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.