As many of you know, I live in Venezuela, here baseball is a big deal, but we get only one maybe two games a day. To solve that problem I decided to get myself a TV package that has four more sports channel so I could enjoy up to five baseball games a day.

I kinda built my own “Fan Cave” in my bedroom. Yesterday I was actually watching two baseball games at the same time while following a third one via Gameday. One of the games I saw yesterday was the Giants versus Dodgers.

Something that caught my attention while watching that  game was Giants’ starter Tim Lincecum (no, it wasn’t his high socks) it was his pitching that caught my attention.

During almost his entire outing, I saw a Lincecum that had a lot of problems spotting his pitches, his curveball was ineffective and even his fastball was off. Dodgers’ starter Chad Billingsley started off good, but he was hit in the fourth and fifth inning for four runs.

Maybe you could blame the long Dodgers’ fourth offensive inning for the Billingsley “meltdown”, but in my opinion, it was the great hitting by Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval that got Billingsley off in the fourth that sealed his fate.

In Sandoval’s AB in the fourth, Billingsley threw a breaking pitch on a 3-1 count to get him to a full count. For me that was one heck of a pitch, why? Well, Sandoval is a free swinger, you can practicaly make him swing a t a pick off throw to first, so to give him a breaking pitch on a fastball count was a really smart piece of pitching. For the 3-2 count, Billingsley decided to go with another breaking pitch, in my opinion, another great decision, but unfortunately for him, Sandoval got a double on a very good located pitch.

After that, the Giants simply were better than the Dodgers. Even though Jeremy Affeldt served up a homer to Marcus Thames, the Giants reacted quickly in the bottom of the seventh with an Aaron Rowand triple and a wild pitch afterward.

For the grand finale, Brian Wilson A.K.A “King Leonidas” came into the game to shut the door on the Dodgers nose. Wilson was throwing heat and the location of his pitchs were perfect, he only needed 14 pitches (10 strikes) to get three strike outs in the ninth in order to record his first save of the year.

During the broadcast I heard that outfielder Cody Ross was doing some agility drills prior to yesterday’s game and he was pain free, he will be playing some extended Spring Training games shortly. Andres Torres, who is also injured, was out of the walking boot and he is scheduled to hit today, so for now he’ll avoid the disabled list. Brandon Belt was also in the news yesterday, prior to the game he was shagging fly balls in right field, so this could mean the Giants could play him in right field and give Aubrey Huff the chance not to look so awful in the field by swtiching him to first base.

From what I’ve seen this season, the Giants are far from what they were last year, but they have the pieces to make things work. Their pitching staff has to get better down the stretch of the season, and they have to keep producing in clutch situations. As for the defense, they will probably get better once Ross and Torres are back and healthy.

Earlier this season, I heard an interview with Derek Jeter where he said that “good teams make the playoffs, but inspired teams are the ones who win World Series.” Applying this statement, the Giants have the good enough team that could put them in the playoffs, but they have to be inspired, as they were last season, if they want to repeat.