Kuzul

     The Atlanta Braves were one out away from completing another storybook come from behind victory when things fell apart in the top of the ninth. Earlier, in the bottom of the eighth, Alex Gonzalez singled and Eric Hinske hit a pinch hit home run off of Sergio Romo to the Braves up by a score of 2-1. Hinke’s homer was just the fourth Brave hit of the night but it came at such an opportune time.

     Without closer Billy Wagner, Manager, Bobby Cox, went to rookie Craig Kimbrel to put the game away. He quickly earned two outs and it was apparent that Giants hitters were having a difficult time catching up to the youngster’s fastball. With two outs and two strikes,  Braves catcher, Brian McCann, called for a slider. This was a mistake. No one had been close to hitting the fastball. Put the guy away with the heat.

      The pitch that was thrown was a slider and it came across the plate at 87 miles per hour, or approximately 10 miles per hour slower than the fastball. It was knocked for a base hit and with two runners on base Bobby Cox pulled Kimbrel from the game. I believe this was also a mistake. Did Bobby take Kimbrel out because he thought he would buckle under the pressure? So far, the rookie had faced four batters and he had been great. Yes, he had given up a hit and a walk, but not a run.

     Mike Dunn would only face one batter, the Giants first baseman, Aubrey Huff. With two strikes, Huff was able to go to right field with a pitch on the outside corner and Jason Heyward’s throw to the plate was not accurate enough to keep the Giants from tying the game.

     With the score tied, and with Peter Moylan, the ground ball wizard, on the mound, it looked as if we might go to extra innings in the event the Braves couldn’t score in the ninth. Moylan got his ground ball but it was a hot shot to second baseman, Brooks Conrad.

     It had already been a rough night for Conrad before the ball came his way in the top of the ninth. Guilty of two errors in preceding innings, Conrad allowed the sharply hit ball to go between his legs and another Giant run was able to cross the plate. The “little man that could” was not able to on this night.

     Brooks Conrad committed three errors. He would not have been out there to commit the errors in the first place had he not walloped several pinch hit home runs to tie or win games earlier in the season.

     Remember that guy? 

     He is the guy who hit a grand slam home run to beat the Reds. That one game helped the Braves win the Wild Card by just one game. Brooks Conrad was guilty of helping the Braves lose an important game against the San Francisco Giants on Sunday.

      Much of Braves country wants Conrad out for the next game but that would be another mistake on top of mistakes that have already been made. Can’t change anything in the past. No one feels worse about those errors than Brooks Conrad. He will have to live with them a lifetime.

     Fortunately, the will not be such bitter memories if the Braves can come back and win two games; one at home and one on the road. To do this, the offense will have to wake up. The stats look good for the San Francisco starting pitchers, however, I do not believe they have been as good as the Braves have been bad. That’s right. The Braves offense has been terrible and that is why the Giants pitchers have walked away with such wonderful statistics.

     The Atlanta Braves are very capable of winning two games against the Giants. They must hit the ball and they must commit no errors of any type at any type. Atlanta has pitching that can get it done but they need help from the offense. Much of the Braves offense is injured but there are plenty of guys out there who can hit the baseball. Why can they muster no offense lately?

     The Braves hitters are swinging at way too many bad pitches. Can they slow things down and jump on Giants pitching early? Perhaps it is simply a matter of the Atlanta players trying way too hard at the plate and even so in the field. They want to do it so bad for Bobby. Perhaps they are exerting too much adrenaline and it causing them to overreact? They simply need to relax and have fun. They are capable. They are a close knit group and if anyone can win, they can.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It seemed all but over. The Giants were leading 4-1 with two innings to go.

San Francisco has one of the best bullpens in baseball, but there came the Atlanta Braves, and in the blink of an eye, the game was tied.

It marked the second time that night a team came back from a 4-0 deficit to win the game, as the Braves eventually won 5-4 in 11 innings thanks to a home run by Rick Ankiel.

