But I guess AAA isn’t exactly busting at the seams with great starting pitchers, so I suppose it can’t hurt. On the plus side, the guy seems to have the full array of pitches, but on the down side, he doesn’t have good stuff (his fastball averaged 89.2 at the big league level).

This looks suspiciously like the Bazardo move last offseason. Didn’t really strike fear in anyone’s hearts when it happened, but as the season went on, he became one of the few spots of hope on the pitching staff.

from Sadowski’s 7/3/09 win over the Astros. The Astros were 1 game out of first before this game began, by the way.

For the Giants, the story was 26-year-old Ryan Sadowski, who pitched seven shutout innings in his second major league start.

Tall and lanky, never considered a hot prospect, Sadowski has added quality to a rotation that was already arguably baseball’s best.

He has now gone six innings and seven in his two major league appearances, and the next run he allows will be his first.

When he breezed through the seventh with the shutout still alive, he got a rousing ovation from the fans at AT&T Park.

“The kid was good,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “He knows how to pitch. He works both sides of the plate. He can sink it. He has got great poise.”

The Astros didn’t get a hit until Lance Berkman’s one-out single in the fourth inning and never did get a runner as far as third.