San Francisco Giants vs Los Angeles Dodgers Opening Day Preview

Outside of the AL East there are only a handful of truly vicious rivalries that have the history of the Giants and Dodgers.  But no matter how much bad blood between the teams historically there might be the 2011 versions of each team feel like they are going in very different directions.

Last year the Giants came from seemingly no where to win the World Series while the Dodgers parted ways with on of baseballs most iconic managers in Joe Torre.

While the Giants are battle hardened and learned exactly how to win games they now have a target on their back and will be taught a lesson that teams like the Red Sox and Yankees have faced: life is different when you get every team's best shot day in and day out.

The Dodger's new Manager, Don Mattingly, has a daunting task if he thinks they team has enough offense to support what is an above average pitching staff, but he may be trying to light a fire in all the wrong ways as this team was in more than one benches clearing brawl during Spring Training.

In 10 games against the Dodgers, Tim Lincecum is 9-5 with a 3.43 ERA. He's a strikeout machine but his career ERA is 3.04 so the Dodgers have touched him a bit. But it's been all small ball; Lincecum has only served up 3 Homers in 60+ innings against Los Angeles.

Andre Eithier is the only Dodger to make any kind of dent in Lincecum with a .280 BA, 2 HR, 6 RBI and 4 BBs in only 25 career at bats.  I don't know who there might be to hit him better in the National League.

In a smaller sample size, Clayton Kershaw has summarily executed the Giants.  He is 5-1 with a 1.46 ERA and 38Ks in only 37 innings pitched.  But again, I have to go with the fact that this Giant team beat the best pitchers in all of baseball to win the Series six months ago and that means they're not worried about Kershaw tonight.

The NL West is not nearly as stacked as the AL East so the urgency for SF is probably not at the peak level of a Yankee/Red Sox game.  But these tilts tend to mean more to the fan base than the players on the west coast at the start of a 162 game season. 

I'm going to think this game stays close until the late innings when the Giants touch up Kershaw in the 7th for a handful of hits and enough runs to make this a battle of bull pens that a Championship team can handle.

Let's call this one 5-2 for the Giants and see how we do.

Just please, no one kill anyone in the parking lot at Chavez Ravine tonight, mmkay?

Giants

A. Torres cf

F. Sanchez 2b  

A. Huff rf

B. Posey c  

P. Burrell lf  

M. Tejada ss  

B. Belt 1b  

P. Sandoval 3b  

T. Lincecum p

Dodgers

R. Furcal ss

T. Gwynn lf

A. Ethier rf

M. Kemp cf  

J. Loney 1b 

J. Uribe 3b

R. Barajas c  

J. Carroll 2b  

C. Kershaw p 

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