Giants got a couple back against the Marlins, but the last one we should have won … and let get away. Josh Osich may just need a second after the week he had. Consecutive beanings of the same DBacks player the second of which led to a bench-clearing, followed by giving up the dinger that cost us the last game. Ouch.

Just a quick Reader this week to feature, as usual, a few good bits you may have missed. In the parlance of our times ICYMI:

John Shea has an excellent piece on early returns from the experiment of using the Starting Pitcher in the 8-spot (which we of course love so much here at GBC). It’s too early to say anything definitive, but I LOVE that Bochy is committed to a serious sample size. This early data will be immensely useful down the road.

Brisbee has data about the infield shift and how the G-men aren’t doing it as much that is pretty interesting.

And with Barry Lamar back in town with the Marlins, Gutierrez at ESPN wrote about it, thusly, but I really loved this moment: Bonds seems so relieved of bad and idiotic and rude and hateful press. It is nice to see him laugh … and to hear him brag about himself again!