Noah Lowry threw 7 scoreless innings last night in a 4 to 0 win over the Astros to drop his season ERA to a team leading 2.68, one game after Matt Morris threw a complete game 2 hitter allowing just 1 run to drop his ERA to 2.93.

Lowry & Morris are the two least hyped Giants starters after the 126 million $ man Barry Zito, 22 year old Matt Cain (career BAA of .208 & 7.7 SO/9), and rookie Tim Lincecum who is coming off a 10 strikeout 7 inning performance in just his 3rd MLB start.

Giants RF Randy Winn extended his career best hitting streak to 20 games with a double.

Meanwhile Barry Bonds continues his cold May. After an amazing April where Bonds turned back the clock with incredible production .356/.536/.814 with 8 home runs he has now gone 11 consecutive games without hitting a home run and his numbers for May are now at .222/.485/.444 with 3 homers. Of course the crazy number there is the .485 OBP, not many (any?) players can have a .485 OBP during a slump like Bonds can.

The question of course is whether this is just a slump or whether it's a sign of real decline from injury. Bonds has been playing almost every day so I'm holding out hope it's the former rather than the latter. It's definitely too early to be writing an obit. for Bonds' career as he's still leading the NL in OBP (.503) and second in SLG (.630) while leading all of MLB in OPS (1.133)

Tonight rookie pitcher Tim Lincecum tries to build on last week's weeks awesome start. If the Giants starting pitching can continue as it has recently (save Zito who needs to turn things up a notch or three) then I feel the Giants can be a real contender in the NL West this year if Bonds can produce with the way he was in April. Couple of pretty big ifs but enough to make the season exciting at this point for Giants fans.

Labels: San Francisco Giants