Swept Away in Philly

With the help of six solid innings, the Giants and their starting pitcher well and truly Tom-KO-d the Phillies on Sunday. With the win, Brett Tomko improved to 6-6 on the year. The Giants have gone 14-8 in his 22 starts. Since June 24th, Tomko is 5-2 with a 3.58 ERA. Two of those wins came within a week against the Dodgers. At almost exactly 6 innings per start, Tomko is on course for his third consecutive 200 inning season.

Indeed, the Giant's 3-1 win today was the most impressive of the three, and even topped Jason Schmidt's gem in Pittsburgh. It brings to an end a 4-2 road trip for San Francisco. After losing the first two games in glorious fashion -- after tying both in the ninth -- the Giants have rallied to within a game of the Chicago Cubs in the NL Wildcard race.

In a delicious (even Olerudesque) twist of irony, two of the Giant's wins in Phialdelphia were keyed by Felix Rodriguez. Sabean may have proved some of his critics wrong in that losing Rodriguez, paradoxically, made the bullpen better. In the same vein, Deivi Cruz got the RBI/AB which might have fallen instead upon Neifi Perez, had he not been sent packing on Friday. He'll get $700,000 in severance pay, for those of you who felt he was worth keeping purely because of his dazzling arm.

Finally, Ricky Ledee tied the game in the seventh with a sacrifice fly, before Felix the Cat smiled upon oh-so-former compatriot Pedro Feliz, who padded the Giant's lead with an RBI double in the ninth. Thus, against his former team mates -- and best friends -- Yorvit Torrealba and Feliz, Rodriguez has allowed a game-winning home run and a game-sealing RBI double.

Dustin Hermanson threw strikes and earned his third save. In the series, the bullpen threw 16 1/3 innings, allowed six hits, no walks, and just one earned run. They also struck out eleven. The teams with the lowest bullpen ERAs in the majors are St. Louis, New York (yes, the Yankees), Los Angeles and Anaheim. The virtue of a solid pen is obvious.