Sunday, July 25, 2010

Game Wrap 07-25-2010: Giants 3 D'Backs 2

It was the Tim and Buster show for the Giants this afternoon down in Arizona land. Hey, Tim and Buster has to be at least as good a name for a movie as Ramona and Beezus or whatever that kidflick out there right now is called, huh? This one was a bit tougher then the first 3, but the Giants hung on to complete the sweep. There were a couple of questionable managing decisions by Bruce Bochy and possibly a third. Since the Giants won the game anyway, it's academic, but we'll break them down. Key lines:

Aubrey Huff- 1 for 3, 2 BB. Huff seemed a bit frustated by the 4 pitch arsenal of Barry Enright, but managed to contribute an RBI and a run scored in the game.

Buster Posey- 4 for 5, 2 2B. BA= .371. Wow! Does this kid have it all going on, or what? 4 basehits, left-center, RF, LF, right-center. There was no place they could pitch him that was safe! Here's the second and possibly third of Bochy's questionable decisions. Buster led off the 10'th inning with a double to right-center. Bochy reprised a much criticized move he made a few weeks ago when in Colorado when he took him out and used Eli Whiteside as a pinch runner. Bochy is apparently convinced that Whiteside is a faster runner than Buster Posey. That's a debate that will likely never be settled, but it's obviously settled in Bochy's mind. He also apparently thought he had to go for the W right there, although if that factored into the decision, he still had Aaron Rowand on the bench who is almost certainly a faster runner than Whiteside. Here's how it played out: Uribe grounded out to the right side with Whiteside advancing to 3B. Nate Schierholtz then was walked intentionally after the D'Backs tried to get him to chase a couple of pitches that were way outside strike zone. Here's where things got really strange. Travis Ishikawa came to the plate and on a 2-1 pitch, Nate took off for 2B. The pitch was so far outside it could have been a pitchout and Nate was out by a foot with Whiteside glued to 3B. I don't know if it was supposed to be a hit-and-run or if Nate was sent on a straight steal or if he was running on his own. In any event, it was an incredibly stupid play. Yeah, it took away the DP, but it also took away the Sac Fly. Whoever made the blunder, Travis picked them up with a sharp ground ball single through the right side to drive in the winning run.

Travis Ishikawa- 2 for 5. BA= .333. As Kruk said on the TV broadcast, Travis just became Bochy's favorite hitter for awhile. Hopefully he earned himself some more PT here.

Tim Lincecum- 8 IP, 9 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 3.12. Timmy came out with a strong 92 MPH heater that he was throwing for strikes. It appeared that he and Buster had a game plan to establish the fastball and use it to pitch to contact early and only go to the breaking ball in key strikeout situations. The plan was successful in limiting the D'Backs to just the 2 runs. It did result in quite a few basehits/baserunners, but Timmy was able to break out the secondary stuff for the K when he needed it to get out of tough situations when he needed it. Timmy also showed his stamina as his most dominant ininng was the 7'th despite a warm, humid environment in which both pitchers soaked their uniforms clear through with sweat. That brings us to the first of Bochy's questionable decisions. Timmy came to the plate in the top of the 8'th with 2 outs and runners on first and 3'rd. Rowand was in the on-deck circle but it turned out he as only a decoy to get the D'Backs to pitch to Freddy Sanchez, but they didn't bite. Timmy was a gamer and worked the count to 3-2, but ended up swinging at strike 3. The argument for letting Rowand bat here is you have a chance to take the lead late in a tight game and you might not get another chance. The counter is that Rowand himself is no sure thing in that situation, but bullpen has been a bit shaky and Timmy was coming off his most dominant inning. Timmy went out for the bottom of the 8'th an promptly gave up a leadoff double to Kelly Johnson making the bullpen option look might attractive at that point. Fortunately for the Giants, Timmy pitched his way out of it helped by a lucky stab of a liner by Juan Uribe off the bat of Miguel Montero. Justin Upton had taken off with the crack of the bat at first base and was easily doubled off in just one of manuy fundamental blunders by Upton and the D'Backs this series. Sergio Romo went on to show why Bochy might not have had a lot of faith in his bullpen by getting into trouble and pitching out of it in the bottom of the 9'th.

All in all, I think letting Timmy bat in the 8'th was an entirely defensible move that could be argued either way. The pinch running for Buster is something I personally don't agree with and I'm sure most fans feel the same way, but it's something Bochy obviously feels strongly about and has thought out ahead of time rather than a spur of the moment blunder. Another factor that may have come into play is that Buster had been squatting behind the plate for 9 innings and had been on base 4 times. Bochy may have thought his legs were tiring. We don't know who made the decision to run Nate with 1 out and a runner at 3B, so we'll give Boch the benefit of the doubt there. It all had a happy ending as the Giants swept their second 4 game road series of the season. They completed a stretch of 22 games with 18 on the road with a 16-6 record. Pretty darn impressive if you ask me!

Once again, the Giants could only keep pace with the NL West leading San Diego Padres by a 3 game deficit. The Dodgers took a 1-0 game from the Mets to remain 6 games behind the leaders and 3 games behind the second place Giants. Colorado dropped another one to the Phillies 4-3 and fell to 7.5 games off the pace while the hapless D'Backs dropped to 22 games behind. Cincinnati dropped a 4-0 decision to ATL, so the Giants will be no worse than 1.5 games ahead in the Wild Card race after the Cards play the Cubbies. If the Cards win, Cincy will be in second place in the NL Central 1.5 games behind the Giants in the Wild Card. If St Louis loses, they will be the second place team and be a full 2 games off the Giants Wild Card pace.

The Giants now come home to a 4 game set with the Florida Marlins before taking on their NL West rivals in August. They get no days off this week as Barry Zito starts off the homestand facing Ricky Nolasco who can run hot and cold then Matt Cain takes on the currrent Cy Young front runner Josh Johnson in game 2. Should be a couple of great games and an exciting series. Go Giants!!!

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