Know Your Foe #12: Giants Take Aim at First Place Rockies

San Francisco Giants (15-16, 2nd in the NL West)

2011 Record vs. Colorado: 2-1

Last Series vs. Rockies: April 18-20, 2011 (W 2-1 at Coors Field)

The Giants knocked the Rockies off of their early-season pedestal in a big way during their series win over the Rockies a few weeks ago. Prior to that, the Rockies hadn't dropped a series in 2011, going 4-0-1. Tim Lincecum held Colorado's offense hitless into the eighth inning in game one, while the Giants' bats jumped on Esmil Rogers to the tune of five first-inning runs. The Giants eventually won the game 8-1. Game two looked very similar from the outset, as San Francisco spoiled Ubaldo Jimenez's return from the DL, tagging him for four runs in the top of the first frame en route to a 6-3 victory in which Jonathan Sanchez tossed 6.1 innings of two-hit ball. Just as the fans (actually, pretty much just me) were starting to think the Giants were in the Rockies' heads, Colorado was able to finally figure out a Giants starting pitcher in the series finale; strangely, that pitcher was none other than Matt Cain, who had previously been the guy on that staff who had given the Rockies the most trouble. Colorado picked up six runs on nine hits against Cain, who was unable to get out of the fifth inning. Meanwhile, Jorge De La Rosa was finally able to corral San Francisco's offense, going seven innings and allowing just two runs on four hits as the Rockies won 10-2.

Latest Series Results: L 1-3 at Washington, W 2-1 at New York (NL)

The Giants have been pretty dreadful offensively over the past couple of series, although Nate Schierholtz (.922 OPS) and Mike Fontenot (1.130 OPS) have performed well in their injury fill-in roles over that stretch. Every club has an anchor in their lineup (and I don't mean that in a positive way), and Miguel Tejada fits that bill for the Giants. Tejada has OPS'd .297 over the past two series and just .506 (27 wRC+) overall in 2011. Still, Bruce Bochy has him written on the lineup card in permanent marker - though, that's partially because of Pablo Sandoval's broken hamate bone. Prior to being injured, Sandoval was easily the Giants' best offensive player (.904 OPS, 143 wRC+ in 2011) and one of only two everyday players (Burrell the other) that were even above-average.

Offensive failures aside, the Giants were still able to finished off a 10-game eastern road trip with a 5-5 record due to their pitching, which will almost always give them at least a chance to win. With Barry Zito now on the disabled list, every single one of the Giants' starters has a sub-4.00 xFIP, with Tim Lincecum's 2.43 mark being the best. Jonathan Sanchez has probably been the beneficiary of the best luck out of the group, as he is still prone to walking people (6.16 BB/9) and has a very low HR/FB rate so far, which is only noteworthy because of the fact that he is a flyball pitcher. Meanwhile, the somewhat-unlucky Madison Bumgarner has been victimized just a bit by BABIP (.323) - at least compared to the rest of the Giants' starters - and hasn't been able to strand runners as "well" as the rest of the group.

Pitching matchups and other pertinent information after the jump...

Friday through Sunday: 3-game series at AT&T Park

Expected Pitching Matchups

Friday, May 6, 2011 @ 8:15 PM MT

Saturday, May 7, 2011 @ 7:05 PM MT

Sunday, May 8, 2011 @ 2:05 PM MT

Expected Lineup

*Freddy Sanchez is nursing an injured thumb, so it's possible that he won't be in tonight's lineup*

Bench

Closer

*SGIP = Stupid Gimmicks per Inning Pitched*

Injuries