Dodgers 1: If you love pre-1994 baseball, you loved tonight's game. Great pitching, immaculate defense, the forces of good beat back the forces of plastic surgery and water thievery.

The evidence is piling up: Zito has allowed four runs in his last 26 1/3 IP. He's throwing a lot of strikes, his fastball velocity is back to his early Oakland days, and tonight he and the Giants' ground attack beat the best non-Lincecum pitcher in the National League.

If the Giants insist on not hitting for power, they have to do what they did tonight. Hit sac flies, draw walks, hit a zillion perfectly placed infield bleeders, wait for Juan Pierre to royally fuck up by trying to steal third with two outs, two on and the Dodgers best non-Manny hitter at the plate. Recipe for success, I tell you.

Other than Zito, the Giant most deserving of hosannas is Manny Burriss, who turned two key double-play pivots in the late innings with Rafael Furcal burning up the line. As Duane Kuiper said on the radio side, it's nice to have a shortstop arm at the second base position. Burriss also had two more hits -- from the left side, no less. OK, he should have had James Loney's sharp grounder in the ninth, which gave L.A. a leadoff runner in a tight spot. But I loved his game tonight. Now it's Sanchez v. Stults and Lincecum v. Weaver in the next two games.