If the Giants were trying to play mind games with the Rockies over the humidor and juiced balls, real or imagined, it may have backfired on them last night. It was almost like the Rockies said, "you think that ball was juiced? We'll show you juiced baseballs!" This was one of those Coors Field games where no lead was safe. Even with a 9-6 lead late in the game, you just knew more runs were going to be scored. The Giants have played some brutal games against the Rockies this year, the 15 inning game, the broken bat triple 2-1 game, and last night. Heck, they've played some brutal games against every team in the NL West! They've won some very tough ones too. I'm sure the Rockies fans have heartburn over Friday's game as much as we do over last night's. I believe the NL West is the toughest division in the NL and the 2'nd toughest in baseball. These teams are all evenly matched and a bit of luck one way or the other is all you need to tip the balance. Key lines:
Andres Torres- 1 for 3, HR(15). Man, was it good to see Torres back out there or what? He made a nice running catch up against the wall in right-center to boot. Left the game early with some abdominal discomfort. Hope it's not a setback for him. Stay healthy, my friend!
Cody Ross- 1 for 3, HR(13). Ross replaced Torres and immediately hit a jam-shot HR to left. Man, either the air in Coors was mighty thin last night, or they were using all non-humidor balls! This was Cody's 2'nd HR in 3 games. When he gets hot, he can hit a few.
Freddy Sanchez- 2 for 5, 2B, HR(6). Strangely, right-center and RF seem to have become Freddy's power alley. Maybe he is taking hitting lessons from Andres Torres? You had to have a feeling something wasn't right with this game when Freddy muscled up early and sent one out, though.
Aubrey Huff- 4 for 5, HR(26). BA= .289. Huff Daddy had been struggling a bit. Nice game tonight.
Buster Posey- 0 for 4, BB. BA= .317. Is Buster getting fatigued? Maybe he should start at 1B today against the LHP? That would give him 2 days off from catching in a row.
Pat Burrell- 2 for 5. BA= .249. I don't know if a better LF could have prevented CarGone from scoring in the 10'th last night. Burrell fell down trying to cut it off and get a throw off. Still, Burrell has won several games with his bat and this game just felt like it was ultimately going to the Rockies anyway.
Barry Zito- 4.1 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 3 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 4.08. If you are like me, you mentally had figured that when the Giants streak of 18 games allowing 3 runs or fewer finally came to an end, it would be a game Barry Zito started. As OGC has pointed out, Zito is now the Giants #5 starter. Now, a #5 starter with 20 QS's isn't a bad thing at all, but he's the 5'th best starter on the team, and it's not a real close call. Agree with Bacci that #5 starters, even good # 5 starters, don't get paid $18 M/year, but I look at it as water long under the bridge, so I'm thankful they have 4 other pitchers that are so good, a guy with 20 quality starts is #5. Also, it may be this was just one of those Coors Field games. Nobody else pitched well either.
Brian Wilson- 1.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 3 K's, BS(5), L(3-3). ERA= 1.90. Wilson was a gamer, but he looked gassed out there from the beginning, the first time I've thought that all season. I don't have a problem with most of Bochy's management of the bullpen in this one. Yeah, he could have left Romo in, but it was a huge out against a LH league MVP candidate. Those outs are why Lopez was acquired. If he gets it, Wilson starts the 9'th with a 2 run lead and the game might have been won. The only concern I have is why Wilson came out to pitch the 10'th when he was clearly gassed and Ramirez had been warming up. Ramirez is a fungible arm. Wilson is not. At that point in the game, I think you have to give the ball to Ramirez and tell him he's out there for the duration, win or lose, 1 inning or 10. Bacci is right, Wilson has to be completely off the table for today's game, probably would be even if he hadn't pitched the 10'th. Just gotta hope Wilson doesn't do to his arm what Robb Nen did to his in 2002. Look how long it took to find Nen's replacement and how painful that process was!
With the loss, the Giants once again fell out of first place to 0.5 games behind the Pesky Padres who just won't fold. The Pads won yet another 1 run game against the Reds 4-3. With the win, the Rockies move up to 4 games behind the leaders and 3.5 games behind the Giants. Don't count the Rocks out yet. I don't think we can count on St Louis winning even 1 of the games next weekend, and the Dodgers certainly can't be counted on to help. I have the Rockies winning at least 5 of their last 6, so today's game is close to a must-win for the Giants. In the Wild Card race, Atlanta blanked the Nats 5-0 behind Derek Lowe and are tied with the Giants.
