Jonathan Sanchez - Ben Margot - AP

So the big news this week was the no-hitter by Jonathan Sanchez. Honestly I think Giants fans were as surprised about this one as the rest of baseball. He had a lot of promise last year, but this year, he just hasn’t had it. There was a lot of talk about trading him for a bat, but his record was so bad that no one thought there would be a taker.

He threw a no-hitter when he wasn’t even supposed to start. He had a 2-8 record with a 5.30 ERA, and had recently been demoted to the bullpen because he was throwing so bad. He only got to pitch because Randy Johnson got injured so they needed someone to jump in there.

Honestly, I’m glad for the guy. It truly has been a rough season for him, so to join the no hitter club is truly something special. Who knows how his next game will be, but he at least got this one. I thought it was interesting that his last pitch to win the game and strike out the batter, was really questionable. It looked pretty outside, but it was close enough. I wonder if as an umpire you start to pull for the pitcher too. You know it’s probably a little off, but it’s close, and you think, “This guy has pitched well enough to get the no-hitter, I’m going to give it to him.” We’ll never know, but it’s all good if that’s what happened. Baseball has always been a game of inches.

The other thing notable this week was that the Giants had the second best record in the National League, second only to the Dodgers. The Giants are exceeding all expectations and are proving that they are a real possibility for the wild card. The Dodgers better hold strong because if they slip for a few games, while the Giants win, this could be a very different race near the end. Popular opinion still thinks that the Giants need a bat (which I agree with), but their pitching has kept them in the race and they are a solid team. They’re new kid Pablo Sandoval is a real reason why they are still going strong.

This week – the All-Star game and the Homerun Derby. After seeing the Homerun Derby two years ago in San Francisco, the game will always be special to me.  I’m pulling for Albert Pujols.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 7:35 am and is filed under Spy Game. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.