First off, I didn't want to jinx it, but the Giants kind of rake knuckleballers. Charlie Haeger...Tim Wakefield...it's like the knuckleballer's modus operandi is to make the ball dance to where the bats shouldn't be, and the Giants' lineup is usually quite adept at putting bats where they have no business being. It's a perfect marriage! More knuckeballers, I say.
But this lineup going into today was one of the worst the Giants have fielded. Separating them into categories:
Probably shouldn't be on a roster
Burriss
Tejada
Probably shouldn't be in a lineup
Rowand
Schierholtz
In the middle of a nasty, yucky gutter-slump
Huff
Ross
Posey
Wait, he's hitting where in the order?
Fontenot
And it worked. By Jove, it worked. The Giants were able to score more runs than they have since the Colorado series. You remember that, right? When the Giants went into Coors Field and took a series, putting all of us on some sort of unexpected orange-and-black high? It's a weird high. Your tongue feels all funny and you can see what Buster Posey smells like. Or maybe that's just my high. It's different for everyone.
After the Giants were lucky to escape with series win in Pittsburgh, they were humiliated in Washington. And the Mets have kinda sorta been hot lately. Didn't like this series one bit. Nope. So when Carlos Beltran drove a Ryan Vogelsong out for a three-run homer, it was pretty clear that the Giants already had one foot in the clubhouse. Heck, look for yourself:
That's from FanGraphs, of course, and when that line is near the top of the graph, that's science saying the Giants don't have much of a shot of winning.
So this might not be the sweetest win of the year -- those Cardinals bearing gifts were pretty danged sweet -- it's one of the most unexpected. It was a down team with a gross lineup that got behind early. Recipe for yuck. But it was quite the game.
And if Aubrey Huff is back, we can drop things to DEFCYNIC 4. One at-bat is one at-bat, but here's hoping....