Game 2 World Series
Preview : C.J. Wilson vs Matt Cain
The Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants will meet up again at AT&T Park in California for Game 2 of the World Series on Thursday night. C.J. Wilson will get the start for the Rangers, and Matt Cain
for the Giants. Both pitchers will be looking to avoid the mistakes of Game 1, an 11-7 Giants victory.
The Giants would love nothing more than to head to Texas up 2-0 in the series, but they’ll need to deal with Wilson, and an offence that scored four runs against ace pitcher,Tim Lincecum, Wednesday night.
It’s true that the Giants scored seven, six of them earned, on the Rangers’ ace, Cliff Lee, but most of the Giants have faced Lee a number of times in their career. Lincecum was new to many of the Rangers,
and they still got to him.
Wilson comes into the game with a 1-1 record in this post-season, and he’s got an ERA of 3.93 in 18 1/3 innings pitched. He was 15-8 in the regular season with a 3.35 ERA. He’s looking forward to helping
his team even up the series before heading back to Texas for three straight home games.
"This is the easy part," Wilson said. "All the pressure is gone now. We won the league championship. It's over. We beat the Yankees. Now it's just about playing good baseball, and that's what everybody
is really focused on."
Cain was originally third in the Giants pitching rotation, but was bumped to the second spot ahead of Jonathan Sanchez on Monday. The move was made to allow Sanchez an extra day of rest according to Giants
manager, Bruce Bochy.
“Johnny just threw and Matt's one of our guys, too, so we're just trying to keep things in order,” Bochy said. “We're excited wherever we put these guys because of the job they've done for us.”
Cain is 1-0 in these playoffs with a 0.00 ERA in 13.2 innings pitched. He was a little more human in the regular season going 13-11 with a 3.14 ERA.
Like Wilson, Cain seems to have no jitters heading into the game, and a longer than usual rest is nothing more than a slight inconvenience for him.
"It's been fine," he said Wednesday. "You know, you make a little bit of a new routine in between the starts. You try to stay on your same running program and if you have to add a bullpen here and there,
you do what you have to do."
Vladimir Gurrero was given the start in right field on Wednesday night. Rangers’ manager, Ron Washington wanted his regular designated hitter in the line-up, and while he did go 1-4 with two RBIs, he also
made two eighth inning fielding errors. If he gets the start again on Thursday, the Giants may look to hit the ball in the 35-year-old’s direction.
Prediction: The big question is whether or not the Giants can continue their hitting success. Cain has yet to allow a run this postseason, but the Rangers are better hitters than the teams
he’s faced so far. There won’t be 18 runs scored, but there could easily be 10 or 11. Each run will be important in a 6-5 Rangers win on Thursday night.
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