Now the series moves back to Georgia tied at one.

The Braves are one of the best teams at home in baseball, and the Giants will need at least one win there in order to bring the DivisionSseries right back to San Fran for a Game 5 showdown.

Here are the grades for the San Francisco Giants. 

Begin Slideshow

At the time of year when all the talk is of MVP hitters and Cy Young pitchers, many important players are often not even considered. Although MVP does include the term valuable, that award is usually given to the player who has produced the most offense, and the Cy Young to the pitcher with the lowest Earned Run Average.

But there are so many more players—25 per team and 200 in the postseason total—all of them designated to a certain role. But the production of some players is more important to their team than others. So which players will be the most heavily relied on in this year’s playoffs? 

Begin Slideshow

The San Diego Padres were without question the surprise of Major League Baseball. Starting the season with the fourth lowest payroll in baseball, they led the National League West for a good portion of the 2010 season before fading in September. Today, their season was laid to rest.

The San Francisco Giants used six pitchers to combine on a four-hit shutout, sending the San Diego Padres home with a 3-0 loss, ending their magical season and knocking them out of the playoffs.

With the Atlanta Braves beating the Philadelphia Phillies earlier in the afternoon, 8-7, the Padres needed the victory to force a two-day playoff. With the win, they would have played the Giants at home to decide the NL West Division winner, and then the loser of that game would play Atlanta for the right to be the NL Wildcard team.

Padres starting pitcher Mat Latos got into trouble in the bottom of the third.With one out, Giants starting pitcher Jonathan Sanchez tripled to right field. After striking out Andres Torres, Latos gave up a single to Freddie Sanchez, scoring J. Sanchez with the game’s first run. Aubrey Huff then doubled to deep center, scoring F. Sanchez to give the Giants a 2-0 lead.

With the way the Giants bullpen has pitched over the last two weeks, those two runs would prove to be more than enough.

The Padres put runners on first and second with no outs in the top of sixth, with an Adrian Gonzalez single and walk to Ryan Ludwick. That was it for Jonathan Sanchez, who surrendered to Santiago Casilla.

Casilla induced a 5-4 double play grounder to Yorbit Torrealba, then got Scott Hairston on a fielder’s choice, Torrealba being forced out at second to get out of the inning.

The Padres threatened again in the seventh, Denorfia singling to right, and David Eckstein reaching on Casilla’s error, putting runners at first and second once again. Giants reliever Ramon Ramirez shut the door this time, getting Miguel Tejada swinging at a nasty slider for the third strike, ending the threat.

Closer Brian Wilson came on to close it out in the ninth for the Giants, giving him his 48th save of the year, tying the Giants record for saves in a season, held by Rod Beck.

The Giants will now play host to the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS, while the Philadelphia Phillies play host to the Cincinnati Reds in the other NLDS matchup.

The Padres gave a great effort this weekend, needing to win all three games of the series to force a playoff. Sunday’s effort wasn’t enough, and they’ll be watching from the sidelines, wondering to themselves what could have been.

For continuing baseball updates, you follow Doug on Twitter, @Sports_A_Holic.
Doug is featured writer for Examiner.com and Green Celebrity Network.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

When the San Diego Padres beat the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday night, they guaranteed that the three-game series against the San Francisco Giants to end the year would be meaningful.

Exactly how meaningful remains to be seen, as the Giants continue to play good baseball.

With their own victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks, the good guys maintained their two-game lead on the Friars in the loss column.

Should the Gents win again on Thursday, they’ll ensure that only a sweep would prevent them from reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2003 regardless of what the Fathers do in their finale with the Lovable Losers.

But, should SF lose and SD win, then the intensity for that final weekend will be unlike anything the City has witnessed around a diamond for almost a decade. Only a game would separate the clubs in that scenario.

Granted, the Atlanta Braves could kill all the suspense because they’re only one game ahead of the Pads in the loss column. The Bravos will face the Philadelphia Phillies while the National League West front-runners are renewing hostilities.

