As Sarah Palin might say, "Hey, ya Dodgers, whatcha think about hitting Buster Posey now? How'd that work out for ya?"
Saturday looked like a red-letter day for the boys in blue. They added a barrel full of players before the trade deadline and had the Giants dead in the water until All-Star reliever Hong-Chih Kuo drilled Posey in the left triceps with two outs in the eighth inning.
Up stepped Pat Burrell, who clotheslined a 3-2 fastball from closer Jonathan Broxton over the wall in left field to produce the only two Giants runs in a 2-1 victory that buried the Dodgers even further in the standings on a day they made two more significant trades.
Burrell, who grew up in the South Bay, placed his imprimatur on this great rivalry in a memorable way, sending most of the 42,882 fans at AT&T Park into a state of euphoria.
"That's how it was when I went as a kid to Candlestick," Burrell said. "Big series like this came up, and it was a playoff atmosphere."
Reliever Guillermo Mota certainly thought so. He vaulted into the air after he struck out Russell Martin to complete a five-out win as closer Brian Wilson again sat as a precaution after a back spasm.
"I did?" Mota said when told of his jump. "Where's the video?"
With Saturday's win, the Giants ended a three-series losing streak to the Dodgers in San Francisco and completed their first 20-win month in 10 years.
The team is playing with extreme confidence at a time when many of the faithful were disappointed that general manager Brian Sabean did not make a splashy move.
Sabean believes he did address a significant need by acquiring two middle relievers. He sent outfielder John Bowker and pitcher Joe Martinez to Pittsburgh for lefty specialist Javier Lopez. He also acquired righty Ramon Ramirez from Boston for Double-A pitching prospect Daniel Turpen.
Sabean said he was not close to a deal for any of the hitters thought to be available, such as Adam Dunn, Jose Bautista, Prince Fielder or Jose Guillen. Other teams demanded either Jonathan Sanchez or Madison Bumgarner, and Sabean said the team "just couldn't cover the loss of those two."
Many fans decried the loss of Bowker, a Sacramento native with a powerful bat who opened the season as the Giants' starting right fielder. But the brass viewed Bowker as a "Four-A" player who could not adjust to big-league breaking pitches.
Sabean said Bowker's departure is a loss, "but we had to keep Pittsburgh off names that quite frankly are prospects that we don't know about, until they gravitate to higher levels, how we're going to read their talent potential. We felt we knew about Joe and John and it was time to cut the cord and make a deal like this."
Fans who felt the Dodgers outmaneuvered the Giants by acquiring outfielder Scott Podsednik, infielder Ryan Theriot, starter Ted Lilly and reliever Octavio Dotel would have been more depressed with a loss on the field.
Nobody would have been sadder than Barry Zito, who has pitched four gems against Los Angeles this year, with a 1.95 ERA in 27 2/3 innings, yet has not beaten them. He was on the hook for a 1-0 loss after surrendering a Casey Blake home run in the seventh inning before Kuo and Burrell bailed him out.
Posey was the sixth batter hit in the two games. Though neither Posey nor manager Bruce Bochy thought Kuo's shot was intentional, home-plate umpire Rob Drake warned the lefty and both benches. The umps and the league were mindful of the beanball war between the clubs. Commissioner's envoy Darryl Hamilton was sent here to monitor the hostilities.
Intentional or not, the plunking cost the Dodgers dearly as it set up Burrell's home run. They fell 5 1/2 games behind the second-place Giants, who now trail San Diego by just 1 1/2 games in the West after the Padres' 6-3 loss to Florida.
"Pat came through huge," Bochy said. "For us, it's hard to get a bigger hit than that."
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