MLB: No-Hitter Sets San Francisco on Fire

Posted on | July 11, 2009 | No Comments

The San Francisco Giants are a good team. This seems to be a certainty. And that is a pretty bold statement considering where they were last year and at the beginning of the season. But are they a great team? Well, they are looking like a great team right now. And last night they had a great performance from Jonathan Sanchez. In fact it was an awesome performance.

Sanchez threw a no-hitter and it would have been a perfect game if not for an 8th inning error. So, through no fault of his own, Sanchez lost his perfect game but he certainly earned his no hitter.

This adds yet another dominant pitching performance to a large collection of dominant pitching performances that the Giants have amassed this season. And it sends another message to the 1st place Los Angeles Dodgers that the Giants aren’t going anywhere.

Yes, the Dodgers do have the best record in baseball and they also have the largest divisional lead in all of baseball. However, the Giants aren’t completely losing touch with the Dodgers. They are 7 games back but that’s a lot better than they were a couple months ago. Plus, they actually have the 2nd best record in the NL.

Let’s see if the Giants can ride Sanchez’s performance to a weekend sweep before the All Star Break. Having Matt Cain (10-2) on the mound on Saturday will certainly help the Giants keep things going. And then Barry Zito will start for them on Sunday. At 5-8 Zito has had a tough season but he has thrown the ball pretty well. His ERA is decent. So, the Giants could really use this series as a launching board.

And, even though I still think the Dodgers will win this division easily, I’m not quite as sure as I was a couple weeks ago. In fact, this race could get very close. And even with if the Giants don’t catch the Dodgers, if they get into the playoffs with a Wild Card, there isn’t any team that wants to play them with the pitchers they have at the top of their rotation.

Related posts:

1. MLB: Big Showdown San Francisco
2. San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers
3. San Francisco Giants at Florida Marlins
4. MLB: NL Sorting Itself Out
5. MLB: NL West Getting Interesting

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