Art Spander - Sports Commentary

SAN FRANCISCO -- April is done for the Giants. The cruelest month. But not this April. Not these Giants. They’re where they never were last year. Not once. They’re even, at .500, 10-10, and heading into May.

There may not be a pennant, but there is progress.

In 2008, the Giants lost their first two games and never caught up. Never squared their record in the remaining 160. In 2008 the Giants were a bad team, a terrible team. Who knows what kind of a team they’ll be in 2009, but the possibility is encouraging.

They beat the Dodgers on Wednesday night. Again. Defeated the hailed and hated Dodgers, 9-4. Two out of three and a series win. “Beat L.A., beat L.A.’’ The chant reverberated through AT&T Park on a yet another cold but satisfying night for a crowd announced at 37,717.

The Giants had pitching, or so we wanted to believe. And indeed that’s what they’ve had with Tim Lincecum, who retired the first 10 Dodgers, who took a shutout into the eighth, who won his second game. They’ve had Matt Cain, Randy Johnson, Jonathan Sanchez, Barry Zito and in the bullpen Brian Wilson, who was a wobbly finisher but earned a save.

It turns out, to our surprise, they also have hitting. Not Yankee or Red Sox hitting. Not even Dodgers hitting, what with Manny Ramirez in L.A. But more hitting than we imagined.

Hitting from shortstop Edgar Rentaria, who had three singles and a double. Hitting from Bengie Molina who had a homer, triple, single and four runs batted in. Hitting from Juan Uribe, Nate Schierholtz and Emmanuel Burriss, who each had two hits of the Giants total of 15.

“I don’t know if we’ll be doing this all the time,’’ said Bruce Bochy, the Giants manager, of the offense. “We’ve got to pitch and catch the ball. We see ourselves having close games. But this was a good one.’’

It was one that closed a month that began with the Giants, after six straight defeats, at 2-7. “After our losing skid,’’ agreed Bochy, “this showed our resiliency. It was good for our ball club. These guys had some tough losses, but they bounced back.’’

You can’t get greedy. But the Giants did have a chance to win Tuesday night and sweep. And before the first pitch Wednesday, Dodgers manager Joe Torre understood that quite well. Losing to Zito in the opener on Monday and then a defeat Tuesday would have been big trouble for L.A., with Lincecum, the Cy Young Award winner, going for San Francisco.

“(Tuesday) night was huge,’’ Torre said. “We’re facing Lincecum tonight. He’s so good.’’

Especially against the Dodgers. Lincecum now is 3-0 when L.A. is the opponent. Wednesday night he struck out eight and has 33 strike outs in his last three starts, a span of 23 innings.

“This was big,’’ said Bochy. “Especially after a tough loss. We had Tim on the mound, and the offense was swinging the bats. It did look like one of our easier games, but the Dodgers are a very good team.’’

The Giants were ahead 7-0 after seven. Then Juan Pierre, in the ninth spot as Torre wanted to get cute with his lineup and put his pitchers batting eighth, singled. That was followed by Rafael Furcal’s single. Orlando Hudson doubled home Pierre, and when Ramirez walked on Lincecum’s 103rd pitch to load the bases, that was it for Tim.

“As a starting pitcher,’’ Lincecum said, “you go as deep into the game as you can, and you hand the ball over.’’

He handed it to Jeremy Affeldt who got Andre Ethier to hit into a double play, which did score Furcal, but the Dodgers had been stymied.

“He had gone far enough,’’ Bochy said of Lincecum. “Jeremy came in and got that huge double play. Tim had great stuff his last start, the start before that and this start. We won a series from the team in first after they swept us in L.A.

“It’s important for us to play well at home.’’

And to finish their April schedule the way they started it, even after 20 games as they were before a single game. This season could be very interesting.