The second half of a split squad day for the San Francisco Giants produced another Buster Posey home run, Thomas Neal’s first Spring Training homer, and a Giants win 5-3 over the rival Los Angeles Dodgers. I had to listen to a Dodgers radio broadcast to catch this game (I know, gross) but the G-Men getting their second win of the day was worth the listen.
Barry Zito had a much better day then his first outing last week, going 3 full innings allowing two hits, one run, one walk, and two strikeouts. Zito admitted that he was more “results orientated” today after the talk of him being dumped by the Giants a few days ago.
Besides the homers by Posey and Ford, the Giants scored their first run via a Matt Kemp throwing error on a Travis Ishikawa single scoring Cody Ross who reached base on a HBP. The others were by a Mike Fontenot 2 run single in the top of the 7th during a perfectly executed double steal by Darren Ford and Emmanuel Burriss. Even though its only spring training, it’s nice to see the Giants taking care of the little things, especially against the hated Dodgers.
The Dodgers made a come back effort by loading the bases in the bottom of the 8th, but Jason Stoffel pitched his way out of it by striking out Juan Castro.
The Giants will have their first Bay Area battle of their young 2011 season when they face the Oakland A’s tomorrow at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. First pitch is slated for 12:05 PT (1:05 MT).