The San Francisco Giants and Miami Marlins begin their three game series Tuesday night at AT&T Park with a pair of dominant right handers taking the mound as Matt Cain and Ricky Nolasco prepare for a pitcher's duel in China Basin.
Cain (1-1, 2.37) continues his dominant start to 2012, giving up just three hits in his last two starts along with 15 strikeouts and just a single walk. As for Nolasco (2-0 3.20 ERA), he's coming off of seven innings of one run ball against the Mets, and has a 3-0 record with a 0.76 ERA in three carrer starts at AT&T Park.
Offensively the Giants have been up and down this season, getting consistent hitting from just a few sources, though those sources have been very solid. Brandon Belt has been heating up as of late, now hitting .375 (6-16) with three doubles and five RBI. Angel Pagan stil is rocking his 14-game hitting streak, Buster Posey remain's fourth in batting average in the NL with a .353 clip, while Pablo Sandoval (.311 BA) and Melky Cabrera (.300) continue their productive starts as well.
As for the Marlins, Michael Jong over at Fish Stripes wrote up a great article explaining Miami's offensive struggles to begin this season, pointing out that many of their struggling hitters haven't anywhere to go but up. Miami currently sports the fifth-lowest runs per game in the major leagues, an average of 3.24 runs.
More recently though the Marlins have used AT&T Park as a place to bolster their confidence, as Miami took four of their six games against the G-Men in 2011, including a three-game sweep at AT&T May 24-26. Miami is 6-2 at AT&T Park since July of 2009. Hopefully the resurgence starts in their next series in San Diego.
First pitch is set for 7:15 p.m. PT with coverage on CSN Bay Area and KNBR 680 AM in the Bay Area, and Fox Sports Florida and WZXY 790 AM in and around Miami.
For more on the Giants, please check out McCovey Chronicles. For the Marlins side of things, head over to Fish Stripes.