Nevertheless, the eyes of Major League Baseball will be on AT&T Park from Friday until Sunday as one of the two remaining pennants up for grabs gets decided by the two teams fighting over the flag.

What they’ll see is San Francisco charge into the playoffs for these 10 reasons (in no particular order).

And, yes, I’m knocking on wood as I type each paragraph…

Begin Slideshow

By the time the San Francisco Giants take the field in Colorado Friday night, there will be nine regular season games left.

I’m not sure there is anything regular about them. In these remaining games, the Giants will face the Colorado Rockies who are very much in the hunt AND the division leading San Diego Padres.

Through today (9/23), the Rockies are 3.0 games out of first place, and dropping three in a row to Los Angeles and Arizona.

The Giants and Rockies clash for three games over the weekend. If you are starting to see a trend here, you nailed it.

When you consider the importance of the final three games against the Padres next weekend, do not under appreciate what is about to happen in Colorado.

A sweep by the Rockies this weekend will leave the Giants all but out of the playoffs for certain.

San Francisco must win this series if they want to keep San Diego in their cross-hairs for next weekend.

In order for that to happen, there are five things the Giants must do….

Begin Slideshow

On June 16, 2010, the San Diego Padres got out of bed and looked up at the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were white-knuckling a half-game lead in the National League West. The next day, the Pads would move into a first-place tie with the Bums and wouldn’t relinquish the catbird’s seat for the rest of June.

Or July.

Or August.

Or the through the first 16 days of September.

But when the Friars wake up on Sept. 17, they will once again be greeted by a deficit in the West.

All it took was a 10-game losing jag, a bad weekend against their pursuer, and finally a 4-0 shutout at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals to erase precisely three months of division domination and open the door for the San Francisco Giants.

Thanks to scintillating performances by Jonathan Sanchez and Aubrey Huff (with Buster Posey, Edgar Renteria, and Jose Guillen in sterling supporting roles), los Gigantes sashayed right through and will be front-running in the race for the pennant when Friday morning breaks.

The inconsistent southpaw may be on his way to shedding that adjective after confounding the Dodgers for seven innings on Thursday night, his fourth straight effective turn on the bump in the fire of a postseason drive.

The hated rivals spent a good deal of the evening in an offensive fog similar to the pea soup hanging over AT&T Park.

Sanchez put 12 Bums out of their considerable misery (thank you, Frank and Jamie McCourt, the Bay Area loves ya) via the strikeout in those seven frames.

More importantly, the lefty never lost his arm slot for more than a pitch or two and consequently issued a fat doughnut in the free-pass column.

Four hits, including rookie Russell Mitchell’s first major-league hit/round-tripper, and a Juan Uribe error did conspire to plate two runs (one earned) for Los Angeles, but the 27-year-old had his filthy stuff working and it showed.

For those of you who like to see the cold, hard proof—7 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 12 K, and only 90 pitches.

Of course, the last Giant to toss a no-hitter is no stranger to losing ball games in which he surrendered a solitary earned run.

On this night however, with first place on the line, the San Francisco lumber would allow no such cruelty to befall its starter.

Aubrey Huff launched a Ted Lilly offering into the right-field seats during a four-run bottom of the third that gave the Gents a lead they would only bolster as the night progressed.

Posey would obliterate a hit-me slider five pitches later for back-to-back taters and the rout was on.

The good guys tacked on another run in the bottom for the fourth, two more in the fifth, and another deuce in the eighth for a clean 10-spot on the evening against only the two runs for LA (what a crying shame).

When the mushroom cloud had cleared, Huff was 2-for-4 with the two runs scored, three runs batted in, and a triple to go with the aforementioned bomb.

Posey chipped in a 2-for-5 effort with a run scored, two runs batted in, and a double to go with his aforementioned long ball.

And then there was the much-maligned shortstop.

