The Giants backed up another strong pitching performance by Madison Bumgarner with an offensive outburst punctuated by a Grand Slam HR by Juan Uribe for a blowout W in Arizona land. The joy was tempered by scary incident in which Eugenio Velez was struck on the head by an errant liner off the bat of Pat Burrell while watching the game from the dugout. Fortunately, reports sound encouraging that Pharoah is going to be OK. Key lines:
Andres Torres- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .275. The double was scorched past Adam Laroche who could have easily caught it, but simply couldn't get his glove up in time. It looked like he might have not seen the ball immediately off the bat, but that ball was smoked! BTW, looks like I was right about the ball that went over Upton's head last night. The official scorer changed it to a double, a well deserved one for Andres. He absolutely scorched that ball too, as he has done to so many balls this year. Man, he is hitting the ball HARD!
Edgar Renteria- 2 for 4, 2B, BB. BA= .301. Quality AB's from Rent! He needs to stay in the 2-hole when Freddy is back in the lineup.
Aubrey Huff- 3 for 5. BA= .309. Good day to pad the offensive stat line.
Buster Posey- 2 for 3, 2 BB. BA= .358. Posey was, once again, right in the middle of the Giants offense. He extended his hitting streak to 17 games tying him with Orlando Cepeda for #2 on the SF Giants all time rookie list. He's still chasing Willie Mac at 22.
Juan Uribe- 1 for 4, HR(13), BB. #13 was a long time coming, but worth the wait. The Salami put the game out of reach at 7-1.
Madison Bumgarner- 7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 7 K's. ERA= 2.43. Bum has come a long, long ways in such a short period of time. He really showed me something today with a full array of MLB quality secondary pitches to go with his signature darting fastball which sat at 90-92 MPH on the TV gun clear into the 5'th and 6'th innings. In addition to the FB and cutter, the curveball was Kershawesque and I even saw a couple of nasty changeups that had the D'Backs hitters lunging. Forget sending this kid to the bullpen. Heck, the Angels won a World Series without any lefies in the bullpen. Bochy managed one of the best bullpens in baseball in San Diego for several year with no lefties. Who needs lefties in the bullpen? Bumgarner just might be our second best starter right now. How huge is that? Can you tell I'm stoked?
The Giants were, once again, only able to keep pace with the NL West leading San Diego Padres who blew out Pittsburgh 9-2. The Giants trail the leaders by 3 games. They were, however able to put some more distance between themselves and the rest of the division as Colorado and Ubaldo Jimenez got blasted by the Phillies 10-2 to drop into 4'th place 0.5 games behind the Dodgers and 6.5 games behind the leaders. The Dodgers hung on to beat the Mets 3-2 in extra innings to remain 6 games behind the lead. Arizona drops to 21 games behind. The Giants also gained 0.5 games in the Wild Card race. Cincinnati won to vault over the Card into first place in the NL Central. The Giants now lead the Cards by a full game in the Wild Card race.
If anyone doubts the wisdom of building a team around pitching and defense, just take a look at the D'Back who waste a very good lineup on terrible pitching and even worse defense on almost a daily basis.
The Giants close out the series as well as the road trip with Tim Lincecum taking the mound hoping to get his game back on track after his last wild outing against the Dodgers in LA. Come on Timmy, bring the broom with you!
We'll close the post by sending a thought up to the Big Guy for Eugenio Velez and his family, Pat Burrell who appeared to be just stricken over what happened, and the rest of the Giants who must be concerned about their teammate. There are some things in life more important than baseball!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What a game, what a weekend! I think Bochy is going with Casilla as Quasi-LOOGY because of his success against LH, so I Agree with you. Plus, as long as Bumgarner is starting, we have a huge advantage with our starters.
ReplyDelete