-Antonio Uriarte
The Giants, who have not fared well since the all-star break, seemed to have stopped the bleeding thanks to their return to AT&T Park, and a couple new bats. The Giants, who have had the best pitching in the league so far this year, now have solid batting to go with it thanks to their acquisitions of Ryan Garko and Freddy Sanchez from the Indians and Pirates respectively. The insertion of Garko, who is batting .285 on the season, and Sanchez, who is batting .296, into the line up give the Giants a strong top six to their batting order when combined with Rowand, Schierholtz, Sandoval, and Molina.
Even though it was their pitching that got them this far, it could be the Giants batting that gets them into the post season. With their new additions the Giants are looking at a batting order something along the lines of: A.Rowand, F.Sanchez, N.Schierholtz, P.Sandoval, R.Garko, B.Molina, R.Winn, E.Renteria. The average hitting numbers of those eight are .282/.328/.429 which look very good, especially in comparison to their wild-card rivals the Rockies. The Rockies have made their season based on how well they hit the ball, but now the Giants might have the advantage there as well as in pitching, the average hitting numbers for the top eight of their line up as of their thursday night loss tot he Mets are .246/.325/.418.
With their beefed up line up the Giants have put themselves in great position to hang on to and possibly build upon their current one game lead on the Rockies.
