The San Francisco Giants take on the Washington Nationals: MLB Game Preview
After winning the three-game series by 2-1 against the Pirates, the San Francisco Giants will travel to Washington to take on the league rival the Washington Nationals in the first outing of the four-game series on Friday, April 29.
The Giants’ top starter, Tim Lincecum, will enter the mound to crush the opposition’s Jason Marquis. Lincecum had achieved double-digit strike-outs in this spring and one more will take him past Christy Mathewson, who had the most strike-outs record in Major
League’s history.
Lincecum was one short of Mathewson’s franchise mark on the morning of April 18, but tied it making 10 strike-outs against the Colorado Rockies. Lincecum now has more strike-outs than any pitcher in this season, 38, in his first five starts. On Friday, against
the Nationals, Lincecum will try his level best to achieve his mark of 29 double-digit strike-outs acquire the top position in list.
Tim has a perfect time to give reality to his dream as he is in the best form for road games this season. He had given just two earned runs, allowed six walks and had 28 strike-outs in just over 21 innings and had 0.83 ERA over three road starts. The worst
outing he has in this season was against the Atlanta Braves last Saturday when he gave five run on just over six innings.
Lincecum said, "You can't accept walking six batters and putting your team in a back-against-the-wall type of situation. Today was one of those situations where I did it to myself and didn't put us in position to have a good game."
The Giants also has a psychological advantage over the Nationals, as San Francisco had overpowered the Nationals in four of six games last season. The second advantage they have over the Nationals is their 2-1 series triumph over the Pirates.
On the other hand, Washington has one distinction over all other Major League Baseball teams and that is they have utilised their starters for at least five innings in all 23 games this spring. However, it would not help them to take the game from the Giants,
as they have scheduled their struggling starter for the game. Jason Marquis had 2-9 record with 6.60 ERA last year, the worst in his career, but now he has changed his momentum.
The 32-year-old ball thrower has four quality starts to his name in which he has not given more than three runs in each of his four starts. The Nationals might have given him this chance because he has 4-3 record with 2.77 ERA in ten starts against the Giants.
The Nationals’ right-fielder, Jayson Werth will be worth seeing, putting the opposition pitcher out of the park that he has shown in earlier games. Jayson has launched four home-runs and six RBIs with a .233 batting average. He might cause some trouble for
the Giants. First baseman Adam LaRoche and Danny Espinosa have a chance to shine in this game.
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