Giants sweep Dodgers out of town, walk off again

Realize what this series could have been. Graves aren't dug in April, but coffins are ordered. Arrangements are made. A bad series against the Dodgers wouldn't have buried the Giants, but it would have put a deposit down on the plot. Imagine the Giants losing two out of three. Imagine if they were swept. They would have been rewarded with a road trip to Coors and Dodger Stadium. Doom. Dooooooooooooooom.

Instead, the Giants swept the three-game series against the Dodgers. The Giants had lost nine of 10, and the Dodgers had won seven straight. As if that matters. A series win would have felt swell, but as always, a loss in the final game would have been a bad ending to a great book. It would have literally been the butler and not clever misdirection.

First up, let's update the list from earlier today.

Comic Sans because I don't know how it happened, either. Also, because I think that's the only font I have loaded into my Photoshop. It's the only one you need when you follow this team, for good reasons, bad ones, and the very best ones. When the Giants were 4-10, one of the things that bummed me out was that even if they won three straight, they were still just 7-10.

Now that it's happened, I wonder what in the heck I was so worried about. This is great. Wheeee!

Don't mention that the last time the Giants swept the Dodgers at home was in one of those stupid odd years, and we'll be just fine. Hey, the ace is going on Friday.

★★★

Justin Maxwell probably isn't the Andres Torres of this team, the minor league free agent who comes out of nowhere and has a fantastic season. But he probably isn't the Brandon Hicks, either, a 25th man in the middle of an unsustainable stretch. He's somewhere in the middle, a player who deserves to be on a roster, and one who probably deserves to be getting important late-inning at-bats, especially against left-handers.

On this day, why, Justin Maxwell was not to be denied.

Yes. (Fine, I'll link to the source for that, even if it makes me look bad.)

Right now, on the KNBR Post-Game Wrap, Duane Kuiper is relaying a story about how Maxwell's son was excited to hear Kuiper call his dad's home run because he had heard him call the 50,000 Bonds home runs he was fond of watching on YouTube. I don't know if Maxwell is my favorite Giants player right now, but the entire Maxwell family is in the running for my favorite Giants family.

There were be struggles and swings on baseballs that bounce. Such is the cycle of bench life. Right now, though, Maxwell can hit anything in the strike zone hard, and he can look like some weird hybrid of Giancarlo Stanton and Buster Posey while doing it. I'm enjoying it.

★★★

Before Brandon Crawford tied the game with a ninth-inning triple -- he's up to .222/.323/.444 on the season, which is a walk away from all of us winning $1,000,000, I think -- Casey McGehee had a beautiful at-bat in the ninth inning. All game, it seemed like every borderline call was going against him, which is what happens in the middle of a plague-spreading slump. The first strike was one of those strikes.

Then he took two borderline balls -- close, but clearly balls. He worked the count to 3-1 and looked for a fastball down the middle. He got it, and the Giants won because of it (in part).

We complain and poke fun here, but let this remind us that it's still April. McGehee is supposed to do two things well, and that's get singles and work counts. It's easy to pick on him because we haven't seen the good times yet, but here you go. There's one of the archetypal good McGehee at-bats. It was well-timed.

★★★

Ryan Vogelsong plunked Justin Turner with the first pitch of the game. Bad Vogelsong. Then he rearranged Adrian Gonzalez's brain and struck him out on three of the best pitches he's thrown all year. (Fastball with movement, running outside) x 3 = the old Vogelsong, the one who made an All-Star roster. He was that pitcher for most of the game, and it would have been miserable if we had to remember his outing because of two solo home runs and nothing else. He pitched marvelously.

And the best part is that Yusmeiro Petit is available if the Giants fall way behind in a game at Coors Field.

I'm not sure if Vogelsong is one of the Giants' five best pitchers when Matt Cain returns. That has a lot to do with Cain. He's making an argument that he is, though, and that's a good argument to have. He was a Led Zeppelin track on a classic rock station that you were actually in the mood to hear. He can be one of those for the rest of his career, as far as I'm concerned.

★★★

From the time the Giants wasted the leadoff triple in the ninth (they're 0-2 on the season trying to get their no-out triple home) to the time Adrian Gonzalez stepped in against Santiago Casilla, I would have given the Giants about a 25-percent chance of winning the game, and that was including gambling-related forfeits and things like that. There was just no way.

Oh, me of little faith. Casilla got out of it, as usual.

He had reactions, too.

ROARRWWOWWWRARROOOHHHHWWWW

RRAAAAAAAMMFFFPGARRRRRRGGGHH

i'm fine

★★★

Brandon Belt had two strikes in the bottom of the 10th inning, and Don Mattingly decided he should be intentionally walked.

Have you hugged your Bochy today?