The Giants defeated the Dodgers last night, causing much rejoicing north of Santa Barbara, a sour sense of disappointment south of Santa Barbara, and mixed emotions in Santa Barbara, though I’d generally assume the mood was still quite pleasant there, considering it’s Santa Barbara and all.
It was a thrilling game, tensely scoreless through five before a swift rollercoaster took the Giants faithful from melancholy to elation over the course of the sixth and seventh.
But the pinnacle of the contest came in the eighth inning, when Joe Kelly worked around a double by Steven Duggar (tip of the cap) to shut the door on any ambitions the Giants had of extending their lead.
Kelly was, as is his custom, throwing gas last night, topping out at 98 mph while blowing fastballs past Joe Panik and Erik Kratz, sending a message that this nonsense of getting hits off of him was stopping right then and there, and everyone was going to bed as soon as the Dodgers failed to score in the ninth.
While it wasn’t a 1-2-3 inning (again, tip of the cap to Duggar), it was Kelly’s best outing so far this year, as he combined multiple strikeouts with a scoreless appearance for the first time.
Needless to say, the Giants are now on notice. They can score all they want off the rest of the state of California (or rather, as much as they can, since that offense definitely isn’t scoring as much as it wants to), but in Joe Kelly Town, runs don’t come easy (by which I mean they’re even harder than they generally are for the Giants to score this year).
