San Francisco Giants vs Milwaukee Brewers: Series preview

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The San Francisco Giants (61-51) head to the Midwest for a pair of three-game series. First up, it's the Milwaukee Brewers (61-51), who are trying to get a bad month of July out of their system.

Milwaukee won just nine games last month, and didn't open up August in great fashion with losing two out of three to the St. Louis Cardinals over the weekend. After having the NL's best record for most of the season, they now cling to a one-game lead over last weekend's foe and will hope to extend it over the course of this week.

On the flipside, San Francisco currently has a 1.5 game deficit against the Los Angeles Dodgers and would like to make up the deficit. The Giants won three out of four against the New York Mets over the weekend, and it could have very well been a sweep if Jake Peavy didn't lose the gas in his no-hitter between both starters through the first six innings.

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That loss featured 10 hits in the final three innings between the clubs. The Mets put up four runs in total in the bottom of the seventh as the inning got away from Peavy and the Giants. SF was able to tack on two runs in the ensuing half inning, but they were unable to mount a comeback.

Outside of Peavy's glitch in that game, the Giants' starting pitchers were strong throughout the first three games of the series against the Mets, and they hope to bring the same stuff against a Milwaukee team that can slug the ball. There is only one team in the MLB that has five players that have reeled in over 50 RBIs, and it's the Brewers: Ryan Braun, Khris Davis, Carlos Gomez, Jonathan Lucroy, and Amaris Ramirez.

The good news? San Francisco will start off the series with their most reliable starter, Tim Lincecum, while Milwaukee will go with rookie Jimmy Nelson who has struggled in his last three starts (0-2, 5.71 ERA). Buster Posey will likely have the night off and be back in action on Wednesday. Plus, there's no Dan Uggla in sight after rejecting the offer to head to Triple-A and was released from the team.

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Even better news? Angel Pagan continues his journey back to the Giants as he will play for the Fresno Grizzlies again tonight. He may not make the trek to Milwaukee, but fingers are crossed that he'll make it against the Kansas City Royals.

Probable starters / TV schedule

• Tuesday: Tim Lincecum (R, 9-7, 4.21) vs Jimmy Nelson (R, 1-2, 4.30)
  First pitch: 8:10 PM ET | TV: CSN Bay Area, FOX Sports Milwaukee
• Wednesday: Ryan Vogelsong (R, 6-8, 3.88) vs Yovani Gallardo (R, 6-5, 3.38)
  First pitch: 8:10 PM ET | TV: CSN Bay Area, FOX Sports Milwaukee
• Thursday: Jake Peavy (R, 0-2, 4.73) vs Wily Peralta (R, 13-6, 3.52)
  First pitch: 2:10 PM ET | TV: CSN Bay Area, FOX Sports Milwaukee, MLB Network

San Francisco Giants: Picking up the pieces after Los Angeles Dodgers sweep

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Well that was rough. Going into a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers a game and a half above them in the National League West, the San Francisco Giants (57-48) get rocked in two games and let the third one get away on Sunday Night Baseball to fall 1.5 games back in the division.

The Dodgers outscored the Giants 17-4, got to Tim Lincecum, Ryan Vogelsong, and eventually new starter Jake Peavy in the fifth inning. It was brutal to see the offense also sputter throughout the weekend, but that was expected with the pitching lineup coming in. Don Mattingly organized the pitching staff against the Giants after the All-Star break, and that proved to work wonders.

Now, San Francisco will have to get over it quickly as a three-game pack against the Pittsburgh Pirates (55-49) begins on Monday night, and they're also looking for a playoff spot. It's an important series in case either of these teams are looking for one of the wild card spots at the end of the season. If the Pirates sweep this, they'll have a better record than the Giants.

Pittsburgh is in the midst of a 16-game jaunt against NL West teams. After sweeping the Colorado Rockies earlier, they lost back-to-back 8-1 games before salvaging the final game. Now they'll have to face the beefy portion of the Giants' starting lineup with Madison Bumgarner, Tim Hudson, and Big Time Timmy Jim.

Andrew McCutchen is the only player hitting over .300 (.312) in the batting lineup for the Pirates. Neil Walker has been the second power hitter with 15 home runs and 48 RBIs; Pedro Alvarez has the same number of HRs and just one less RBI. Josh Harrison has reeled in seven hits, four RBIs, and two stolen bases in the last seven games.

