On The Mound Today...

Uh, Oh – It’s Jonathan Sanchez pitching for the Giants today. Well, at least it's not an important game.

Jonathan Sanchez was pretty horrible in his last outing, leaving everyone freaking out as he heads to the mound in Game 3 of the Series today. It’s not that we’re freaking out about Game 3, not with a 2-0 lead.

We’re freaking out that if the Series goes to Game 7 next Thursday, it will be his turn again.

Hey, everyone: get over it.

OK, he stunk last time. He went 2 innings and got yanked. His Game Score (as computed by Bill James, which you can read about here) was 28. Hey, it wasn’t a Bullinger (defined as a game score of 11 or less).

But it was pretty bad. Pretty bad.

In that article, it was computed that Lincecum had a Game Score of 96 in his first playoff game against the Braves, the fourth highest such score in playoff history. Halliday’s no hitter against the Reds scored 94.

So here is today’s trivia question: what was the 2nd highest Giant Game Score of the 2010 playoffs? Here is a hint: it wasn’t pitched by Matt Cain, whose three games with an ERA of zero point zero had game scores of 62, 75, and 71 (in that order).

Nope. It was Sanchez in Game 3 against the Braves in the NLDS, when he went 7-1/3 innings, giving up 1 earned run on 2 hits and a walk, striking out 11. Game Score - 86, considered a superb game.

Just a note to you Nervous Nellies as we hit the final countdown to Game 3.