Like most observers of the Orange and Black, I’ve taken my fair share of swipes at Renteria, but he was sublime in the finale of the season series with the Dodgers.

Not only did he pull a 4-for-5 rabbit out of the hat as the leadoff man, but he also scored two runs, scorched a triple of his own, and dropped a beautiful bunt down the third-base line just to exhibit his blinding speed.

With all that carnage, a perfect 3-for-3 turn at the dish from Guillen—with two runs scored, two runs batted in, and a home run as well—barely registers. Not to mention Freddy Sanchez’ game (2-for-4, 1 R, 3 RBI, 2 2B, 1 BB, and another fine defensive gem).

With 15 games left on the Giants‘ slate, 16 left on the Padres‘, and only one win separating the clubs, this baby is far from settled. But San Francisco took another important psychological step by turning the hunted into the hunter, even if only for a day.

One veil of invincibility was pierced at Petco Park when the lads skipped town with three wins from a four-game series. Another was pierced on Thursday, when Saint Diego’s consecutive streak atop the division came to an end.

There will almost surely be more jostling for position—probably right down to the final weekend of the year in October when the Padres come to the City—and let’s not forget about the Colorado Rockies, who are still firmly on the scent.

So, again, nobody should giddily take to the streets quite yet.

Nevertheless, the San Francisco bats are doing their part and the pitching staff is the best in the Bigs thus far in the month of September.

Sweetening the deal, the hometown nine just took two of three—and 10 of 18 on the season—from the despised Dodgers and its 83-64 record is the same as the one boasted by the Wild Card-leading Atlanta Braves.

In other words, the stretch run is starting to have that special feel.

And the San Francisco Giants are enjoying every moment of it.

**Click here to learn more about the Paralyzed Veterans of America**

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The San Francisco Giants did three significant things during their humongous four-game series against the San Diego Padres. Call it a pleasant coincidence that the team also won three of the weekend contests.

By taking three of four in Petco Park, the good guys exorcised some serious demons in a personal house of horrors. Since the start of the 2009 campaign, the Giants had only won three of the last 14 contests played in the Friars’ home. You have to imagine the lads enjoyed doubling a two-year win total in four days.

More importantly, the trio of triumphs moved the Orange and Black into a virtual tie with the Fathers atop the National League West—one up in the win column, one back in the loss column, and only percentage points behind the technical front-runners.

Finally and most importantly, San Francisco showed that it was strapped in for the 2010 stretch and ready to make a hard charge at the playoffs. By pennant or by Wild Card, SF seems intent on reaching Major League Baseball’s second season.

And that development has to disturb the other contenders from the Senior Circuit.

Though we’re not yet sure who will be vying for the NL’s ticket to the World Series, any team hoping to be one of those fortunate four can’t be relishing the prospect of a date with the City’s nine.

Here are the top 10 reasons nobody wants to see the San Francisco Giants in the postseason.

Begin Slideshow

Where were we?

Oh, right, nothing about yesterday’s game matters once today’s game starts.

The Giants belted the Padres 7-3 to win the opener of the important four-game NL West series Thursday in San Diego. Giants fans were roaring that everything had fallen into place.

Then on Friday night, the Giants squeaked out a gut-wrenching and fascinating 1-0 win over the Padres to move into a tie for the NL West lead.

San Francisco SP Jonathan Sanchez pieced together the five most maddening shutout innings that one could imagine. Five scoreless innings despite seven walks prove that even big league hitters aren’t crazy comfortable hitting against a guy with nasty stuff but no idea where the ball’s going.

San Diego’s Clayton Richard, an All-American sort who looks like he fell off the front of a Wheaties box, was breezing through the same Giants who crushed four home runs Thursday night. If he did not make quick work of the Giants, Sanchez and his search for the strike zone might have resulted in the top of the utterly intriguing seventh inning starting somewhere around midnight.