Pitching Matchups

• Monday: Madison Bumgarner (L, 12-7, 3.19) vs Vance Worley (R, 3-1, 3.10)
  First pitch - 10:15 PM ET | TV: NBC Bay Area, ROOT Sports Pittsburgh
• Tuesday: Tim Hudson (R, 8-7, 2.65) vs Francisco Liriano (L, 2-7, 4.18)
  First pitch - 10:15 PM ET | TV: CSN Bay Area, ROOT Sports Pittsburgh, MLB Network
• Wednesday: Tim Lincecum (R, 9-7, 3.96) vs Charlie Morton (R, 5-10, 3.40)
  First pitch - 3:45 PM ET | TV: CSN Bay Area, ROOT Sports Pittsburgh, MLB Network

Giants Notebook: What to look for in season's second half

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What to watch in the second half of the season

1) The starting rotation will have a new order. Madison Bumgarner leads the pack, followed by Tim Hudson, Tim Lincecum, Ryan Vogelsong, and Matt Cain. Seeing Cain last in the order looks weird, but he's definitely not been the same over the past few years. His record looks worse than his actual pitching, however, and none of the pitchers have showed that they deserve to be demoted from the starting lineup.

Cain's move to the final starter is still it bit shocking, considering he's improved over the course of his last three starts and given up just four total runs.

Over the course of the Giants' downfall, Tim Lincecum probably emerges as the starting pitcher the Giants can trust the most. We'll see if Bumgarner can gain some more consistency and if Hudson can return to the form he was at in the first two months of this season.

2) How will the bullpen improve? As of late in the Giants' tumble in June, the starting pitching has been less of an issue and more of a bullpen problem. There are a handful of games that they could have come away from victorious and instead it took Sergio Romo failing in the final inning or multiple relievers blowing a lead or a tie down the stretch.

Jean Machi needs to return to how he was pitching earlier in the season to aid the bullpen, and it would be terrific for San Francisco if Santiago Casilla could become the go-to guy at the closer position.

3) What helps the Giants down the stretch? They have the easiest record based on win-loss total in the National League. The NL West is a disaster, but more importantly, they have to win games at home again. While it is the easiest schedule, there are more trips further out East. Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, New York Philadelphia, Washington, tonight in Miami are all part of a brutal month and a half slate.

Basically, any stretches of 6-16 a AT&T Park will be unacceptable. They must keep winning the series at home.

Keys to the second half of the season

1. Angel Pagan's health. Now for two straight years, the Giants have fell off the map when Pagan is out for an extended period of time. There's talk of the Giants going after some bats, bud I'd wait to see what happens when Pagan is back at 100 percent.
2. Lincecum's return to dominance. He's absolutely been tearing it up, and fans have truly been celebrating "Tim Lincecum Day" because it's turned out to provide this team's best chance to win in recent weeks.
3. Smash it early. On offense, the Giants need to do two things. Start hitting the ball out of the park again, and do it early. San Francisco is 38-11 when put the first run on the board. They aren't built to be a comeback team. They're built to destroy everybody on the mound, play small ball, and to get runners in with two outs. All of that went missing in June.

Next up: at Marlins (44-50)

Similar to San Francisco, Miami has really struggled heading into the All-Star break pit stop. The Marlins have been a pain in the Giants' side, but they've been tougher to handle at AT&T Park. Dealing with plenty of injuries like Jarrod Saltalamacchia and A.J. Ramos out along with their ace Jose Fernandez, SF must capitalize and get off to a solid start in the back half of the season just to gain a little bit of momentum.

San Francisco Giants Notebook: A two-game winning streak never felt so good

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The San Francisco Giants won their first series since defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks during the weekend of June 21st and 22nd. Prior to that, it was still during the Giants' heyday.

Back in early June, the Giants' domination of the St. Louis Cardinals trickled into June 1st with an 8-0 victory. Then came defeating the Cincinnati Reds in two games, then sweeping the New York Mets. After that? 5 wins and 17 losses prior to this series against the San Diego Padres.

It's been hell watching a 10-game lead evaporate and now seeing the Los Angeles Dodgers atop the NL West, but it's what everybody expected -- to see the Dodgers at the top. However, after the floor was pulled from under the Giants just as it was a season ago, at least they can still salvage things and rebound unlike last year.

Making adjustments in the batting order worked wonders. Even though it followed up with two straight losses, Hunter Pence leading off was a major reason the Giants were able to get on top early in Sunday's win over the Padres. It also helps that one of the long-injured players, Brandon Belt, is back to give the lineup a jolt.

