by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–My favorite mantra regarding baseball day to day is that the game is a marathon not a sprint and that’s the reason they play that many games. The cream rises to the top as they say if you give it long enough time to work out. The Giants are still scuffling they are still without pitchers Jake Peavy, Matt Cain, and to a real extent their without outfielder Hunter Pence who was just placed back on the DL again.

Pence came back from his injury did not contribute a tremendous amount in a physical presence and then injured his wrist a bone bruise diving trying to make a catch against the Philadelphia Phillies. Pence wasn’t back very long before he was gone again and he’s going back on the DL in time to get some more rest.

You tack onto that they were without Gregor Blanco whose day to day with a concussion after being hit in the head from a throw during infield practice. You have to start thinking, “wow how can that happen to the same team twice” in consecutive years. That’s what happened to Brandon Belt last season.

Chris Heston’s no hit masterpiece on Tuesday night at Citi Field: I was not out there calling the pitches so I can’t tell you for sure what was working out there. What sure looked like was working was the curve ball which was his strike out pitch and his sinker was deadly. There were only two balls that were hit to the outfield the entire game one of them a bloop to left field and a fly to right field that was caught.

The two balls that were hit out of the infield were hit five innings apart, Heston hit more batters than batters that hit him with three hit bys. Heston had 11 strikeouts in the game and looked absolutely masterful. A number of them were called third strikes this gives you an idea the Mets couldn’t see the ball.

The Mets didn’t have no idea where the ball was and just couldn’t see it. You usually would get off a weak swing, you just don’t stand there and look at it. You usually don’t just stand there the umpire might be fooling you for awhile with his strike zone but it’s not going to go on for nine innings.

Michael Duca does San Francisco Giants commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com for more listen to the podcast below