Matt Cain has stood tall since mid-season and takes the mound today against Jorge De La Rosa.
7 games to go. Go Giants!!
P.S. The ump's strike zone was complete horsebleep in this one. Kruk commented on it several times. It was all over the place. No consistency whatsoever. He was inconsistent on both sides of the ball, but in the end, I thought he favored the Rockies, especially with Brian Wilson.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
doc, you are on call?
ReplyDeletesaving lives is more important than baseball? pshaw
cain is a horse...a friggin, marvelous, thoroughbred
one bobbled ball from a no no at coors (no man on, he pitches mora totally differently)
zito and timmy must be flipped for the final stretch....this is a no brainer
seems that torres hurt himself a little more than he let on....so i look for him to be held out the entire snake series....if 90 percent, he is back against sd, which is still a miracle....im sure you wouldnt tell any of your patients to expect to be up and running after er surgery so soon.
will still kill me if this team doesnt make the post and doesnt go far....its a pitching staff for the ages
Bacci,
ReplyDeleteI'm don't see that Timmy and Zito must be flipped. At this point, it's just as important to beat the D'Backs as to beat the Padres. I don't see that flipping the pitchers really helps much, if at all, and it would send the wrong message to the team.
what, that they have no faith in zito?
ReplyDeletethe man is a bust
and if this team makes it to the post...he should not be on the roster
Zito has 20 QS's this season. Overpaid? Yes, by a lot. A bust? No, I wouldn't quite call him that. Rowand? Yeah, I'll let you call him a bust. Rowand should not be on the post-season roster.
ReplyDeleteDrB, respectfully disagree, but a win against Padres more important because we are competing against them for a playoff spot and a loss to them is a two game loss/turnaround for sure.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm OK with waiting until Thursday game for them to decide whether to swap, maybe we'll be more games ahead, but unless we sweep and the Padres get swept, they can still win the NL West division if they sweep the Giants. We need to put our best against them, particularly since we are able to and because Zito should be able to beat Enright, while Richards can be tough when he is on, and I would rather lose to AZ then beat SD than vice-versa.
Zito is spilt milk, that is why they have that saying about crying over spilled milk.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, the contract for Zito was never about how good he was, it was about bringing in a name to market and hopefully transition from Bonds to Zito, and about Zito being an health-nut innings eater who is relatively consistently good. Unfortunately, the contract played mind games with him his first two seasons, but it wasn't like he was bad all the time, basically for half a season at a time, before righting himself in late 2008 and he has been good since then, a 4-ish ERA is actually good, just the worse on our superman staff.
If he can pitch like he did the last two seasons for the rest of the contract, I'll be fine. I expected a 4-ish ERA starter who can handle 200+ IP, and he has done that. For anyone who doubts the value of such a starter, see what happened to the D-backs when Webb couldn't start for them this season, there are plenty of examples of a team's season throw in the dumper because a starter is out for the season and they can't get an adequate replacement.
And while Zito is a 5th starter on the Giants staff, he could be a 2nd or 3rd starter on almost any other staff in the majors. Zito has the 35th best ERA in the NL. With 16 teams, that puts him as one of the better 3rd starters in the league. As a pitcher, there are plenty of teams that would be happy to have him on the staff. It is not like he's chopped liver, it is just his contract amount that drives people crazy.
And without him, we would probably would have had Brad Penny on our staff (speaking of teams whose playoff chances was hurt when a starting pitcher was hurt), and then what would have happened, we would have had to go with Pucetas or Hacker in the rotation, or some leftover some team gave up on. That probably would have put the Giants back with the Rockies instead of leading the division.
Plus, without Zito to start the season, the Giants would not have been propped up as it was early on, because he was the pitcher who was winning early in the season. Without his nice stretch then, the Giants were 9-4 with him starting, at one point, and 11-7 by the All-Star break, the Giants would not be battling as well now for the division title, they could be back with Colorado right now or worse.
He may be scuffling now, but I'm willing to give him a break pitching in Colorado and with an ump with googly eyes and a Picasso abstract strike zone, as he was pitching well previous to that. And more importantly he saved the team early on when they were bouncing around .500, giving them one more reliable starter to count on, as without him, the Giants probably would have been at .500 for the month instead. That gave the team some confidence that they can be among the contenders instead of an also ran.