Aubrey Huff let out a whole lot of pent up frustration tonight in a 3 home run explosion of offense with some help from Andres Torres and Freddy Sanchez to give Jonathan Sanchez a win despite a very shaky outing from the Durt Man. Key lines:
Andres Torres- 3 for 5, 2B. BA= .269.
Freddy Sanchez- 1 for 5, HR(3). BA= .296.
Aubrey Huff- 4 for 5, 3 HR(8). BA= .233.
That was the offense right there, for all practical purposes. Huff and Sanchez drove in 10 runs between them and Torres drove in the other two. The 3 also combined for 8 runs scored.
Jonathan Sanchez- 5.1 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 6 BB, 1 K. ERA= 3.50. I shudder to think what kind of a pitcher Sanchez would be if he had merely good stuff. Man, having exceptional stuff sure covers up a lot of bad.
Guillermo Mota- 1 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 1 K. ERA= 4.39. Mota just hasn't been the same since that heroic 4 inning stint early in the season. Maybe it's getting close to time to replace him with Marc Kroon?
Jeremy Affeldt- 2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K. ERA= 4.91. Affeldt now has two consecutive 2 inning appearances without giving up a run.
The Win enabled the Giants to move past the D'Backs into first place in the NL West by 0.5 games. The Rockies and Dodgers were idle so each lost a half game to 4.5 and 5.5 games behind respectively. The Padres lost to Houston 7-4 to fall 7.5 games behind.
The Giants come home tomorrow night to start a 10 game homestand against the Reeling Rockies with Matt Cain taking the mound against Rookie Juan Nicasio who has an ERA of 0 after his first major league start last Saturday against the Cardinals. Nicasio was called up from AA Tulsa, but he had a serious record there: 5-1, 2.22, 56.2 IP, 10 BB, 63 K's. AA is not the major leagues but the kid has a mid-90's fastball and could be real dangerous to a team that hasn't seen him before and often struggles offensively anyway.
It's good to have Huff back though!
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4 games...4 so so starts by giants giants starters
ReplyDeleteeach one apparently bothered by the difference between the bullpen mound and the one on the field
giants need to bring this up with the league offices...none of the guys looked all that comfortable up there
would have loved it if one of the giants pitchers had snuck into the cards pen area and checked the height and slope of their mound
it was just weird watching durty get 2 quick outs....then have to work throwing strikes
i think mota was bothered by the mound too...cuz no way do you nibble with a 7 run lead
however, if it something physical, we should know after his next appearance...with kroon in the wings...no reason not to put him on the 15 day to heal up
lynn has good stuff, but i knew that when they were hitting fly balls off a guy who is supposed to induce a lot of ground balls...he wasnt gonna last long
ya...huff looks like he is dialed in...finally...guess someone heard my plea and put a lock on the beer fridge door
freddy deserves a spot on the as team
no hits tonite and 2 ks...but crawford still looked pretty good at the plate...and his d at ss is solid
tomorrow might be a rain out...and bad weather is forecast for the entire weekend...maybe they end up getting at least one day off
giants rewarding sj for their good play and their fans for their support....pablo to start his rehab in sj friday
then, sj to be penalized for having such a large lead...zito to rehab in sj on monday
I'm happy that Pablo is starting his rehab. I'm not happy that Zito is. I guess that says something right there. There is no place on this team for Barry Zito barring injury to one of the starters and I'm definitely not hoping for that.
ReplyDeleteI was about ready to mark this year down as another 2009 for Huff. Nice to see his bat can still beat a fastball.
ReplyDeleteIf this Hembree is for real, does anyone realized how much they could get for "on the edge of your seat" Wilson?
ReplyDeleteI have turned into a paranoid schizophenic with Wilson. I semi-appreciate Wilson the ballplayer but don't much care for Wilson the celebrity.
Just old fashioned...
doc,
ReplyDeletejenkins thinks that no matter what zito does in the minors, he has the right to get at least 2 starts when he comes off the dl
if zito cant throw above 86...i dont think he will come off the dl
Anon,
ReplyDeleteYeah, Wilson's act is kind of funny the first time through, but wear's thin real quick. I really don't care about his act as long as he can pitch. He is getting quite expensive though and may fetch a very nice return in an off-season trade. Hembree is definitely for real, but it will take a year or two to break him in. I would say is is the Giants most likely closer of the future.
Bacci,
I believe Zito has the right to work his way back into the rotation as a long reliever once he proves he can consistently get to at least 88 MPH on the heater. I'm guessing Vogelsong goes to long relief when Zito gets back though. I hope they have Zeets on a short leash.
If Zito was performing well before the injury, or if poor performance was due to the injury, then yes, he should not lose his job to injury. The problem here is that Zito has never pitched as well as Vogelsong has over a period of 7 starts, or whatever Vogelsong has had, at any time in his Giants tenure. If Vogelsong is the better pitcher going forward, I see no reason why the Zito's "rights" should get in the way of the Giants winning, or the fans rights to see the best players on the field.
ReplyDeleteBochy or Sabean has already said publicly that Zito is not guaranteed to get a starting spot when he comes off the DL, said basically that once Zito goes into rehab, he's pitching to get into the rotation.
ReplyDeleteI would generally agree that Zito has not pitched that well over any 7 game stretch, except perhaps his first 8 games in 2010, which was great.
I think that Zito is basically going into the bullpen if he cannot figure out how to get his velocity back up to 87-88. I have not heard anything to that effect, other than his velocity has improved, so I have to think he's still not up there yet, there was talk he was down to 83 before DLing, so I would think that he's like 85 now, as 86 would be close, and 84 would be little change, but at 85, they can say there is an improvement but not enough to say anything about being back to normal.
I love Wilson too, and go back and forth on what to do with him. I think paying him $10M+ per season would force the Giants to let go of one of our top starting pitchers and if I had the choice, I would keep the starter and hope that our bullpen can compensate for the loss of Wilson. Hembree's start is very encouraging to me and I think his success will lead to the Giants being able to trade or release Wilson when he becomes a free agent, which is pretty soon.
Still, there's not a lot of closers who can do what he does, hopefully Bowtie opens the purse enough to allow the Giants to keep Wilson as well as the starters.
For this discussion, let's just assume Hembree IS a stud and will be a legit MLB closer...
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine this BP getting BETTER with ANOTHER closer-level pitcher like Hembree joining the squad in late '12 or early '13 and keeping Wilson?
That is just sick.
Remember at the beginning of this season when the Giants farm was being described as thin?
CSS,
ReplyDeleteThe Giants farm system wasn't being described as thin by me. That was people who don't know anything about it over on sfgiants.com and MCC. Yes, they've had some graduations and new prospects need to step up, but there were enough promising ones that it was very likely at least 2-3 more would take that next step this year. Depending on whether Belt officially "graduates" this year or not, I see him, Wheeler and Brown being top 100 at the very least, probably all three top 50. If Belt graduates, that's even better because the point of all this is to produce MLB players.