But those prayers may as well go unanswered.
The San Francisco Giants are the defending champs of Major League Baseball, taking their storied four game lead in the NL West into the All-Star break. Since then they've entered into an catastrophic free fall, sporting a 19-25 record since the break and their playoff hopes drifting farther and farther away. Their woes will hopefully stop this evening as they host the Chicago Cubs, who are looking to sweep the struggling Black and Orange at AT&T Park.
Madison Bumgarner (8-12 3.59 ERA) will take the mound for the Giants, looking for some help from his offense. He was lucky to get a win in his last start after giving up an earned run to the Astros, lasting six and 1/3 innings while striking out two. Bummy is 1-1 with a 2.89 ERA in three starts against the Cubs, racking up 18 strikeouts with just five walks in those three starts.
Whatever there is to be said about the Giants terrible offense has been said over and over again, so I'll just keep it simple and say hopefully they figure something out against Rodrigo Lopez (4-5 4.80 ERA); though they have been known to make pitchers like Lopez look like Roy Halladay from time to time.
First pitch is at 12:45 pm PT with coverage on CSN Bay Area and KNBR 680 AM.