If yesterday's game was crackling good, tonight's was absolutely scintillating. If featured good pitching, good hitting and a little old fashioned Giants-Dodgers drama. Key Lines:
Aaron Rowand- 2 for 4, 2B. BA= .367. Gamer stays hot.
Buster Posey- 0 for 2, 2 HBP, SB(1). BA= .286 Ted Lilly was apparently retaliating for Uribe getting plunked in both game 1 and game 2. If so, this was more like a couple of love pats on the shoulder for Posey. Lilly doesn't have much of a fastball to begin with and these were both breaking balls the broke in on Posey. Maybe Lilly figured Buster would have too much time to get out of the way of the fastball? Anyway, the ump warned both sides which annoyed Bruce Bochy because that tends to take away the inside pitch from your starting pitcher. Buster also blocked a pitch in the dirt and then picked off Tony Gwynn, Jr. from 2B when Gwynn mistakenly thought he could take 3B on the WP.
Pablo Sandoval- 1 for 4, HR(2). BA= .357. Pablo got a nice RH swing on a Lilly pitch and sent it up the wind tunnel in left-center for a HR.
Brandon Belt- 2 for 3, BB. BA= .195. Belt continues to get impressive AB's and a few hits are starting to fall in.
Mike Fontenot- 2 for 3, 2B, HR(1), BB. BA= .167. Great game for Fontenot, and he wasn't even supposed to be playing. Kind of a funny time for Freddy Sanchez to get a rest against a lefty who he hits well off of, but DeRosa got the call and couldn't answer because the wrist was barking again. Maybe DeRosa can go on the DL when Ross comes back. Of course, that doesn't help decide who plays.
Madison Bumgarner- 0 for 1. Another curious choice as a pinch-hitter. Torres and DeRosa were unavailable. Nate is lefthanded, but hits lefties well. I think Boch wanted to save Nate for defense later in the game at that point. Whiteside is the reserve catcher. Boch apparently wanted to save F Sanchez for later. That left Bumgarner who at least swung the bat with some authority up there.
Jonathan Sanchez- 6 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 9 K's. A solid effort by Sanchez. I wonder how much the warnings to the benches factored into Barajas' HR?
Sergio Romo- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. Romo had the otherworldly slider going tonight.
Brian Wilson- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, Save(2). Willie apparently has decided he doesn't need to load the bases before getting down to business. 1,2 3 see ya later!
The W evened the Giants record at 6-6 leaving them tied with the Dodgers for second place, 3 games behind the NL West leading Colorado Rockies who scored yet another 1 run victory, this time 5-4 over the NY Mess.
The Giants have another day off tomorrow before hitting the road against the D'Backs in Arizona. Matt Cain starts the series off against Daniel Hudson.
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freddie's shoulder is acting up again...that is why derosa is part of this club
ReplyDeleteprob is...derosa's wrist is acting up
this is a prob
someone has gotta go to the dl, cuz tonite was insane being so short handed
hopefully they try belt in the of through the az series...cuz they need to keep the older legs fresh...and huff and burrell look gassed already
How does Posey getting plunked twice earn the Giants a warning? And the ump won't allow Bochy to come out of the dugout to talk about it? What????
ReplyDeleteC'mon, Dr. B. These weren't breaking balls that got away. To our cleanup hitter. Twice. With two outs and no one on base. Dodgers were double-dipping to get back at the Giants for hitting Uribe. And Timmy wasn't aiming for Uribe either time. I can take once, but twice? Bochy, keep that on file. Theodore Roosevelt Lily should never, ever feel the least bit comfortable in the batter's box against the Giants.
Giants did what they needed to do, played it straight, and won. But payback is in order for this.
Huff looked gassed on Opening Day! Hmm... Emmanuel Burriss may get his chance before the year is out after all, huh?
ReplyDeleteAnon,
Maybe you misunderstood what I said about Lilly hitting Posey. Yes, I know it was on purpose and yes it was retaliation for Uribe. I was just saying that it's not much of a retaliation with Lilly's noodle armed throws. If the ump thought it was on purpose, and it clearly was, he has to warn both benches to keep it from escalating. The problem for the Giants, and it's unfair to Sanchez, is it takes away the inside/brushback pitch from Sanchez which may have led to Barajas HR.
Lilly is known for retaliations. He did it as a Yankee (hitting the helmet of Angels' Spiezio) and as a Cub (hitting then Braves' Edgar Renteria). Now he's doing it as a Dog. It's a wonder why they still pay him to play baseball when it's so obvious he has no sportsmanship.
ReplyDeleteAnon, Retaliation via the HBP does not mean no sportsmanship, but rather lots of it. Standing up for a teammate earns a ton of respect in the clubhouse and I respect pitchers who throws inside to pick up his previously pegged player. Personally, I really dont like that MLB has tried to enforce this warning both teams crap as much as they do because now the inside part of the strike zone is off limits without fear of getting tossed from the game. By taking away a quadrant of the plate, the at bat swings to the batters favor and that is not fair. I believe, If you plunk my big bopper then expect some reprisal. By no means am I advocating throwing at a hitter's heads, but ribs, rump or back are fine by me.
ReplyDeleteWithout the inside part of the plate, intimidation is really diminished. How effective would Clemens or Randy Johnson been if they couldn't throw inside? To that argument, all players should hit, lose the DH!
What I don't understand is that the umpire had it within his purview to eject Lilly for that blatant HBP on our clean-up batter, why didn't he do that and then put the warning out?
ReplyDeleteI understand giving the Dodgers that first one, their guy did get hit twice, but clearly the second Lincecum-Uribe HBP was not on purpose, it loaded the bases, put Lincecum out of the game, and the game was still being decided at that moment. Stupid.