Truly, the top of the seventh might have been the most intriguing half inning a Giants fan has witnessed all year.

Richard hit Huff with a pitch to start the sixth. The lefty was cruising, but his first pitch was a ball to right-hand hitting Pat Burrell. It was Richard’s 85th pitch of the game. It was also his last. Manager Bud Black replaced Richard with righty Luke Gregerson. Richard was wavering and Black, understandably, didn’t want the next misplaced pitch to float out over the middle of the plate to Burrell.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy, in contrast, let Sanchez work through his walk on the wild side, figuring the lefty had pitched two wonderful games and that the Padres hadn’t solved him through five.

Still, once Sanchez escaped a jam in the fifth with a double play ground ball, Bochy pulled Sanchez with his shutout still in tact. There have been times in his tenure with the Giants where Bochy might have stuck with Sanchez as long as the game was scoreless. Credit him for calling the pitcher down from the tight rope and giving the game to the bullpen in an important game on Friday. (Also, remember the move when the pitcher bats for himself to start the sixth inning of a scoreless tie in April. All games are not created equal.)

Bochy deserves credit for sending Huff as Burrell struck out. The knock on the manager has been that he’s unwilling to put baserunners in motion or try to create runs. When he put Huff in motion, the first baseman stole his sixth base of the season.

Jose Guillen hit the ball hard into the hole at shortstop. Baseball rules dictate that a ball hit in front of a runner, like Huff, at second base requires the runner to stay put. Huff, however, broke at the crack of the bat because he thought the ball was going to scoot past Miguel Tejada into left field. (Don’t believe the talk of aggressive baserunning. Huff’s a veteran and breaking for third there means he misread the ball off the bat.)

Two things happened that didn’t have to happen and both benefited the Giants.

Tejada could’ve thrown out Guillen easily at first base, leaving Gregersen to deal with slumping Juan Uribe with Huff at third and two out. Instead, Tejada threw to third base where Huff should’ve been out.

However, third baseman Chase Headley was oddly positioned on the outfield side of the bag and had to take the throw with only Huff’s bent right trail leg to tag. Huff’s left foot reached the bag first. Headley was guilty of anticipating, rather than simply covering third base, straddling it so that a simple tag would’ve nailed Huff.

Now, Nate Schierholtz won’t go down as one of the Giants’ all-time playoff stretch heroes, but his takeout slide that kept Padres second baseman David Eckstein from doubling up Uribe on a bouncer to third allowed Huff to score.

Inside baseball note: Eckstein didn’t position himself with his left foot on the outside of the base to protect himself from Schierholtz, who has shown a few times his best position might be fullback. If Eckstein had been more on the left field side of the bag, Schierholtz would’ve needed to slide after he reached the base, but Eckstein would have still been able to get Uribe. Instead, Schierholtz had time to reach and take Eckstein’s legs out from under him.

Fans will long remember the home run barrage on Thursday night, but that seventh inning sequence that plated the lone run will go down as a wonderful example of why true baseball fans simply love the game. Headley was just slightly out of position. Huff read base hit to left. Tejada made the right play, but it turned out to be the wrong play.

Then, the Giants bullpen kept the door closed for four innings on what has been a resourceful San Diego offense.

Simply magnificent.

Bochy, again, showed that fans who groan that he isn’t suited to manage this Giants team are wrong. His willingness to let Sanchez work in and out of jams proved that sometimes the best thing a manager can do is be patient and do nothing. Then, when he does something, do it quickly and don’t look back.

Everything starts new with the first pitch on Saturday.

Ted Sillanpaa is a Northern California sports writer and columnist. Reach Ted at tsillanpaa1956@gmail.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Both Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell had 2009s worth forgetting. 

Huff had the worst year of his career, batting .241, hitting only 15 home runs and racking up 85 RBI between Baltimore and Detroit. 

Burrell signed a big deal with Tampa Bay after winning a World Series with Philadelphia (against the Rays, coincidentally), but never lived up to the signing, batting only .218 with 16 home runs and 77 RBI over 146 games.

