It was a tale of two nightmare innings for the Giants.
Barry Zito allowed 3 runs in the first inning. He then went on to retire 15 straight hitters at one point while the Giants hitters clawed their way back to a 3-3 tie in the top of the 7th inning.
The Giants then shot themselves in the proverbial foot again in the bottom of the 7th inning allowing the Dodgers 4 additional runs keyed by a misplayed warning track fly ball by Aubrey Huff.
I am very reluctant to be critical of Huff in right field. He is a first baseman by trade that is essentially taking one for the team by playing right field and not complaining about it. He did a decent job in his stint in left field last season, but every ball hit his way seems to be an adventure at this point.
Overall the Giants did not play good fundamental baseball in their opening series and the Dodgers consistently punished them for mistakes eeking out 2 one run victories.
Hopefully the poor fundamentals are merely a hiccup and not the sign of bigger problems with the Giants.
Positives from the Game
- Despite several breaks going against them they were still able to get the tying run to the plate in the 9th inning. I love the never say die attitude.
- Barry Zito settled after a rough first inning retiring 15 straight Dodgers at one point.
- The hitters were able to put 5 runs on the board. Five runs will probably give the Giants a lot of wins this season with their starting staff.
Negatives.
- Aubrey Huff had trouble with two fly balls in right field that helped propel the Dodgers to their two big innings.
- Hiroki Kuroda retired 14 Giants hitters in a row at one point.
- After pitching well on Friday Dan Runzler was not able to pitch around the misplay by Huff in right field and ended up giving up 4 earned runs in 1/3 of an inning.
BaseballTown 
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