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Giants have no answer for Weaver
By Jeremy Harness April 7, 2005 |
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SAN FRANCISCO - The Giants just can't seem to figure out Jeff Weaver, who earned his fourth career victory at SBC Park without a loss with a 6-0 domination of the host Giants. In the process, he, along with former Giant Jeff Kent, completely ruined Giants starter Brett Tomko's 32nd birthday. Weaver (1-0), who has an eye-popping 1.14 ERA at SBC Park, threw eight innings of shutout ball in front of 40,536 fans, giving up only five hits while walking one and striking out two. "He was very tough tonight," Giants manager Felipe Alou said. "I've seen him (pitch) since 2002, and he's pitched like that or better. "He's very capable of having good games like that." Meanwhile, Kent who homered against the Giants last year while with the Astros, belted his former team for three hits, including an RBI double in the ninth inning, while igniting a pair of run-producing innings that saw the Dodgers break through Tomko. "Kent is going to get his hits, no matter how you pitch him," Alou said. Tomko had his stuff going through five innings, during which he surrendered only a run on three hits, but in the sixth, the Dodgers tacked on three more runs. As was the case in the fourth, Kent, who was booed wholeheartedly each time he stepped to the plate, led off with a single. Catcher Jason Phillips brought home Kent before Weaver created some more cushion for himself when he sent an 0-2 fastball into right field to score Valentin. "You can't second-guess it," Tomko said of the pitch he made to Weaver, a fastball he thought he could speed by his pitching counterpart. "The second pitch, he didn't come close to." Tomko (0-1) didn't have a bad line score, going six innings and giving up three earned runs on seven hits while walking four and striking out another four, but "a loss is a loss." "(But) it's not like (I) went out there and got bombed," he said. "You jus chalk it up, and I've got another start in five or six days." The last time he faced the Dodgers, Tomko shut out LA for 7 1/3 innings on Oct. 2, 2004, when Steve Finley's grand slam beat the Giants in the bottom of the ninth to knock them out of playoff contention. However, Tomko said that this year's Dodgers squad is "a completely different team." "A lot of those guys I haven't seen in a while," Tomko said. While The Dodgers were getting the ball in the air against Tomko, a flyball pitcher, Weaver forced the Giants into mostly groundballs. The Giants didn't get a solid hit on Weaver until the eighth inning, when catcher Mike Matheny smoked one into the left-field corner for a one-out double. But even that didn't amount to anything, since Weaver then caught Jason Ellison looking at a third strike and Ray Durham grounded out to first. BRIEFLY: Forget what happened on the field on Thursday; the real action was in the outfield stands, where at least two fights broke out between Giants fans and Dodgers fans. |
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