Barry Zito went out and pitched himself a pretty good game in this one, but after a first inning HR by Freddy Sanchez, the Giants bats fell silent. Daniel Hudson wasn't nearly as dominating has he's been in past starts, but held passive Giants lineup scoreless after the first inning. Key lines:
Freddy Sanchez- 1 for 4, HR(5). BA= .285. Unfortunately, that was all the scoring the offense could muster.
Barry Zito- 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 7 K's. A solid effort. I'm blaming the Giants offense for this loss.
Jeremy Affeldt- 1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 0 K's. ERA= 4.34. There is a big psychological difference between a 1 run deficit and a 2 run deficit in the late innings. Might not have made difference in this game, but you never know. The run Affeldt allowed certainly didn't help matters. Very inconsistent season for Affeldt.
Daniel Hudson- 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 3 K's. Hudson came into this game sporting a K/9 of 9 and a BB/9 of 1.62. He regressed a bit from those numbers, but was still good enough to quiet the Giants bats from the second inning on. Some people didn't understand the Edwin Jackson trade, but Hudson was considered a top prospect for the White Sox in a lot of places. The D'Backs now have him at minimum salary for 3 more years and control his contract for 3 more after that. The trade will probably be seen as a steal for the D'Backs in future years.
The Giants, once again, go no help from the Choking Dogs as San Diego dominated them 4-0, so the Giants fall to 2 games behind the Padres in the NL West division race. Colorado won again over the Cincinnati Reds 9-2 to stay 4.5 games behind the Padres, but move to just 2.5 games behind the Giants. In the Wild Card race, Atlanta beat the Pirates 9-3 to remain 2 games ahead of the Giants. Colorado is also the next closest team in the Wild Card race with a 4.5 game deficit to the Braves and 2.5 to the Giants.
The Giants now head into SanDiego to face a rejuvinated Padres team playing the exact type of ball they played before their 10 game losing streak, which now looks like ancient history. I think it's safe to say the Giants need to get at least a split in this series to remain serious contenders for the NL West title. Of course, it's never over 'til it's over, but a loss in this series would leave little time to recover the deficit. The Giants send Matt Cain to the mound tonight followed by Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner and Tim Lincecum, so the pitching stars are aligned right. My concern is that the Giants offense seems to be waiting for the HR right now, and those are all but impossible to hit in Petco Park. The pitchers better plan on pitching in a lot of very low scoring games. Darren Ford could be a huge factor in this series.
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Hudson might have been a top ChiSox prospect, but that's like when Lance Niekro was one of our top prospects, their farm system is barren after trading for SD's Peavey, among other trades. A prospect book I get rates Hudson as a mid-rotation guy at best, so I expect him to regress at some point.
ReplyDeleteBut I think the D-backs did well in trading Jackson, I just didn't understand the original trade that netted him from Detroit. I was happy about that trade.
Crazy how the Rockies beat up on the Reds, who has been a pretty good team, at least until the Giants beat up on them.
I think that the Giants brought up Ford particularly for this series, where one run manufactured by a SB late in the game could be the winning difference.
I don't think the Giants are waiting for homeruns, the problem is a number of key people were not hitting period, Torres, Huff, Sandoval on the road, even Burrell, though he has heated up lately. If they were getting on base regularly, like they were in July, then the offense would flow.