Photo credit: @SFGiants

By Jeremy Harness

The Giants had a fantastic first week of June, and they have used that momentum to get themselves right back into the National League West race.

Now comes the hard part.

The Giants have won five of their last six games, all of them played inside of AT&T Park, and as a direct result, the Giants are back to .500 and are only 1 ½ games behind the NL West-leading Arizona Diamondbacks, the team they just took two of three from this week.

Now the Giants will hit the road for a 10-day trip that starts tomorrow in Washington, a city that is buzzing from the NHL’s Capitals winning the Stanley Cup on Thursday. Meanwhile, its baseball team, the Nationals, isn’t playing too bad, either.

The Nationals currently own a 35-25 record and are in a tie atop the National League East with the Atlanta Braves. They have won seven of their last 10 games, but those three losses came against the Braves in a four-game series played last week. They rebounded nicely, however, by sweeping the Tampa Bay Rays in a two-game series.

The Giants will start the series on Friday at Nationals Park with Andrew Suarez (2-4) on the mound against Washington righty Stephen Strasburg (6-5).

Dereck Rodriguez (1-0) picked up his first major-league win on Sunday, giving up a single run to the Phillies in a 6-1 victory, but he will have a daunting task on Saturday when he goes up against Nationals left-hander Gio Gonzalez (6-2).

To cap off the series, southpaw Derek Holland (3-6) will most certainly have his hands full as he faces righty Max Scherzer (10-1).