The Giants, led once again by Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner, ended the road trip and the official first half of the season on a positive note with the W in Washington. What started out looking like a tough trip that could bury the Giants chances of contending for the playoffs turned into a momentum builder, with a huge boost from a couple of new young stars, that will, hopefully, carry them into a successful second half. Key lines:
Buster Posey- 1 for 3, 3B, BB. BA= .350. I know he won't hit like this forever, but man, he sure looks like he's going to be a star and hit very well.....forever!
Travis Ishikawa- 2 for 3, SF. As horribly as the Giants recent midseason trades for hitters have turned out, they might be best off just handing the first base job over to Travis, keeping Huff in the OF along with Torres and hope some combination of Burrell/Rowand/Nate can be the 3'rd OF. If they can get a definite OF upgrade without giving up any of their current SP's, I wouldn't be opposed though.
Freddy Sanchez- 1 for 2, BB, S. BA= .285. Great line for a 2 hole hitter.
Nate Schierholtz- 0 for 4. BA= .250. Once again, Nate is failing to take advantage of an opportunity, making the acquisiton of an OF in a deadline trade more appealing.
Madison Bumgarner- 6 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 2.57. He might be our #2 pitcher right now!
Sergio Romo- 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 2.21. Romo man is looking a bit like his old self again lately.
Brian Wilson- 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K's, Save(23). ERA= 1.91. So I guess the tying run was in the hole when Wilson entered the game, so that's why he gets the Save? I'll give him credit for once again going more than 1 IP.
With the W, the Giants improve their record to 47-41 and stay 4 games behind division leading San Diego Padres, who beat the Rockies 9-7 today. Arizona dropped 17.5 games behind with a 2-0 loss to Florida. The Dodgers are playing the Cubbies this evening.
The Giants now get a 3 day break for the All-Star game, except for Tim Lincecum and Brian Wilson, that is. They've played a lot of games in a row, so can use the break, especially the starting pitching staff. They will enter the post All-Star season with renewed optimism, but this team has swung wildly between agony and ecstasy all season. Give them a lot of credit for picking themselves off the mat, but now they have to find a way to stay off the mat. The key to the rest of the season will be finding a way to beat the other teams in the NL West, especially in AT&T Park. I don't think the Giants have to make a deadline trade, but if they trade at all, they certainly look like buyers right now.
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Totally agree with everything you said.
ReplyDeleteYeah, too bad Nate's not grabbing the bull by the horn, like Ishikawa. But I don't think we'll be getting much offers in terms of OF, and I don't really see DeJesus being an upgrade in any way. So I expect Nate to get frequent looks against RHP in the meantime.
Also, if there is a trade for an OF, wouldn't that mean that the Giants would have to DFA somebody? We have nobody else to easily remove off the 40 man roster right now, I think, we would lose someone useful for nothing, unless someone on the 40 man is traded.
They better get their rest because there are no off days in the rest of July, it will be a very long stretch, and there are few rest days in August too, just two for the most part until the end of August.
According to Flem on the radio, that is how Wilson got the save, because of that reason in the 8th. Yeah, I like that he goes more than one inning too.
It's funny odd that Baseball Prospectus hates the Giants and Sabean that much, because they follow saber rules often, like using the closer for longer than one inning, in situations where the closer is actually needed, versus just running out the string in the 9th with nobody on. They are also basically following the rules BP laid out in their book for success in going deep into the playoffs: pitching staff with a lot of strikeouts, great closer, strong defense.
Yet BP called for Sabean's head in their annual this season (last one I buy...).
Yeah, for some reason, BP has had a hate on for the Giants for a long time. If you subscribe to their past opinions about Giants prospects, the Giants would not have so much as one homegrown player on the active roster!
ReplyDeleteSabean clearly does not subscribe to the OBP/OPS wing of sabermetric thought, but there is strong evidence that he's been ahead of the curve in pitching evaluation and in advanced defensive metrics. I think a lot of people who dig baseball statistics are so stuck on OBP that they can't see anything else. That's not to say that I don't wish Sabes would give more attention to the importance of getting on base, but it's also not fair to just write off everything else the man does because you disagree with him in one area.
Personally, I think they understand the benefits of having a high OBP player. All of the managers under him have made statements stating the importance of OBP. I just think that it is hard to find such players when you are focusing your scarce draft bullets on pitchers most of the time.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Posey is a pretty good OBP guy, else maybe they take Gordon Beckham since he was more of a power guy. Plus Frandsen had mentioned the organization getting on him for not getting on base more via walks. And Bowker also redid himself in the minors to be a walk machine. And they did get EME, an OBP machine, he just never developed enough (I think all the surgery he had without telling the Giants may have damaged him too much).