Giants Victorious in Home Opener

The Giants continued their winning ways at the start of their first home-stand of the 2010 season. Jonathan Sanchez didn't have his best command and the team had to come from behind for the first time in this young season, but they did manage to pull off their fourth consecutive victory.

The guy who continues to grab the headlines is the guy who everybody wrote off after his first year here and that's been Edgar Renteria. I'll admit myself, after his '08 and '09 seasons, I was skeptical on whether Renteria would ever be just an average major league shortstop again, but he's turned out to be so much more than that in this opening week. We've already mentioned how much lighter on his feet he looks defensively, and he continued his offensive rampage in the season's first week Friday. Renteria hit a game-tying 2-run homer off Billy Wagner in the bottom of the ninth to push the game to extra innings, part of another 3-hit day for the Giants shortstop (3-5, 2 runs, 2 RBI). Although the Giants blew an opportunity (0 outs, runner on 2nd) in that same bottom of the ninth, they did manage to pull out the victory eventually, on an Aaron Rowand RBI infield single in the bottom of the 13th to score Juan Uribe. This win had to be a huge confidence builder for this team early on to now know that they have the ability to come back in ballgames and have already gotten to one of baseball's most elite closers over the last decade.

On Saturday night, the 4-0 Giants will send out Todd Wellemeyer in his Giants' debut and he'll be opposed by Atlanta's Derek Lowe. This will be the one pitching match-up in the series that clearly favors the Braves, so the Giants will once again have to be on their game if they are going to keep their undefeated start going. One big key for the Giants in Friday's game was limiting the damage done by the Braves 20 year-old phenom right fielder, Jason Heyward. The left-handed slugger went 0-5 with a walk vs. Giants hurlers on Friday afternoon, and stuck out 4 times. I'll be willing to bet that he doesn't go 0-5 against Wellemeyer on Saturday night though, so the Giants are going to have to keep him in the yard when he does put the ball in play. I'm curious to see how Wellemeyer does in his Giants debut. There really is no pressure on him whatsoever, as he's just supposed to keep the fifth spot warm for Madison Bumgarner, so I think Wellemeyer has a chance to surprise some people early on. In his 2 seasons with the Cardinals before 2009, he compiled a 16-11 record with a 3.51 era spread out over 255 innings with good WHIP and BAA numbers. I think he's going to end up being one of those Juan Uribe type steals by Sabean, as Wellemeyer is playing for the minimum and could ultimately be a very effective player for this team in a couple of different roles.

GBB Notes: On Saturday evening, the Giants' Tim Lincecum will also be presented with his 2nd Cy Young Award in a ceremony before the ballgame. Then the Giants' ace gets to go out and make his 2nd start of the season Sunday, so it will be a busy weekend for the Giants franchise arm...Also, I recently had a chance to catch up with my favorite Giants' beat-writer in the San Jose Mercury's Andrew Baggarly. I got a chance to talk with Baggs' about some of the key Giants' minor league players and what will be expected out of them this season. Keep an eye out for that either Sunday or Monday!