The above write-up is a recap of the San Francisco Giants game one victory last night in the 2010 World Series.
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Going into last night’s Game one of the World Series the San Francisco Giants were facing immense odds. First off, they were facing the invincible Cliff Lee; secondly they were facing a lefty, to which the Giants only managed a .716 OPS against during the regular season (.734 vs. righties). When you combine this with Cliff Lees’ opposing batter OPS of .618 you can see that the Giants were going to struggle to score any runs last night.
Then, as we all saw, the improbable happened. The Giants batted around Cliff Lee so bad that he was pulled in the fifth inning and ended the night allowing eight hits and seven runs in 4.2 innings.
Obviously Cliff Lee just got too much of the plate last night because it’s not like he walked batters and beat himself (one walk, and one hit batter). He did strike out seven batters in 4.2 innings. Last night the Giants were solely responsible for beating Cliff Lee, this was not a self-imposed defeat for Lee. That is one of the positive notes to come out of this performance for the Rangers last night.
Texas’ offensive performance is another positive note. As a team they scored eight runs total and batted around Tim Lincecum to the tune of four earned runs in 5.2 innings.
While any loss is bad, this loss does not discourage my hopes that the Rangers will win this series. Their offense definitely showed up, and their Ace just had a bad night that was not self-inflicted (coming off a very abnormal eight days rest).
The best thing about all of this is that in a seven game series all the road team has to do is win one of the first two games to snatch back home field advantage. The odds of the Rangers doing this increase when you consider that they will throw another lefty (CJ Wilson) tonight against a Giants team that, as previously discussed, has trouble hitting southpaws. Can the Giants chase a good lefty two nights in a row? Possible? Yes. Probable? No.
All will be forgotten if the Rangers win tonight, and everybody will be focusing on the positives for the Rangers going into game three as I have already done here.
This series has a long way to go and after tonight’s game the Rangers could have a decisive edge with home field secured and Cliff Lee going again when we all know the odds of him pitching badly twice in a row are very, very long.
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