The San Francisco Giants came through in game one against the Washington Nationals, in the thirteenth inning no-less. Extra innings wins have been a mainstay for them this year, so it was no surprise when they entered the tenth ... no, the surprise came in the eighth inning when they decided to finally start hitting the ball. That was nice of them, no? Also of note, Tim Lincecum reached 1,000 career strikeouts and is officially a total badass. Aside from that, you know, pretty uneventful game.
San Francisco lost the series the last time out, but can secure a win here in game two, and for that purpose, they'll send Jonathan Sanchez to the mound. He was a victor in his last outing, against the St. Louis Cardinals in which he gave up three runs on four hits and six walks. Obviously, with that stat-line, he'd had to have gotten plenty of run support ... well the Giants won that game 12-7, so you could call it run support. Sanchez is 1-1 with a 4.07 earned run average against the Nationals in seven meetings, four of which were starts.
He's currently 4-3 with a 3.50 ERA in twelve starts thus far in 2011, and will be trying to improve upon that, while knocking Jordan Zimmermann down from his present stat-line of 3-6 with a 3.61 ERA in eleven starts. Zimmermann allowed only one run in his last outing, a 6-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks. He already beat the Giants once this year, giving up two runs over six innings.
After game one, the Giants lead the Diamondbacks by one game in the National League West, and they can't let up now. They'll look for Sanchez to get run support from the usual candidates (that is, the usual candidates when the actual usual candidates are on the disabled list) such as Cody Ross, Aubrey Huff and Freddy Sanchez. The game is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. pacific and will be on CSN Bay Area.