Saturday, August 06, 2011

Serve Well Chilled

While the Phillies were delivering a hay-maker to the Giants Friday night, San Francisco was responding in their usual fashion when things go wrong: they threw at someone.

Last night's target was Shane Victorino, who had homered earlier. The coward who threw at him was Ramon Ramirez, who doesn't have to come to bat to face the music. The Giants love to throw at the Phillies and the Phillies don't retaliate. It will be interesting to see if they do after last night. The bet here is they won't. The Phillies don't play baseball that way. In our fantasy world it would be appropriate for Cole Hamels to drill the first batter he faces this afternoon, but in the real world it would better to have him pitch a complete game shutout.

These teams don't like each other and it's easy to see why. The Giants play with a chip on their shoulders, perhaps because they realize they are lucky rather than good. They have terrific pitching but let's face it, they won it all last year because guys like Pat Burrell, released for the second time in two seasons only last week, and Cody Ross, hardly the second coming of Hank Aaron, delivered.

The win last night also featured a second straight night of home runs by Hunter Pence and John Mayberry. Mayberry has made his case for more playing time.

Taking a third straight game from the Giants in their own park would indeed be a dish served very cold!

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