Mercury News
As wonderful as the previous two days' walk-off wins may have been for the Giants, Ryan Vogelsong's walk off the mound in the seventh inning Sunday was easily the defining moment of a wholly satisfying weekend for the team at AT&T Park.
The much-traveled Vogelsong was pulled after allowing just a hit and a walk to Colorado through 61/3 innings, and as he strode slowly to the dugout in what ultimately became a 3-0 victory, he received a thunderous standing ovation that hit him much harder than any of the Rockies did.
"That was the best experience I've ever had in baseball, to be honest with you," said Vogelsong, who got choked up as he tipped his cap to the cheering 42,132 in attendance. "It was awesome."
It's been so long since Vogelsong made a start at AT&T, the ballpark had another name. It was SBC Park when he pitched for Pittsburgh here on May 14, 2004, getting no decision.
Since then, it's been a Kerouac-like odyssey for the 33-year-old right-hander, who was drafted by the Giants in 1998. But you can come home again, as Vogelsong demonstrated with masterful aplomb against the Rockies.
he surrendered five earned runs in four innings."The game in New York, I just didn't come out aggressive enough," he said. "Today, I just said, go after them with your best stuff instead of trying to be too fine."
Vogelsong (2-0) might have kept going after retiring Jonathan Herrera to open the seventh. But after he walked Carlos Gonzalez and Mike Fontenot booted Troy Tulowitzki's double-play grounder, manager Bruce Bochy summoned left-handed specialist Javier Lopez, who got Jason Giambi to ground into an inning-ending double play.
"It's not easy taking a guy out with a one-hitter," Bochy said. "But with who they had coming up and having a guy who's done such a great job for us, we had to go to Lopez there, and he got it done."
The Giants got a whole lot done this weekend in reasserting their standing in the National League West against the front-running Rockies. Colorado manager Jim Tracy was ranting about the pitiful state of his offense before Sunday's game, so you can imagine his rancor after his team got swept, saw its division lead shrivel to one game and was held to three singles by a journeyman pitcher and two relievers -- Brian Wilson pitched a scoreless ninth for his 11th save.
As if all that weren't enough, the Rockies also woke up last year's Giants postseason hero. Cody Ross drove in all three runs with a fourth-inning single and a two-run homer in the sixth against left-hander Jorge De La Rosa (4-1), who has been notoriously tough on the Giants the past two seasons.
Ross' first homer of the season was a memorable one. He battled De La Rosa to a 3-2 count, and after barely getting a piece of a change-up on the eighth pitch of the at-bat, he got a fat fastball on the ninth and didn't miss it. It sailed into the left-field seats with Buster Posey aboard, and suddenly it felt like October 2010 all over again.
Ross admitted he's not all the way back to his fall performance groove yet but said he's starting to figure out a few things. More than anything, he made an effort to defer his own heroics to those of the starting pitcher.
"Vogelsong threw an amazing game. I can only imagine what kind of emotions he was going through after being drafted by this team and the road it's taken him to get here."
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