San Francisco Giants @ San Diego Padres (game 4)

The final game of this important 4 game series took place on Sunday afternoon at PETCO Park. My seat was on the third base side, where lots of other Giants fans were also sitting, near to the Giants' dugout. It was hot in the sun again, although as the game progressed into the 7th inning, the sun had moved around enough to put us in the shade.

Today was the big matchup of the aces: Lincecum for the Giants; Latos for the Padres. With Andres Torres in hospital having an appendectomy, the Giants lineup was rejigged slightly, but despite the change, Buster Posey highlighted the first inning with another 2-run home run. It turned out to be enough. Later Jose Guillen would had a sacrifice fly, and then Tim Lincecum himself slapped a 2-RBI single down the left field line, although in truth, it would have been a double if he'd run it out. The Padres got one run back, but that was it as the Giants tacked on another run and threatened in several other innings too. The big key was staying out of the double plays that had affected so many innings in the previous 3 games.

Pablo Sandoval had another interesting game. Having been responsible for hitting into several of the double plays in the series, he finally had a positive impact in this game. He got on base with a walk, and later hit a deep fly ball that enabled Cody Ross, pinch-running, to score from 1st base when the Padres' centrefielder, Durango, dropped the ball. Unfortunately for Pablo, that goes in the scorebook as "E8, no RBI". When he did finally make a run for home plate, it led to the comedy moment of the game, as he tried to smother the San Diego catcher, Yorvit Torrealba, by sort of half-collapsing and half-bellyflopping on top of him. He doesn't do sliding, clearly. However, he did also pull off a terrifically athletic diving catch at 3rd base to stop a Padres rally.

As with some other teams, the inter-inning entertainments were the same each day, which does get a little repetitive, although they never got around to the stolen base game today, where one selected fan has to run to second base, remove it from position and run back with it in order to win a prize. Everybody in the stadium won another 2 tacos though, as the lady guessed the right Jack Hat.