Mercury News
Buster Posey's emergence is a story unto itself, but there is also little question his addition has had a profound psychological effect on the entire Giants lineup in terms of delivering quality at-bats.
While Posey extended his hitting streak to 20 games Tuesday night with a third-inning RBI single, the real story of the Giants' 6-4 victory over the Florida Marlins was how the entire lineup seemed eager and focused for the matchup against the National League's ERA leader, Josh Johnson.
"Everybody's battling right now, and it's a lot of fun,'' said Posey.
Indeed, the Giants have the look of a very tough lineup right now with their rookie catcher as the anchor. Johnson came into the game with a 1.61 ERA, but he had a very hard night's work over seven innings, surrendering three runs before departing with a no-decision.
Once Johnson was done, Juan Uribe and Edgar Renteria took it from there. Uribe hit a solo homer to lead off the eighth inning against Johnson's replacement, Brian Sanches, and Renteria added a two-run shot later in the inning as the Giants closed to within 21/2 games of San Diego in the NL West, the closest they've been to first place since June 26.
But the notable thing may have been how the Giants performed against Johnson. Leadoff man Andres Torres reached base all four times against him, with two doubles and a pair of runs. Freddy Sanchez had a couple of hits, one of which drove in a run. Aubrey Huff "When you're going against the elite pitchers, hopefully you look forward to the challenge,'' said manager Bruce Bochy. "You know you've got to battle up there and it comes down to competing. We faced one of the better pitchers in the game, and we battled hard. We had some great at-bats, some big two-out hits, and then both Juan and Edgar came through big time.'' That Uribe appears to be heating up again is excellent news for the Giants' fortified lineup. It hasn't been the best of months for the veteran infielder, who pretty much carried the Giants offensively earlier in the season. Entering Tuesday night, he had just 19 hits in his last 107 at-bats (.178), dropping his season average from .289 to .255. Twelve of those 19 hits came in the last nine games. Uribe's 14th homer of the season was a rocket over the left-center wall and was a nice followup to the grand slam he launched in Arizona. "He's been swinging the bat better,'' Bochy said. "Everybody goes through tough times, but he's been getting some good swings off. He's hitting in the middle of the order, so we need him.'' Renteria's homer, his second of the campaign and only his seventh in two seasons with the Giants, was a nice bonus that turned out to be the critical blow when Dan Uggla hit his second solo homer of the game in the ninth off Brian Wilson. The standout pitching matchup of Giants starter Matt Cain, who was coming off eight innings of shutout ball against Arizona, and Johnson wound up being a standoff. Both pitched seven innings and left the game for pinch-hitters with the score tied 3-3. Cain surrendered just four hits over seven innings and struck out six, but twice was tagged for home runs that erased Giants leads. "No-decisions are not very fun, but when you look back at what happened, I made a couple of mistakes and they took advantage,'' Cain said. "They're a team (that) if you make mistakes over the plate with heaters, they're going to take advantage of you with the long ball. But the guys stepped it up through the whole game staying aggressive and they got it done.''
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