The San Francisco Giants' home opener was certainly an eventful one, no? For some reason, eight innings into the ballgame, Brian Wilson felt like the crowd hadn't yet got their moneys worth. So graciously, he decided to give up a hit or two, throw a couple slow pitches and generally put players onto base. The plate umpire apparently felt the same way, helping out Wilson with a few wayward calls and a terrible strikezone, and soon the bases were loaded! What fun for the home crowd, no? There's nothing like a dire situation at the top of the ninth inning to make you pucker up a little bit, and that's what we all got.
Giants fans appreciate the gesture, but it definitely was not a fun situation. Still, the defending World Champions (they will continue to be addressed as such throughout this season) battled back in the ninth to take it into extra innings, and eventually came away with the win in the twelfth inning. It was Aaron Rowand who brought home the scoring run to end the game with a deep blast to centerfield, giving him two home opener winning RBI in a row. Stranger things have happened.
But now we get Matt Cain again for the Giants, taking on Jaime Garcia for the Cardinals, and both are coming off impressive outings. Cain allowed five hits over six innings, while striking out three, extending his streak of not allowing an earned run to 27 1/3 innings in a 10-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Cain was impressive, dealing out there and generally very confident, but Garcia had himself a pretty good outing, as well.
The southpaw shut the Padres out 2-0 in the first shutout victory of his career in his last outing, He struck out a career-high nine batters and only allowed four hits in the win, so he's coming into Saturday's game with confidence. Cain is notorious for having a lack of run support from his supporting cast, but he was treated to several runs in his last outing - will that be able to hold up tonight against the Cardinals?