Giants take NLCS Game 1

Well, the much anticipated duel between Lincecum and Halladay has come to an end, the freak walking out of Game 1 with the win.

That duel might be over, but the series is far from over.

Breifly, tomorrow Jonathan Sanchez will take on Roy Oswalt. Originally, it would have been Matt Cain, but Bruce Bochy did the flip-flop early on, slating Sanchez to pitch Game 2.

We've won game one, the Rangers have tied their series with the Yankees in an impressive 7-2 win today. People are already looking way ahead, will we see Benji Molina? Let's not even go there yet.

We're taking this ONE GAME A TIME.

Game 1 like all the other play-off games the Giants have played, was determined by just one run. Tim Lincecum out pitching Roy Halladay in the end, walking away with 8 strike-outs. Brian Wilson (after torturing Giants fans) strutted away with the save.

The Phillies got close several times, too close for comfort, but the Giants managed to stay one step ahead of them.

The first thing to take notice of is the size of Citizens Bank Park. It's SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than AT&T, a hitters ballpark indeed. Before the Giants came into the NLCS game 1, we knew that our offense had to step it up. I don't know how many of our guys took this seriously, but Cody Ross did.

Cody Ross was coming off heroics in Atlanta, Georgia against the Braves. In Atlanta, he became public-enemy #1, In Philidelphia, he was booed at his last at-bat.

Cody Ross continued to display his heroics in Philidelphia by hitting back to back home runs off of ace Roy Halladay.

He's finding pitches he likes, and it's good. The Giants, not surprisingly, left a number of men on base. However, the Phillies did the same, leaving our pitching staff to clean things up.

Ruiz returned Cody's first homer with a solo shot of his own, tying the game.

Cody Ross, unsatisfied I guess, hit a second homer at his second at bat. He was "on base" a total of 3/4 times tonight, the last time, on a walk which loaded the bases, but we left it that way.

The Giants did have some success getting men home tonight. Uribe and Burrell both earned RBI's. Burrell, the Bay Area native and former Phillie got some revenge today by singling in Posey who had singled, and Uribe singling in Burrell who had doubled. The runs earned there turned out to be key in addition to Ross' two runs.

They were more than just cushion as it turned out Werth hit a two run shot to make the game a one run game. In the end however, after Wilson pitched something like a million and two pitches outside, he struck out two after giving up a single to end the game.

The best part is that the look on Ross' face after he hit both those home runs.
basically, priceless.

Always excited, always with that grin, I love it.

Wilson came in after Lopez in the 8th. Lopez ("the lefty specialist") struck out both of the lefties, and set the stage for our star-closer.

Wilson struck out the last Phillie swinging, after an intense, intense at bat.

But like the Wilson all of us here in San Francisco know, he's not out there to play games, he's out there to get the job done.

There's all this criticism on the Giants' 1-run game style, but that's just the way we do it.

I mean, obviously they weren't able to come back from that one run defecit, so no matter how we won it, we still won it. Having that one run is just enough for us to walk away with a win, and in the end, does it matter how we did it?