San Francisco Giants @ San Diego Padres (game 3)

Saturday's game was a day game, and it was also September 11th.   I was sitting arlund in section 105 again for this game, in the same seat that I had for Thursday evening games.  Unfortunately, all of the 100-numbered sections are at the front of the field level in full sunshine for the whole game, which made it rather hot.

Thie game was over in just over 2 hours as a result of excellent pitching on both sides.  Madison Bumgarner (candidate for name of the year) pitched 7 innings for the Giants, with no walks and just 3 hits, although the first hit was a solo home run to Yorvit Torrealba in the 3rd inning.  When he was lifted for a pinch-hitter, he'd only thrown 79 pitches, but with the Giants down 1-0, offense was required.  However, none was forthcoming and the Padres repaid the favour of the night before by taking a 1-0 victory.  The Padres now lead the NL West by 1 game again with the mouth-watering finale of Lincecum vs Latos scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

I nearly got a foul ball today.  My seat was directly above the tunnel that the security and media people use to get to the field, next to the Padres dugout and one foul ball screamed down the tunnel and hit something hard inside.  The girl next to me flinched like a girl.  The guy sitting to my left has had season tickets for the past 25 years, so knew a fair bit about the Padres!  He was interested in my road trip and what I thought of the various stadiums, so we chatted throughout the game.

Despite San Diego now leading the division again, the run-ins for the two teams are quite different, significantly favouring the Giants, I think. The Rockies are only 3GB too, at the moment, so they're in the mix. The Dodgers aren't, and neither are the Diamondbacks:

Giants	Padres	Rockies
3 vs LAD	3 @ COL	3 vs SD
3 vs MIL	4 @ STL	3 @ LAD
3 @ CHC	3 @ LAD	3 @ ARI
3 @ COL	3 vs CIN	3 vs SF
3 vs ARI	4 vs CHC	3 vs LAD
3 vs SD	3 @ SF	4 @ STL