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GIANTS       99-54                      Last road series of season begins.

LA                 98-55   1   GB         Second extra-inning win in 3 days.

Yesterday

Giants lost at San Diego, 7-6, in ten innings.

LA defeated Colorado, 7-5, in ten innings.

Wednesday

Giants defeated San Diego, 8-6.

LA lost at Colorado, 10-5.

Today

Giants at Colorado; 6:10 mountain time; 5:10 PDT.  Alex Wood against rookie right-hander Peter Lambert. Giants are going for their 100th win, a feat accomplished only three times by San Francisco Giants teams (1962, 1993, 2003). 

LA is at Arizona, who have already lost 104 games.

Recent Events

As we traveled from Virginia to San Francisco, where we're holding forth today in Hunter Thompson's old suite at the Seal Rock Inn, the Giants gained and lost a game in less than 24 hours.  Wednesday night they raced out to a 8-1 lead over the Padres thanks to some timely hitting by Kris Bryant, Buster (4-for-5, 3 runs) Posey, and LaMonte Wade, and four good innings from their latest reclamation-project starter, Scott Kazmir. Bryant's bases-loaded double in the first set the tone, and things went swimmingly until the Padres drilled five hits, including Fernando Tatis' 40th homer, against Jarlin Garcia and Dominic Leone in the seventh. And for the second straight game, Tyler Rogers struggled to close it in the ninth. Once again it was a leadoff walk that started it all, and Adam Frazier proved he can hurt the Giants in many different ways with a RBI groundout. But with the tying run on base, Rogers got Tatis to fly out to left, and all's well that ends well.

Giants fans could be forgiven for perhaps thinking that a three-game sweep was virtually certain, given that Logan Webb was starting Thursday afternoon. But Webb's never pitched this deep into a season before, and even with an extra day of rest he was off from the start. It took him 45 pitches just to get through the first inning. As you might expect, it was Frazier who started it all with a leadoff double, and the Padres put four runs across with walks, hit batsmen, singles, and a mound visit. That made it comeback baseball the rest of the way, and it was almost enough. Austin Slater, batting for LaMonte Wade in the sixth in one of those lefty-righty switches, continued the Giants' uncanny pinch-hitting success story with a three-run homer for a brief 5-4 lead. It went right back the other way in the bottom of the inning as Jose Quintana surrendered back-to-back homers to Trent Grisham and Ha-Seong Kim. The Giants immediately answered back with back-to-back doubles from Wilmer Flores-- another pinch-hitter, of course-- and Tommy LaStella, and it was on into extra innings. San Diego intentionally/unintentionally walked La Stella to set up the force, but it wasn't needed as Bryant, Brandon Belt, and Steven Duggar popped up in succession. Leone, in the bottom of the tenth, likewise opened with an intentional pass, but never got his ground ball, only a clean RBI single by Victor Caratini to end it.  And meanwhile LA took advantage of their tenth-inning runner to beat Colorado and take that game they lost Wednesday right back.

Notes

Kazmir may be the fifth starter, if one is needed, over the final nine games. We get the feeling Johnny Cueto is being saved for the postseason... Some stat site, quoted on ESPN early Thursday, upgraded the Giants' chances of winning the division from 52% to 79% after they took a two-game lead with ten to play Wednesday night. Wonder what they're prognosticatin' now?... Our daddy caught us prognosticatin' once-- told us we'd go blind... We (and probably everyone else) are calling the NL wild-card. It's going to be the amazing St Louis Cardinals, who have won twelve straight games (!) and now hold a four-and-a half-game advantage...  Philadelphia still has a good shot at the NL East division. They have three games coming up at Atlanta next week, as long as they don't get sandbagged by the Pirates over the weekend.