Oh my goodness gracious sakes alive! Is this team red hot, or what? Take that back. Is this team WHITE hot, or what? What a setup for a big letdown! Coming off a one of the more emotional series sweeps against The Hated Ones. Coming into Coors field which has been a field of nightmares for so long. The first game pitcher perhaps the most likely to succumb to a letdown. I was all prepared for the worst. Instead, the Giants put a beatdown on the Rockies like, well, like I can't remember. In the 45 years I have been following this team, I have seen good Giants teams, bad Giants teams, hot Giants teams and ice cold Giants teams. I'm not sure I can remember a team quite this hot and this focused on just winning. If anyone wants to jog my memory, I'm up for a bit of nostalgia. Key lines:
Andres Torres- 3 for 6, HR(11). BA= .289. A friend at work asked me today where Torres had come from. I said, "let me tell you about Andres Torres.....!"
Freddy Sanchez- 2 for 6, HR(2). BA= .264. Freddy also gave newcomer Javier Lopez a taste of why he's going to like pitching for the Giants a whole lot better than pitching for the Pirates when he made a leaping, stabbing catch of a Carlos Gonzalez liner with the bases loaded in the 7'th inning.
Buster Posey- 3 for 5, BB. BA= .356. Whether he hits HR's or not, just not making outs in the middle of the lineup makes all the difference in the world.
Pat "The Bat" Burrell- 2 for 3, HR(9), BB. BA= .250. Pat the Bat doing what they got him to do!
Travis Ishikawa- 3 for 5, 2 2B. BA= .311. Man, I'm thinking that if Aubrey Huff re-ups, it better be as an OF. Is Travis the Giants first baseman of the future? The glove is certainly worthy, and the bat has come so far.
Pablo Sandoval- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .265 Don't worry about HR's Pablo. Keep hitting a single and double every game and you will be just fine.
Jonathan Sanchez- 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 9 K's. ERA= 3.38. I suppose it's a lot easier to pitch with a 4 run lead out of the gate, but I'm impressed by Sanchez' resolve here. Still a lot of walks, but also there was 7 K's in a row! Bochy pulled him at the first sign of trouble in the 7'th, mostly to do a test run on the newbies, I think.
Ramon Ramirez- 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K. ERA= 4.43. Ramirez was clearly a bit overamped. Walked his first batter, but K'd the second. Bochy then switched to the lefty for a string of LH batters.
Javier Lopez- 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 2.72. Lopez got a ground ball force at 2B, walked a batter to load the bases and then Sanchez saved his bacon with a leaping catch of CarGone's liner.
Santiago Casilla- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 3.04. Oh my! Do you think maybe Casilla realizes he is on the bubble? I mean, he came out throwing 97-99 mph heat and was totally focused. The Rockies hitters were taking helpless half swings at his stuff.
With the W, the Giants move to 1 game behind the Padres, who must be hearing footsteps by now. Colorado slipped to 7.5 games back of the leaders. The Dodgers topped the Pads 2-1 to also gain a game to 8 back, while Arizona downed the Nats 6-1 to move up to 23 games behind. The Cardinals were crushed by the Houston Astros 18-4 to remain 0.5 games behind the NL Central Division leading Reds and 3 games behind the Giants for the Wild Card. The Phillies defeated the Marlins 6-1 to remain 3.5 games behind the Giants in the Wild Card race.
Tomorrow, the Giants send Madison Bumgarner out to face Ubaldo Jimenez who has not been the same since the All-Star break, although he pitched better in his last start. Bumgarner is just ornery enough that he doesn't back down from anything, so I'm expecting another good effort from the Giants, win or lose.
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Since we're the same age, perhaps you remember something of the 1965 season. The Giants ultimately came in 2nd place with a 95-67 record, but between Sept. 4th and Sept. 20th, they went an amazing 17-1! On that last day of the streak they were 30 games over .500. They took over first place during that stretch, but ultimately ended up 2 games back of (you guessed it) the hated Dodgers.
