Things I loved from last night's game:
- Matt Morris was throwing strikes, featuring the best fastball we've seen from him as a Giant, and using the fastball to set up a sharp curve. If you missed the game, don't pay the slighest attention to the box score. Giving up homers to Ryan Howard will happen.
- Ray Durham has been feeling more comfortable stretching out his legs over the last couple of weeks, and last night went from first to third on a play that could have been tight.
- Barry Bonds stole a bag. The Phillies weren't holding him on, sure, but he still had to get them creaky bones moving pretty fast.
- Jonathan Sanchez never looked average to me, but I never really saw where the ridiculous minor league strikeout rates came from. I do now. Ho man, that was a nasty inning.
- Armando Benitez hung a couple of splitters in the ninth, but his fastball is still exponentially better than what we saw when he first became a Giant. Asking him to be perfect -- or likable -- isn't realistic. On the same acceptable level of, say, Tim Worrell '03 would be an improvement from last year.