Record: 52-51. Pace: 82-80. Change on last season: -3

Hello, above .500. We've not seen you for a bit - not since the calendar left June behind, almost four weeks ago. But, slowly, this team appears to be returning to... Well, if not quite the behemoth that bestrode the early season like... like... like a bestriding, behemothesque thing, then at least a team capable of playing solid baseball, and beating the opposition in a number of ways. Winners in four of our last five, and having gone 9-6 over fifteen: this is encouraging.

What genius was it who said, after the first inning, "I think our best hope is to take a lot of pitches, weather the storm, then plunder the Giants bullpen"? Oh, that was me. And the plan worked to perfection. After seven innings, San Francisco had the lead, and Lincecum was hit for in the bottom of the inning. His lead lasted exactly one out into the top of the eighth and the Giants' relief corps, as we took full advantage of an error and Chris Young's sacrifice fly tied the game at three. An RBI single from - who else? - Mr. Reliability, Conor Jackson, gave us the lead, and a sacrifice fly from Tracy added an insurance run. Jon Rauch pitched a perfect eighth, and Lyon worked around a single to get his 21st save. Mission accomplished - and not in a President Bush, horrifically premature, way.

Webb becomes the NL's first fourteen-game winner, running his record to 14-4, thanks to the late outburst from our hitters. He allowed a run in the first, on a sacrifice fly, but after a lengthy inning there, settled down. The only other Giants' scoring came with two outs in the sixth, on a two-RBI single that gave the lead back to San Franciso. But despite (arguably) being out-pitched by Lincecum - who struck out thirteen in seven innings, particularly brutalizing Drew three times, leading off the first, fourth and sixth innings - it was Webb who came out with the W. He allowed four hits, two walks and three earned runs in seven frames, striking out eight. That  took him past 1,000 for his career, though the Giants ran on him every chance they could, stealing three bases.

Similarly, it probably doesn't matter that we ended with a K:BB ratio for the night of 15:0, the worst ever in franchise history for a regulation game - we went 16:0 on August 31, 2004 against the Dodgers, albeit in 13 innings. Nor does it matter too much, that we lost two outs at home-plate, first as Romero tried to score from third on a grounder by Webb, and then as Snyder tried to score from second, after a Webb single. Are there stats available for this kind of thing? Because we certainly seem to be losing a lot of people there. What matters more on this evening, are the two-RBI double by Snyder, which represented the sum of our scoring off Lincecum, and the two hits he, Jackson and Hudson each posted.

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Master of his domain: Chris Snyder, +16.0%
Honorable mentions: Jackson, +15.8; Hudson, 14.1%; Ojeda, +14.0%
God-emperor of suck: Chris Young, -10.3%

A somewhat lightly-attended, but still brisk and thoroughly-entertaining Gameday Thread: well, I enjoyed it, anyway! Even without 'Skins [in Ecuador] and 'Charmer [at the game, I believe], we slipped past five hundred comments, so thanks to  kishi, hotclaws, dahlian, AF DBacks Fanatic, Wimb, mrssoco, TwinnerA, soco, unnamedDBacksfan, Scrbl, Muu, luckycc and  AZWILDCATS for their contributions. It was a wide-ranging discussion, that covered everything from tattoos to Christian Bale. Just another night at the SnakePit, even though I forgot to post the link to the chat-room. Must add it as a permanent one on the sidebar.

The win means we've taken back-to-back series for the first time since May 18, when we beat Detroit in the rubber game of that encounter, after having swept the Rockies. More evidence of a positive trend. Now, let's see if we can extend the winning streak to three tomorrow - having gone 0-6 in our previous attempts to do so over the past couple of months. It promises to be an engrossing battle of overpaid left-handed starters... More on that one tomorrow, though the Gameday Thread probably won't appear until after noon. I'm still at The Sets at time of posting, and we're just heading into the third - and most interesting! - act of our burlesque show, so we are still some way from seeing warm, pillowy fluffiness!