With Belt back, that makes it easy to push Pence in the starting role, and that should fill the void of a leadoff hitter until Angel Pagan returns. But the weekend wasn't all fireworks -- now another injury was dealt to Pablo Sandoval, who's had one of the hottest bats in a meager offense during the downslide. Sandoval is simply day-to-day, but with the luck that the Giants have had with injuries, we'll see how fast he gets back into the lineup.

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Tim Lincecum finds consistency. It's hard to believe, but Lincecum recorded his third straight terrific outings after Sunday's 5-3 victory. It wasn't dominating like his no-hitter against the Padres, throwing 105 pitches in 6.1 innings of work, but he was able to limit damage. He only gave up three hits and a run while striking out six. He moves to 8-5 on the season and quickly becoming the team's renewed ace.

Sergio Romo continues to struggle. He gave up a two-run bomb in the eighth inning to give the Padres a little bit of life and cut the lead to two runs. Thank god the team scored two runs in the top half of the inning. Romo is certainly in a slump and it's continuing to get worse. We can simply hope he gets it together to help out in the bullpen late in the year.

Is Saturday's comeback finally the turnaround the Giants need? Every fan is trying to pinpoint the moment that will turn this team back into its winning ways. We've been wrong so far. Would it be Big Time Timmy Jim's no hitter? Nope. Would it be the fourth inning against the Cardinals that resulted in stranding the opponent with bases loaded and zero outs and scoring in the bottom half of that inning? Nope. Now, can it finally be a game-tying Michael Morse home run in the ninth inning and winning in extras? It will have to be done against the Bay Area rivals that haven't slipped yet this season.

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Next up: Oakland A's (55-33)

• 1st in the AL West
• Added Jeff Samardzija in a blockbuster deal with the Chicago Cubs
• Scored most runs in MLB (435) while having 14th-best team batting average (.245)
• Second-best team in MLB in pitching (3.16 ERA, Washington is 1st)

The offense won't wow you, but the A's are able to score. Derek Norris is the only regular that is hitting above .300. Coco Crisp is hitting .291 but has an on-base percentage of .383. Thanks to Crisp and Jed Lowrie, that's led to Brandon Moss and Josh Donaldson taking advantage at the 4 and 3 position in the order, respectively. Moss leads the team with 19 home runs and 62 RBIs.

For the Giants to keep the train moving positively, they'll have a tall order in a four-game, split-home series against the A's before having three against the Diamondbacks at home to end the first half of the season.

Pitching matchups

• Monday - Ryan Vogelsong (R, 5-5, 3.86) vs Jesse Chavez (R, 6-5, 3.23)
  9:05 PM CT | TV: NBC Bay Area / CSN California 
• Tuesday - Madison Bumgarner (L, 9-6, 3.09) vs Sonny Gray (R, 8-3, 3.08)
  9:05 PM CT | TV: CSN Bay Area / CSN California
• Wednesday - TBA vs Matt Cain (R, 1-7, 4.27)
  9:15 PM CT | TV: CSN Bay Area / CSN California
• Thursday - Scott Kazmir (L, 10-3, 2.53) vs Tim Hudson (R, 7-5, 2.53)
  2:45 PM CT | TV: CSN Bay Area / CSN California / MLB Network

Luckily, the Giants won't have to face Samardzija as he made his debut on Sunday. We don't know who will be pitching on Wednesday just yet, but the best matchup is the Thursday afternoon showdown between Kazmir and Hudson, assuming Hudson brings the good stuff. That game will also be seen nationally on MLB Network for those that don't live in California.

Giants Notebook: Tim Lincecum struggles, four errors prove fatal in loss to Reds

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It wasn't as bad as the MLB writer who got his computer smashed up on a foul ball, but San Francisco's good vibes in their stretch against National League Central talent came to a halt with Tim Lincecum struggling in an 8-3 loss.

Big Time Timmy Jim lasted just 4.1 innings after giving up eight earned runs off of six hits. His defense didn't help him, who gave up a season-high four errors in one game with plenty of struggles holding down the Reds' baserunners.

Even with all those errors, all eight runs that Cincinnati ran across the plate was tagged and earned by Lincecum.

On the flip side, Homer Bailey didn't have a no-hitter this time around, but he improves to 3-0 all time against the Giants after giving up five hits, three runs, and recorded seven strikeouts in six innings of work.

