Giants-Dodgers Series Recap: Randy Newman Can Burn in Hell

Let's get this out there right away—getting swept in a three-game series is never something to be dismissed.  Never.

It's bad.  It's always bad.

Losing three consecutive ballgames to a single opponent is hard to do.  Or rather, winning those three games is difficult.

Baseball is truly a mental game in that confidence and faith are almost primary contributors to triumph along with speed and coordination.  It's also a game where succeeding 30 percent of the time can merit Hall of Fame recognition and winning 60 percent of your games is elite.

From there, you can do the math.

If an elite team wins less than two-thirds of its games, then it would need a little bit o' help to take two of three.  Usually, the disparity in talent is that little bit when a clearly superior team takes on an inferior squad and taking two is a safe bet.

But the long history of the game suggests a betting man should wager on the also-ran to win that third game.

That means, coming into the finale having dropped two, the nine looking for a win can usually convince itself that Lady Luck, the Law of Averages, whatever is on its side.  Consequently, the Goliath X doesn't habitually sweep away David Y even though, on paper, it's barely a fair fight.

And that means it's time to let those fingers start inching towards the panic button if you're a San Francisco Giant fan.

Don't push it yet, but there's no need to fight the urge with as much determination in the wake of the boys' sixth straight loss, a second consecutive three-game series sweep, and this one at the hands of the hated Los Angeles Dodgers.

I repeat—do NOT push the panic button...yet.

But I'll get to that.  First, the reasons we all want to do so.

There's absolutely no reason to go over the first game of the series in detail.  The Gents got dominated from the home half of the fourth inning on.  Randy Johnson has not found his debilitated-though-still-highly-effective form and it showed.  Badly.

To the tune of 11-1.

Orlando Hudson hit for the cycle (tell me again why Emanuel Burriss couldn't be playing shortstop right now with the O-Dawg as his partner in twin-killing crime), Chad Billingsley K'ed 11 SF hitters without walking a batter, and Andre Ethier put two in the stands over the outfield wall.

Even Manny Ramirez managed to get a hit.

The San Francisco offense was woeful, but Billingsley is a legitimate Major League Baseball ace.  When he is on, he will win—it doesn't matter who is standing at the plate.  He.  Will.  Win.

But the blow-out stings.

There's no way to sugarcoat that—it doesn't hurt as badly as losing a game by one run, but it's infinitely more embarrassing and that's pain of a different kind.  Plus, I was hoping for a fast start from the Big Unit since you figure a 45-year-old will probably fair better early when he's fresh than later as the innings pile up.

However, the second game is the real killer.  A 5-4 game the Giants should have and could have won.

Matt Cain is a stud and he pitched beautifully.  Furthermore, Clayton Kershaw has not yet established himself as a dominant hurler.  These are the games the Giants must have if they're sincere about contending (a sincerity that looks increasingly dubious as the games tick off the schedule).

Unfortunately, Kershaw seems destined to be the leader of a staff and showed why on Wednesday night—proving what a chump Billingsley really is by whiffing 13 batters donning the Orange and Black.

Thanks to the Bum bullpen, the young southpaw didn't walk away with the win despite surrendering only a single hit and earned run (all at once courtesy of a Benjie Molina home run) with a walk.  But LA did ultimately emerge victoriously thanks to a bases loaded walk from a slightly more charitable SF 'pen.

Then there was tonight's contest—an apparently hopeless affair that saw the Giants trot out their fifth starter/sacrificial lamb Barry Zito against whoever (it doesn't really matter).  Zito came close, but ultimately didn't disappoint.

There were the inexplicable big flies, the sudden and horrendous losses of control, and those teasing stretches that would make all but the most "accomplished" Vegas strippers pay for lessons.

However, Zito (and us true-believers) can take solace in the fact that, outside of the tater to Rafael Furcal and the trio of consecutive hitters he put on the sacks right before he got pulled, Barry actually tossed a nice game.

His final line will be typically ugly, but it's misleading.

Freddie Lewis misplayed a catch-able ball into a triple and directly created runs Nos. 2 and 3.  I'm no fan of hypotheticals, but no way Zito's still in that game after plunking Russel Martin if the score's tied (as it could've been had Lewis caught or properly played the ball). 

In between Fab Five Freddie's miscue and crapping the bed in the sixth, Zito's big curveball was working beautifully and his control looked pretty good.

There were other things to pin our last vestiges of faith on.

Edgar Renteria basically rolled a ball up the middle for a run-scoring hit and some confidence-building contribution.

Pablo Sandoval demonstrating he's cold, but hasn't lost the ability to hook a pitch on the outside black into the left field corner with pop.

Richie Aurilia proved once again the New York Yankees are fools for never taking a chance on him (or did they?) by doing the little things that put a club on the edge of special over it.  He hit behind Freddie when he was on second with no outs, thus moving him to third (where he was stranded). 

Then he got good wood on a tough two-strike pitch with the tying run on third and two outs.

Of course, the Dodger stiff on the bump speared Aurilia's line drive out of the air and ended the inning.  I can't promise you his eyes were closed, but I can promise you there's no way he saw that pearl.  It wouldn't've even been a discrete object—just a white streak in the corner of his eye.  At best.

Such is the cruelty of the baseball gods.  And such is also the reason to stop short of pushing the big red button.

See, pretty much everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.  Well, almost everything.

Judging from his last couple at-bats, our guys got out of LA just in time because Manny is about to start raking.  The ball he smashed at Aurilia in his final AB was scary.  His previous ABs were no more comforting—it seemed like he was just a hair from a dong every time (too early, too late, a tad over the ball, a tad under, etc.).

Tonight, Man-Ram seemed finally to have run out of ways to barely miss.  And that's about the only good break the Giants got.

The not-so-splendid SF splinters have gone limp after that initial outburst.

The flaccid offense could have something to do with the opposing slab-toers.  In their seven losses, the Giants have succumbed to Yovani Gallardo, Jake Peavy, Chris Young, Chad Billingsley, and the filthy version of Clayton Kershaw.

Additionally, Tim Lincecum has been part of the problem and that shouldn't last.  Johnson will eventually right the ship and, though he won't be dominant, nobody ever expected him to be. 

Zito may surprise some people if he can just eliminate the mistakes like those to Furcal and the entire sixth frame.  Cain has been dealing—one game with run support, one game without—and Jonathan Sanchez will get another chance to vindicate the optimism tomorrow.

The offense looks like it will be closer to our fears than to our hopes, but Burriss and Renteria showed some meek signs of life on the road trip and Sandoval finally got a damn hit.  Rowand cooled, but that was to be expected.  Big Money and Randy Winn continue to be stalwarts even if they don't have the stats to prove it.

And Fast Freddie is a little plate discipline from becoming a flat-out monster.

Even the six-game losing streak comes with a sliver lining—all six losses came on the first road trip for a young team.  Okay, so that's more like a gray lining.

Hey, SF is 2-7 and just got swept by our blood-rivals.  How much sunshine were you expecting?