Matt Cain was The Stopper tonight and Buster Posey continued to wow GIants fans as the Giants avoided a sweep at the hands of the Colorado Rockies and moved 0.5 games ahead of them into 3'rd place in the Wild Wild NL West. Key lines:
Pablo Sandoval- 1 for 3, 2B, BB. After getting on him yesterday, I have to post his line tonight and say that he drove in an insurance run and scored another. Hopefully his 0 for 5 yesterday was just a blip in getting his mojo back.
Buster Posey- 2 for 3. How great is this kid? He just doesn't swing at pitches outside the 'zone and when he does swing, he does it with confidence and authority. His 2 out single smashed past a diving Ian Stewart to keep the 2 run rally going in the 5'th was practically a hitting clinic that all other Giants hitters should be required to view on video.....over and over. Oh yeah, he made a couple of nifty plays at first base too!
Aaron Rowand- 1 for 3. Rowand drove in the tying and go-ahead runs with 2 outs in the 5'th on a smash to left-center field. Rowand better be out of his slump because Pat "The Bat" Burrell is lurking in Fresno.
Matt Cain- 8 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 5 K's. Not quite as dominant as his last start, but Hoss showed his maturity as a pitcher using his fastball, curveball and changeup in any situation he wanted. He's a complete pitcher now and a pleasure to watch.
Brian Wilson- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K's, Save(13). After having gone 2 innings yesterday and with a 3 run lead, Wilson didn't need any 3-2 counts. He pitched to contact getting 3 quick outs on just 8 pitches. With the off day tomorrow, he should be ready for anything going into the weekend.
While the Giants moved ahead of the Rockies into 3'rd place in the NL West with a 28-24 record, they could only keep pace with the Padres and Dodgers who both won. Padres beat the Mets 5-1 to stay 1 game up on the Dodgers and 3.5 games up on the Giants at 32-21. The Dodgers took their second straight 1-0 win from the D'Backs this one going 14 innnings, leaving Arizona 12.5 games off the Padres lead.
Around the League: A bad call by umpire Jim Joyce robbed Armando Gallaraga of the 3'rd perfect game of the MLB season. Something is up in MLB and it's definitely not hitting!
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Sandoval started snapping out of his funk about a week ago, so he should have blips like his oh-fer. As long as they are one-timers, it will be all fine, I think.
ReplyDeleteYes, Cainer!!!
Yeah, I was wondering about that, only 21/20 perfect games in all of history and 3 of them happen this year? Still, I've been seeing a lot of high scoring games as well. Scoring is way down though, a trend of recent years, 4.86 in 2006, 4.80 in 2007, 4.65 in 2008, 4.61 in 2009, but only 4.49 in 2010 so far. It was 4.59 in 2005 though.
According to Eric Walker of High Boskage House, this is the era of the Sillyball, not steroids, and it appears that the run scoring environment is down significantly this year, so I've been wondering if Commissar Selig ordered a return to the prior ball that wasn't as "springy".
It would make sense. Walker's analysis makes a lot of sense that a new ball has been used. Then Balco hit a few years ago. Selig has to sell that MLB is doing something, but can't have everything become good right away. So he gradually changed the formulation to slowly decrease scoring, then finally at some point, there is a clear decline (like maybe this season) and he can proudly announce at some point that the MLB's drug policy is working, just look at the scoring decline.
Horrible that a perfect game is ruined like this, but as many have been saying, it might be the event that gets instant replay implemented in some way.
How funny that Sandoval, Rowand, and Molina were the three players that started double plays and ended up driving in the runs in their later at bats. Redemption at its best right there!
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, and Huff got AT&T-ed.. his hit into deep triple alley here would probably have been a home run in most other ball parks.
I think part of it is the emergence over the last 5 years or so of a whole new crop of very good young power pitchers. I think there is a natural pendulum to the game that has nothing to do with steroids or how baseballs are wound.
ReplyDeleteNew pitches have a lot to do with it to. The cut fastball is just one pitch that as become very popular, easy to learn, and seems to be very difficult to hit. Pitchers have a bigger better arsenal of pitches to use, better training, and a lot of great arms have been saved by TJ surgery that just a generation ago would have ended those careers.