Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle
As the Giants dressed for their flight to Philadelphia, Kanye West was bellowing through the clubhouse speakers: "It's amazing, so amazing, so amazing."
Isn't that the truth?
With Sunday's 9-5 comeback victory and three-game sweep of Colorado, the Giants will move into September tied for the National League wild-card lead after making up four games in six days.
They already have done the grunt work needed to return to being competitive, as they end August with the same number of wins, 72, as they had in all of 2008. Now comes the fun part - meaningful, exhausting and exhilarating stretch-drive baseball.
Can they reach the postseason for the first time since 2003?
"Oh yeah," said Sunday's hero, Edgar Renteria. "We've got the right things. We can pitch. We have the guys who can play the game right. We've got to keep the same emotion we have now."
Few Giants showed more emotion than Renteria when he turned a 5-2 deficit into a 6-5 lead with his second grand slam of the season, off Rockies setup man Rafael Betancourt, with two outs in the seventh inning. He drove a 1-0 inside fastball over the wall just inside the left-field foul pole. The shortstop nearly homered in the sixth but settled for a double and finished with five RBIs.
The Giants stepped on Colorado's throat with a three-run eighth, two on a single by rookie Ryan Rohlinger. When Jeremy Affeldt survived a first-and-third scare in the eighth with two strikeouts and Brian Wilson got the final three outs, the Giants had concluded their fourth straight winning month at 16-12.
They also erased the sour memory of last Monday's awful loss in Denver and emphatically notified the rest of baseball they have a fighting chance.
"We did what we needed to do this homestand coming off a tough series in Colorado," manager Bruce Bochy said. "We needed to bounce back and we did it."
One solace for the Rockies as they licked their wounds is the remaining schedule, which favors them.
The Giants start September with a six-game trip to Philadelphia and Milwaukee. They have not won any of the 10 series they have played in those cities since 2004, with a collective record of 9-26.
Meanwhile, the Rockies start September with a 10-game homestand against the Mets, Diamondbacks and Reds. Overall, the Rockies play 19 of their final 31 games at Coors Field, the Giants 16 of 31 at China Basin. The final three head-to-head games are in San Francisco.
Both teams are off today, which the Giants desperately need, as they are hurting. That includes Renteria, who has bone chips in his right elbow and two sore shoulders. Bochy said at the beginning of the homestand he needed to get Renteria a day off. It did not happen.
Renteria knew he was on when he nearly homered on a sixth-inning slider from Jason Hammel. Renteria had not been hitting that pitch all season.
In the seventh, the Giants loaded the bases against Franklin Morales, who had done a nice escape job an inning earlier. Rockies manager Jim Tracy turned to Betancourt while Renteria turned to his career reputation as a big-game hitter, which started when he won the 1997 World Series for Florida with a single.
"I don't know why," Renteria said, "but I'm always in that situation. Thank God I've had success."
With one swing, Renteria propelled the Giants toward a tie for the wild-card lead while saving Matt Cain, whose four runs allowed included back-to-back homers by Todd Helton and Troy Tulowitzki.
Cain failed for the seventh time to win his 13th game. No matter, though. He heads into September with a contender and said, "It's fun, isn't it?"
From: MLB.com
 Colorado (72-59) Lost 5 | San Francisco 9, Colorado 5 |  San Francisco (72-59) Won 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Standings thru 8/30/09 | Recap: COL | SF | Wrap | Gameday |
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