[pauwoo]

First, a trade… Picked up SP Patrick Keith (2-3, 5.97) for Cleveland Cornejo (4-4, 4.62) which was more about age, team control, and current contract length than anything – very similar players.

Phoenix (36-28, .562) @ San Francisco (34-30, .531)
San Francisco, currently sitting 4 games back at 3rd in the NL West, is a team that puts the ball in play and gobbles it up when you do. They’re solid on both sides of the ball and are led by their Ace Landon Sampson (7-3, 1.56). A two-time Victor Pacheco winner, most recently in 2072, Sampson mixes in five pitches with his cutter & curveball being the best of the bunch – he also throws a change, a nasty and getting nastier splitter, and a screwball. We won’t see him in this series, fortunately. On offense, they have the #23 prospect in baseball in 23-year-old 2B Scott Kaszuba – he’s on the big club now and will hit for average with great speed, baserunning, and stealing ability. He’s started the last 45 games at second with a .307/.399/.364 slash. The club is 8-2 over their last 10 and is coming off a home sweep versus Green Bay and a series win at home against the Chargers where they lost the last game 0-2 as SP Arnaldo Romero (8-3, 2.76) outdueled Sampson in what was his 3rd complete game shutout of the season.

65 of 162: Patrick Keith (2-3, 5.97) @ Foster Bantel (4-0, 1.91)
Newly acquired SP Patrick Keith failed to make a good first impression in this one, lasting only 2.2 innings for the Suns. He gave up 2 runs in the first as he navigated through a shaky start. 5 pitchers put in work in relief for us, and, ultimately, we were able to climb back into it and eventually put the winning runs on the board in the top of the 9th winning by a final score of 6-4. Foster gave the 49ers a rock-solid effort over 8 innings in which he gave up only 1 earned run with the other 3 coming due to fielding errors. Bootleg Pepper (Luke LaBonte) got a timely hit for us in the 9th bringing a critical run across and struck out 3 times while Luca Milbrandt contributed a 3-run HR to the winnings cause. Jeter finished 2 for 4 with a well hit double, one of two doubles for the team, and an RBI.

66 of 162: Del Miller (7-2, 4.42) @ Ryan Wiggins (1-9, 6.22)
San Francisco ended our 4-game winning streak with a 6-1 win at home. Starter Ryan Wiggins was dominant over 8 innings giving up only 1 run with 9 K’s. 3B Ashihei Izumi had a nice game for the 49ers, he finished the contest at 3 for 4 with a double and two batted in. For the second day in a row our starter failed to make it past the 3rd inning as Del struggled early and often in this one giving up 5 runs in 2.1 innings of work (he also walked 3 – command issues…). As a team we committed 3 errors on the day to go along with our 9 K’s and are starting to take a close look at Bootleg Pepper (Luke LaBonte) who struck out 3 more times today to make it a grand total of 6 over the 2-game set and 15 in his 8-games as a Sun – he was never considered a long-term solution at 3rd, and may not even be acceptable on a short-term basis as his fielding % is 110 bp’s below what he was doing in LA as he’s committed 4 errors in 8 games (he only had 11 in 33 games when we acquired him) to go along with his 9 assists and 2 double-plays. Side note: Recently traded starter Cleveland Cornejo went 8 innings with 1 earned run in his Houston Debut – good for him – and, Pepper made his first appearance in 5 games going 0 for 4 with a K and no fielding errors.

Splitting the two-game set is fine, just less than ideal. The struggle here is that we got two really poor pitching performances and really won the 1st game in a grinding/lucky effort that required the 49ers fielders to put on their clown shoes for a couple of innings. We’ll take our day off before getting back on the field in San Diego where we have a 4-game set – it’ll be a tough and critical set of games as we now sit only 1 game back in the NL West as the Chargers have lost 4 of their last 5, including two losses to the last-place Vancouver Whitecaps.