Oh my! When Brian Sabean called out the pitching staff before the break, man, they must have taken it to heart. Barry Zito followed up Tim Lincecum's complete game gem from yesterday with an 8 inning one of his own backed up by a dominating 9'th inning from Brian Wilson for the Save. What a way to start the second half! Key lines:
Aubrey Huff- 3 for 3, BB. BA= .302. The Giants faced a hot knuckleballer last night and a hot lefty tonight. Both types of pitchers would be expected to give the Giants fits. Huff didn't flinch tonight though.
Buster Posey- 1 for 4, 2B. BA= .352. The Giants offense has scored 3 runs in the last two games. Posey has played a part in all 3. Tonight he doubled with Huff on 1B setting up a run scoring Fielder's Choice by Pat Burrell.
Barry Zito- 8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 10 K's. ERA= 3.51. Zito had been struggling lately. He has always been terrific after the All-Star Break though and he sure turned in a gem to get the second half started tonight, didn't he? He was masterful at mixing pitches, speeds and locations. Having Buster Posey as his catcher didn't seem to bother him one bit.
Brian Wilson- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's, Save(24). ERA- 1.86. Wilson fell in love with his slider a bit too much in the middle of the inning and hung one to David Wright for the single to center. He threw a couple more to Carlos Beltran but finally blew him away with a 97 MPH heater.
With the Win, the Giants kept pace with the Padres who trounced the D'Backs 12-1. The Dodgers lost to the Cards 8-4, so the Giants move into a tie for 3'rd place with them 3.5 games behind the Pads. Colorado also lost, 3-2, to the Cincinnati Reds to fall 2.5 games behind the Padres. In losing, Arizona falls to 17.5 games behind the division leaders.
Timmy and Zeets have laid down a mighty high standard for Matt Cain to live up to tomorrow. Don't underestimate the power of friendly competition, though. Cain was supposed to go against Mike Pelfrey who has struggled of late, but Pelfrey came up with a sore neck after the cross-country flight. Hisanori Takahashi will go in his place which is not necessarily a good thing. Takahashi is a lefty with a screwball who has a K/9 of nearly 9. He has had problems with walking too many batters at 3.51/9. I expect the Giants hitters to continue to struggle against Takahashi, so Cainer has his work cut out for him.
Around the League: Bengie Molina hit for the cycle tonight in Boston with the triple caroming off the wall in deepest right-center field and Bengie steaming into 3B with a standup triple. Awesome!! Bengie had to go because it's Posey time, but he was a good Giant and I wish him the best in his new home.
Is Manny Ramirez up to his old tricks? He came out of tonight's game with what is being described as right calf tightness. It's a bit confusing to sort out all of his injuries this year, but the Dodgers website says he just came off the DL after a right hammy. The DL stint in April was for a right calf strain, the same area affected tonight. He's day-to-day now. BTW, the picture of him coming out of the game shows him without the dreadlocks/braids or whatever those things on his head were. What do you think, is Manny really hurt or is he being Manny again?
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Who cares as long as Manny is not playing? :^)
ReplyDeleteThat's what happens when you play with fire, eventually you get burned.
A lot of fans were criticizing Sabean for challenging the pitchers, but as a manager, I think that is what he needed to do.
ReplyDeletePitching is the area that has underperformed, as well as they have performed. Each pitcher had disappointing stretches that you cannot have if you expect to be a competitive team.
Complaining about the offense would be like picking on your Down Syndrome child. He's doing as well as he can, given the circumstances. However, if the pitchers could raise their game up another notch, we should win get into the playoffs easily. That's why you challenge them to throw strikes and avoid walks, that was where they were falling down on, in spite of how well they pitched overall.
And many thought he was disparaging the pitching staff, but all he did was point out the areas of weakness, he never said that they were not performing well, only that they were not perfect, that there were areas for improvement.