Sweep LA! Sweep LA!

I thought about going with the headline "Giants Castrate Dodgers in 3-game Sweep," but I thought that might be a bit too jarring. That being said, the Giants castrated the Dodgers in a 3-game sweep, knotting up the NL West as we near the half-way point of the season.

Maybe I'm just forever scarred from that late 1993 series against the Braves, where the Giants' lead was reduced from 7.5 to 4.5 games in what felt like 5 minutes, but it seems to me that whenever the Giants go into a big series against a division rival like this, they come out on the losing end. Of course you have to omit 1997 from this train of thought, but not every team can have Rod Beck and Brian Johnson (and Barry Bonds) on it. 5 minutes ago, the Giants were 3 games out. Now they're tied. Are things actually going well for the Giants?

When Zito and Lincecum combine for 14 shutout innings, sandwiched around 7 innings of Voglesong castrating the Dodgers, I'd say that's a pretty resounding "yes". Plus the bullpen totally castrated the Dodgers. All series, only one Dodger reached so far as third base. And when that runner (Dodgers' pitcher Chad Billingsly) tried to score on a wild pitch, Lincecum castrated him. (Loved this quote from Timmy: "I'm not much to go through, but he was going to have to go through me to get to the plate").

So, this all begs the question: Is Timmy back? My gut feeling is no, not quite. I'm not going to get my hopes up over 1 really nice start. I wasn't able to watch the game, but I did see see his Got 'em Reel. And he sure did look impressive. But my prediction is that his next start will consist of 3 or 4 solid innings, Mike Krukow will emphatically declare that "Tim Lincecum is back, folks", and then he'll have another one of his patented disaster innings. But then he'll calm down again, and by his next start, he will be back. Just a gut feeling. "Don't hate", as they say.

With the historic 3-game shutout sweep behind them, the Giants now welcome in another first place team in the Cincinnati Reds. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles EunuchsImeanDodgers head to Who-cares-ville. Adding injury to insult, Andre Eithier left the game today with some sort of groin issue and he could be joining Matt Kemp on the DL! In the month of June, the Dodgers are slugging (SLUGGING!) .295! It sure is a shitty day to be a Dodger fan! Which, by definition, makes it a great day to be a Giants fan. Keep it up, boys.

P.S. Read Andrew Baggarly to learn about about all the franchise history the Giants made in their castration of the Dodgers.