Barry Zito was more outspoken than any other Giant in the wake of Manny Ramirez's 50-game suspension -- even though his biggest words appeared on Twitter:
"Manny's gone for 50 games, time for the Giants to capitalize." Sure enough, Zito faced the Dodgers one day after MLB announced Manny's suspension for performance-enhancing drugs, and Zito earned his first win of the season.
He pitched six innings and allowed one run, and the Giants won 3-1 and are 4-1/2 games out of first place. When Manny was suspended, they were 6-1/2 back.
Chad Billingsley took his first loss of the year, and the Dodgers are 0-2 since the Ramirez suspension. The Giants are two games above .500 for the first time.
Zito, who's obviously more comfortable throwing to Pablo Sandoval than Bengie Molina, threw five scoreless innings (before giving up a run in the sixth) with Sandoval behind the plate. Molina caught Zito's first two starts, and Zito had a 10.00 ERA.
Since then, with Molina out of the picture, Zito has had four solid starts with Sandoval catching three of them and Steve Holm the fourth.
In Zito's 26 1/3 innings over his last four starts, he allowed four runs.
GIANTS 3, DODGERS 1: The Giants won their first game of the season at Dodger Stadium, having been swept in a series in April. The Giants broke a 1-1 tie with two runs in the seventh, thanks to a sacrifice fly by Edgar Renteria and infield single by Pablo Sandoval.
