The San Francisco Giants evened things up on Tuesday with a comeback win that they sorely needed. Obviously, there's no situation where a team is in a must-win game at this point in the season, but facing your division rivals for the second time after succumbing to them 1-3 in the first series, you need to even things up as quickly as you possibly can. A 5-4 win in Tuesday's game gave them the confidence they needed, especially against a good pitcher like Chad Billingsley.
When Brian Wilson came into the ninth inning and struck out the side, the city of San Francisco breathed a collective sigh of relief. All was well at AT&T Park. But it's a new day, and a new pitching matchup. Last time the Giants sent out Jonathan Sanchez against the Dodgers, he was taking on Billingsley, but now gets a potentially better matchup as Los Angeles sends out Ted Lilly.
Lilly was taken for four runs off of six hits over 4 2/3 innings when the Giants beat the Dodgers 10-0 in their only win of the opening series, while Sanchez gave up four runs on seven hits, though only two of them were earned as the Giants defense was horrid at that point (and still shows flashes of that at this point). He did strike out eight batters in the win, however.
Aaron Rowand hit a triple in the seventh inning and scored the winning run after a wild pitch, and was 2-4 on the night. He'll be in the lineup again as starting centerfielder and leadoff man Andres Torres is out with an injury. The Giants will be looking to shake Lilly early and get as many runs out of him as possible to keep Sanchez confident out there. We'll have the lineups as soon as they're out.