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The Diamondbacks' franchise record against the Giants is the worst of all their NL West opponents. Indeed, at 95-130, it's the worst against any team in the league, save the Cardinals (39-57). And it has been worse of late, since the start of 2009, we are 11-28 versus San Francisco. It gets even nastier if we look at the games played at PhoneCo Park: we have just four wins in 18 attempts there, and have been swept three of the last four trips to McCovey Cove. Not exactly the happiest of hunting grounds for the D-backs.
No line-up. For the past couple of days, Twitter is giving me nothing but a blank page with the control-bar at the top, so I've no idea who's playing. I've tried disabling Ad Block, in case it was being a little over-zealous, but nothing. While this seems to be a known issue, Twitter's suggestion "simply click 'Switch to Old Twitter'" is utterly useless, since they've disabled that server side and you get a nice error message. Because, of course, New Twitter is about as much an improvement over Old Twitter, as New Coke was over Coke Classic. Funnily, my life has gone on without Twitter, and this is the first time it has had any impact. So screw 'em. End of tech rant.
We actually handled Lincecum pretty well last year. In five starts versus the Diamondbacks, he was 2-1 with a 4.13 ERA. However, the victories both came in the September games, when he allowed four runs in 13.2 innings - a 2.63 ERA - so he might have figured us out. The current roster collectively hit .206 off him - poor Miguel Montero has an OPS barely at .400, having gone 5-for-32 with one walk. Justin Upton's 9-for-28 is easily the best, so hopefully he can keep that up.
Kennedy also faced the Giants five times in 2010, and went 1-2, even though his 2.67 ERA was significantly better than Timmeh's. The defeats included 2-0 and 3-1 losses, so it'd be nice to get him some more run support. The good news is, the current Giants roster have hit Kennedy at only a .205 clip, though the two San Francisco batters with most at-bats - Aubrey Huff and Buster Posey - have handled him very well: 11-for-27 combined, with four walks and only one K.
I might be around for this, or I might not. I don't like these later starts. 7:15 pm? That's far too long for me to hang around after dinner, so I'll probably slap a film on, and check in once that's done, see whether I should bother sticking about. 'charmer's at the game, I believe, so sure there'll be some nice eye-witness information being added into 'Skins recap.