Yet here in 2010, in the heat of a suddenly interesting race for the National League West title, these two 30-somethings, supposed shells of their former dominant selves, have come together in San Francisco to emerge from the ashes and produce. 

If the Giants make the playoffs this year, and that is still a big if, there’s no doubting that Aubrey Huff was a huge part of it throughout the season. I think Giants fans realized his presence about halfway through his inside-the-park homer way back on April 14th, and there might still be some fight left in this castoff. 

Since then, he’s hit at or around .300 all year long, and is the Giants current leader in hits (145), runs (87), home runs (24), RBI (81), total bases (257), and on-base percentage (.386). That’s almost every offensive category, and this is not the same feeble offense that Bengie Molina lead in the last couple years. 

Burrell had a lot to prove, and while a lot of fans were clamoring for a more established hitter (more Prince Fielder rumors, Jayson Werth, Corey Hart), Burrell came on the cheap, and after coming home to San Francisco and reuniting with former teammates Aaron Rowand (Philadelphia) and Huff (University of Miami), he made an immediate impact.

His 15 home runs and 40 RBI since being called up in the first week of June have been a boon to the team. Burrell had a four-game stretch in August, where he homered three times and had 10 RBI, all of which figured in the final score.

He homered in his first at-bat back in Philadelphia. He homered in the four-home run comeback against the Dodgers. His slugging percentage is a team-high .531, and he’s back to being Pat the Bat.

In the dugout (visible) and in the clubhouse (less visible), Burrell and Huff seem to be each other’s fountain of youth. They scream at their teammates, they punch each other in the chest, and are pretty much back in college having a great time. 

Yet neither of them is signed for 2011, which brings me to the point of my article. 

The Giants and their fans have had nothing but appreciation for the Water Buffalo since they formed their alliance of awesomeness. And if they can produce in 2011 like they have in 2010, I doubt you’d find anyone who would be running for the hills in protest. 

But that’s just it. Both these guys are in their 30s, and probably past their primes on the baseball field. Both could probably get a multi-year deal on the open market, and both probably will. Yet there’s something about them being together that is beneficial.

So here’s what the Giants do:

Keep them together. 

They love playing together, and that can’t be denied. They’re as much of a gruesome twosome that you can find on this team.

So sit them both down in the front office, and lay it down on the table.

They’ve got to be a package deal. 

They might both be able to make more money for another team, but San Francisco is most likely the last place they’ll ever be able to play on the same team. Not many other teams in the league have the luxury (if you can call it that), or the audacity (or luck, or whatever you want to call it) to sign two aging hitters to fill separate holes in their lineup.

It’s also not a given that they can recreate the magic that they did here in San Francisco, and I think that they’ll both take one-year, incentive laden deals (around $5 million each, I’d say) to be given the chance to catch lightning in a bottle twice.

If they do, the Giants will have two veteran presences in their clubhouse again, much different from the days when everyone stayed clear of Barry Bonds and kind of led in their corners. They’ll also be leading the offense, something that other veterans (Rich Aurilia, Randy Winn, Ray Durham) failed to do in their last years in San Francisco.

To have players on your team that can get it done both on and off the field is a boon to younger players like Buster Posey and Tim Lincecum, who can continue to perform but defer to the older players for guidance and leadership. 

If, for some reason, Burrell and Huff do not perform, the Giants will not have locked them in for multiple years (a la Renteria and Rowand), and will have the financial flexibility to make the moves without losing a long-term investment. 

This is all speculative, but getting Huff, Burrell, and Brian Sabean in a room and discussing altogether could end up benefiting both sides. Huff already knows what it’s like to lose (a lot). Burrell knows what it takes to win, but also knows the expectations that come from a winner. 

We still have a long way to go in 2010, but I would love to see these two both back in Giants uniforms in 2011. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com