Giants 4, Diamondbacks 5 - Home Runs Passover Left Field Wall, Nail Lincecum

Record: 1-0. Pace: 162-0. Change from 2011: +0

162-0. With a perfect record thus far, the Diamondbacks are now on pace for a spectacular season. Ian Kennedy will have 33 wins, and Paul Goldschmidt will hit 162 home runs, a great many of them off of Tim Lincecum.

Truthfully, Goldschmidt probably WILL hit a great many more home runs off of Tim Lincecum! Goldy cemented his dominance of Lincecum with a monster solo blast; he is now 6-for-11 with a walk and three home runs against Tim in his young career. Goldschmidt's and Chris Young's home runs in the first inning gave Ian Kennedy an early lead and helped propel the Diamondbacks to a 5-4 victory on Opening Day.

Opening Day for the Diamondbacks came at home this year, in front of a sellout crowd of over 49,000 people. Fans in their seats early enough saw the awards ceremony for Gerardo Parra (Gold Glove), Justin Upton and Daniel Hudson (Silver Sluggers) and Kirk Gibson (Manager of the Year). Soon enough, it was time to plaaaaaaaaay ballllllllllll.

The Diamondbacks wasted no time in getting on the scoreboard. Willie Bloomquist hit a leadoff single and Chris Young, in the two hole, smoked a home run to the left field bleachers. Two batters later, Goldschmidt followed with a monster shot of his own, and he knew it. See above for his dominating numbers against Lincecum. Lincecum got mad at his own poor performance and settled down, striking out seven Diamondbacks in five innings.

Ian Kennedy also struggled a bit today, allowing a few more baserunners than we were comfortable with. He allowed a hit in each of the first three innings and even walked the pitcher Lincecum, but held the Giants scoreless until the 5th. In the 5th, Angel Pagan doubled and Melky Cabrera followed with a home run just over the right field fence, cutting the Diamondbacks' lead to one. With some small ball in the 6th, Brandon Crawford doubled in Aubrey Huff to tie up the game.

Arizona came back against Lincecum in their half of the 6th inning. Arizona loaded the bases with a double by Upton, a walk to Goldschmidt, and a little squibbler by Kubel in front of the plate that Buster Posey mishandled. While fans were hoping for another Ryan Roberts grand slam, we settled for a double to give Arizona a 5-3 lead.

Ian Kennedy pitched into the 7th inning, but with two runners on, he was pulled for Joe Paterson. David Hernandez pitched a very easy and efficient 8th inning, setting up the 9th for closer J.J. Putz. Pablo Sandoval drove in Cabrera with a double to the left field wall, which caused us to start biting our nails a little bit harder, but Putz got a ground ball out of Posey to close out the ballgame with a 5-4 win.

Source: FanGraphs

Heros: R Roberts, +17.3%; C Young, +11.9%
Demi-Gods: J Upton, +7.3%; P Goldschmidt, +6.6%
Having a part in a Dante poem: I Kennedy, -8.6% (combined)

Nope, it's just too awful to give Kennedy that title, because really, nobody was that awful today. Aaron Hill was the lowest position player with a -4.6% and the rest of the pitchers had a positive WPA. Overall, a little weak, but a job well done today.

As expected, it was a hoppin' gameday thread, despite the number of 'Pitters actually at the game (though most of them checked in from the field). txzona led the way with 150. Clefo and hotclaws were also over the century mark. There were 57 users making 1576 comments today, and they were: emilylovesthedbacks, kishi, DivineWolfwood, Bcawz, snakecharmer, Clefo, txzona, jinnah, The so-called Beautiful, venomfan, SnakebitForever, piratedan7, SouthPawRyno, GuruB, blank_38, 4 Corners Fan, Zavada's Moustache, hotclaws, Muu, jalora, BattleMoses, Jim McLennan, SenSurround, PatrickPetersonAZ, blue bulldog, BulldogsNotZags, Jdub220, Craig from Az, jjwaltrip, Skii, imstillhungry95, dbacks25, iarebradley, JoeCB1991, asteroid, grimmy01, Conrad Kaczmarek, CaptainCanuck, Stile4aly, AhwatukeeCoyote, soco, Dan Strittmatter, VouxCroux, porty99, rfffr, Augdogs, Gildo, Stupendous Man, DeDxDbacKxJroK, Rockkstarr12, edbigghead, nam_gunner, Britback, ColonelKlank, TinySarabia, since_98, and Wactivist.

Several good quips in the gameday threads today, but it was well below par. I expected more out of you on Opening Day, people! Get it together! CotD goes to soco (who had the only two greenies) referencing a broken bat:

Wouldn't

have happened if that bat was made of Parra.

Tomorrow is another day.

by soco on Apr 6, 2012 4:57 PM PDT reply actions 5 recs

Tomorrow sees Daniel Hudson going up against Madison Bumgarner in another day game, with the boys breaking out the Saturday home blacks already! Game time is 1:05pm SHARP, so be here! Don't even tell me you have something better to do on your Saturday afternoons. I just won't buy it.

Happy Opening Day, everyone!