San Francisco Giants will take on San Diego Padres – MLB Preview
The defending World Series champions San Francisco Giants will play the first of the three-game series against the San Diego Padres at the Petco Park in California on Thursday, July 14, to start the second half of the 2011 regular season.
The Giants are in the fourth place in the NL West and they are striving hard to defend their World Series title. Until now, they have maintained their strong hold over many Major League teams but they struggled against the strong New York Yankees and pitching
giants Philadelphia Phillies. It was the Giants first World Series since moving from New York in 1958.
San Francisco are among the lowest ranks in the Majors with 52-40 games at the end of the first half and has given a chance to Madison Bumgarner to take his winning streak to four. Bumgarner received strong resistance in his last game against the same opposition
on July, when he managed to get his fourth overall win of the season.
As a whole, he is struggling in this season with 4-9 with 3.87 ERA in18 starts. Most of the Giants’ pitchers received poor offensive support but Bumgarner received the worst—only 2.84 runs when he is pitching. Bumgarner also tossed his career worst outing
against the Minnesota Twins on June 21, when he scattered nine hits in his first inning. He was dropped from pitching just after 25 throws. However, his current impetus creates some positive prospect for him.
Aubrey Huff, Miguel Tejada, Pablo Sandoval and Pat Burrell along with Cody Ross will be there to provide support to Bumgarner. The Giants’ manager, Bruce Bochy who managed the All-Star winning National League team, believes his team need to overcome some
deficiencies to remain a tough team.
Sandoval, who played as third baseman in All-Star game said, "We need to keep fighting. We need to pull together like we did in the first half."
Looking at the Padres’ strategy, one might say they have made some brilliant plan to overcome all the hurdles in their 41st win but they still have to show some extraordinary combination to clobber their rivals.
Padres have scheduled their reliable starter, Aaron Harang who has grabbed seven wins with only two losses in fourteen starts. He tossed six scoreless innings in the last start against the Los Angeles Dodgers but remained winless due to weak back up from
the batters and the relievers. The 33-year-old veteran hurler, however still has the same impetus to break the backbone of the Giants.
The Giants have some serious concern about the Aaron record. He has 3-0 record with 2.00 ERA in his last four starts against the Giants.
With his unplayable swinging pitches and stormy hitting of Kyle Phillips, Chase Headley and Orlando Hudson can take the Padres back on to their winning track. In the first half of the season, the Padres received some serious blows. They lost 52 games and
made just 40 games and what made their season worse is their 27 defeats at home.
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