ReplyDeleteStrangely, their only loss was to Phil Niekro, who beat Juan Marichal in a 9-1 game on Sept. 19th. Ron Herbel and Bob Bolin went 3-0 during the stretch, Marichal was 3-1, Frank Linzy went 2-0 with 1 save, Bill Henry went 1-0 with 2 saves, Bob Shaw went 2-0, and Masanori Murakami got 2 saves.
I didn't do an exhaustive search of other years, but I remembered some long winning streak in the mid-60's and this seems to be it.
So, yeah, this is the best time I can remember since I was almost 10 years old.
I was vaguely aware of the 1965 season, but I didn't really start following in ernest until 1966.
ReplyDeleteKeeping my fingers crossed and trying to keep it 1 game at a time, but it seems like the Giants have a mindset that could keep this thing going awhile. Let's all hope they aren't peaking too soon.
One more thing: I didn't realize that the last Giants pitcher to K 7 in a row was none other than Juan Marichal himself!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog. Check the title of the post - we schooled the Rockies, not the Dodgers.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Fixed!
ReplyDeleteWhat a game! You captured my thoughts exactly about the game, about how this team stands in history, I can't think of any team THIS hot in my 40 seasons of following the team, not that I have the greatest memory for things like that.
ReplyDeleteThis is historic in scope I think, and if we get into the playoffs, up there with the surges in 1951 and 1954.
What about Sanchez! People are crying about trading him for a big bat, this game shows why if you do that, you get a great hitter for him, not just someone like a Dunn, and certainly not a rental like Dunn.
FYI, a The Hardball Times research article showed that a lot of walks is OK for high strikeout pitchers like Sanchez, something about the mix results in a lower ERA for pitchers who strike out a lot while walking a lot too.
And that does makes some sense, with BABIP at .300 for most pitchers, if you strike out 3+ more than most pitchers, you on average give up one less hit than other pitchers, so you can afford to give up one more walk than other pitchers, as one walk is not as harmful, usually, as one hit, particularly an extra-base hit.
FP Santangelo was talking about this last night, and I agree, the Giants had to peak now, they were many games behind, they had to do it in July.
And that makes sense. The or else is that without this surge, we would still be 3-6 games behind right now, which is not a good position to be in right now. Heck, the Padres actually played well in July, so the Giants could have easily ended up MORE than 7-8 games out right now.
But per your concern, I have the same worry in the pit of my stomach, but it's strange, I get the feeling that this team is not done yet, that there is more good stuff to come, that they are not over-performing as a unit, that this team is capable of doing this and continuing this.
I have a quiet calm about what they are doing whereas with other Giants team streaks, you wonder when the dream would end, heck, I felt that way earlier this season when they were winning, with the ups and downs.
Posey was the tipping point for the offense, it appears. Maybe if Pablo was not distracted, the offense could have took off sooner with Torres, Huff and Panda, but I think that this is sustainable.
Not the extreme winning, but the improved offense (with Posey) paired with improve pitching (with Bumgarner) leading to improved winning.
After analyzing the gradual return to Earth of the SD rotation and knowing that three of them are headed into uncharted IP usage, I think it is only a matter of time the Giants take the NL West title and hold onto it.
I guess that's why I'm not so hopped up as others about how much the other teams acquired - Cards, SD, LA, Braves, Phillies - as at this point, we really just need to take care of things in the NL West and all the other teams fade away until the playoffs, should they make it.
And while SD added Ludwick and Tejada, that's just making up for the bill that is coming due for their young starting pitchers, and we're only a game back while they are starting a long stretch of games on the road, 17 of 20 eventually, and they are 1-1 so far. We are in pretty good shape despite all the tough teams we'll be facing, because these Giants have played good pitchers tough this season, even from the start with Oswalt.
As per Extra Baggs, there was likely another reason why Bochy had Sanchez on a short leash in the 7'th inning. He was pitching with cold/flu symptoms! All the more impressive a performance!
ReplyDeleteI read an interview with Bochy's wife awhile back and she said is drives her nuts to read/listen to people go off on how stupid Boch's decisions are when often it's because a certain player just isn't available that game due to overwork/minor injury/illness. Obviously, there's a lot more to it than that, and sometimes the criticism is deserved, but here's a case where knowing a player was not 100% goes a long way toward explaining a game decision.