Today had to be one of the more dispiriting losses the Giants have suffered in recent memory. Needing a win to salvage a win in a home series against their most hated rival, and having extra motivation against a pitchers who tried to end the career of one of their players earlier this year, instead of putting up a fight, they rolled over and went belly up. 3 games against the Dodgers in their own crib. Three games in which they never really so much as put up a fight. The starting pitchers looked tired and frustrated. The hitters were inept. The baserunning comically horrendous. Key lines:
Aaron Rowand- 3 for 4, HR(7). BA= .239. You don't think Gamer had a burning desire to to well in this game? What does that say about all the other games where he was 0 for 4 and swinging at slop in the dirt?
Buster Posey 1 for 4, 3 K's. Interesting that the Giants trade Molina when Buster is hitting .182 over his last 10 games. That ought to pretty much shut up anyone who says the Giants never give a struggling rookie a break! It also may mean that the Giants are management is ready to cash in the season and be sellers as we approach the trade deadline. While Molina had been terrible in many ways for a long time, it's not clear that Buster is an immediate upgrade at the position. He is, however, the future. He needs major league AB's and he needs innings behind the plate. The Giants absolutely cannot afford to go into next season without Buster getting those to things in large quantities THIS season.
Jonathan Sanchez- 5 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 3.26. Another lackluster effort by Durty. If the Giants could get a major talent in return for him, I wouldn't be opposed to trading him. He would likely turn into a Cy Young winner the next season though. You just have to start wondering if he's ever going to harness all that talent.
Brian Wilson- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K. You know things have gotten bad when your closer works the 8'th inning with the team on the losing end of an 8-1 score just to get some work in.
The loss drops the Giants 5.5 games behind division leading Padres who stomped Colorado 13-3 who remained 0.5 games ahead of the Giants, 5 games behind the Padres. With the W, the Dodgers stayed 3 games off the pace. Arizona remained 15.5 games behind with a 4-2 W over the Cardinals.
The Giants now embark no a road trip which starts off with a 4 game series in Colorado, a historic House of Horrors for the G-men. Madison Bumgarner gets the call for the first game which may not be any easier assignment than Boston in AT&T.
As alluded to earlier in the post, the Giants traded Bengie Molina to the Texas Rangers for RP Chris Ray and a PTBNL. Gotta wish Bengie well. He was a good Giant, but his career appears to be virtually done. He may have sacrficed some of that career in his first 2 1/2 years with the team by catching way more innings than he should have. A lot of fans hated him for being the cleanup hitter for so long, but that was way more the team's fault than Bengie's. I think Bengie has a future as a MLB manager. I don't think there would be many players physically challenging him, that's for sure. They might be able to outrun him, but the man is massively strong in the upper body.
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bengie will never be a big league manager
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs/2010/07/01/bengie-molina-reacts-to-trade-reflects-on-giants-tenure-offers-advice-to-buster-posey
ever
I disagree.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, Bacci? I just looked up the article you linked and I can't find one word in there that would disqualify Bengie from being a future manager. If I missed it, maybe you could point it out? You might also want to check out the comments Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum made after the trade.
ReplyDeleteI know you hate Bengie, but it's time to get over it and admit that he contributed a lot to the Giants while he was here, even if he was a shell of himself by the time he was traded. It wasn't his fault that he was the best hitter on the team and Bochy had no other reasonable cleanup option for much of the time he was here. He filled that role gamely even though we all know he would have been better suited to hitting lower in the order. He also was the catcher when several very good young pitchers established their careers in SF. They give him credit and so should you.
I think Bengie knows a lot about baseball, other players respect him. I think he would make a good manager.