San Francisco went 0-4 with runners in scoring position and the offense died off completely after Cincinnati extended their lead to 8-3 after the fifth inning. Hunter Pence was a triple shy of recording the first cycle of his career.

Again, the only guy that had a worse night than the Giants was a writer up in the press box that got his computer smashed by a foul ball and his computer screen was cracked. Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area had full coverage of the event -- because the game kind of sucked -- and they were there for every flip out and cursory yell as he was rewriting his story on a different laptop.

Next up: Giants (37-21) at Reds (27-29) - Wednesday, 6:10 PM CT

• TV: CSBA, FSOH
• Pitchers: Ryan Vogelsong (R, 3-2, 3.45) vs Tony Cingrani (L, 2-5, 4.01)

Yesterday's Favorites: Los Angeles Kings dominate Game 5, keeping San Jose Sharks on their heels

Los Angeles takes all the momentum from San Jose in the NHL playoffs, San Francisco dominates in the fifth inning to win their third straight game, Denver wins their 21st consecutive Major League Lacrosse season opener, and Tottenham bores everybody by holding on to win in today's very long recap of all my favorite teams from yesterday.


NHL: Kings 3, Sharks 0 (SJ leads 3-2)

When Los Angeles generally gets three goals, it's game over with Jonathan Quick in front of the net. That certainly was the case on Saturday night. Quick stopped all 30 San Jose shots and the team killed all five Shark power plays. Three different Kings scored, including Jeff Carter's second goal of the playoffs on the lone power play goal. Drew Doughty was a part of the assist, his fourth of the postseason.

LA still has plenty of work to do, but they completely eliminated home advantage at The Cage early. San Jose fans were booing from the national anthem to the final horn. They've got full momentum in the series, and the Sharks will have to refocus and try to close the series out on Monday night.

MLB: Giants 5, Indians 3

Tim Lincecum didn't get off to a great start for San Francisco, but it didn't matter. After giving up the first three runs of the game, the Giants figured out Zach McAllister, punching in four runs in the fifth inning. With the bases loaded, Gregor Blanco pinch hits and singles in a run. Angel Pagan sacrifices to bring in another run. After Blanco steals second, Hunter Pence hits a ground ball to reel in the remaining two on the bases. Buster Posey tacked on a run in the next inning with his fifth homer of the season.

It's San Francisco's third straight win, keeping ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers who held on in the ninth inning to defeat the Colorado Rockies. San Diego dropped another game to the Washington as they continue to struggle bringing in the runs.

OTHER NOTES: Pablo Sandoval continues to struggle, going 0-for-3 at the plate on Saturday. Lincecum gave up nine hits, three runs and recorded just three strikeouts in 4.2 innings of work, but the bullpen (Gutierrez, Machi, Affeldt) and Sergio Romo didn't give up a hit en route to the closer's sixth save of the season.

MLL: Outlaws 14, Launch 10

Major League Lacrosse finally kicked off on Saturday, and both games started off as road team blowouts. Denver spoiled Florida's inaugural MLL game in Boca Raton and raced all the way to an 11-1 lead at halftime. However, the Launch refused to become lunch, and Florida's Josh Amidon added on after scoring the team's first goal with a 2-point goal in the third period. Veteran Casey Powell led the way with three goals and two assists.

Florida scored all five goals in the 3rd period and had a seven-goal run until Denver finally stopped the bleeding with Chris Bocklet hitting two of the Outlaw's final three goals to hold on to the victory. Bocklet had five goals while Eric Law had two goals and two assists. Goalie Jesse Schwartzman was an impenetrable wall until the 3rd quarter, but the lead perhaps made everyone soft on Denver.

BPL: Tottenham 1, Stoke City 0

Spurs all but clinch Europa League action, but it wasn't pretty. Emmanuel Adebaylor set up defender Danny Rose for his first Premier League goal of the season. He also aided in the elimination of Ryan Shawcross for Stoke, picking up his second yellow card. But even with 10 men, Stoke played more inspired down the stretch and had multiple opportunities to end the game in a draw.

The lackadaisical Spurs got through this week, finally on the road for once, but there's absolutely no inspiration here. Basically, their objective is to just get through each game, and move right on to the next. Similar to low-paid production jobs, the just want to get a project over and done with so they can move right on to the next one. In Tottenham's mind, they were ready for the season to end yesterday.