The Giants overcame a major mental mistake by Catcher Eli Whiteside to win a see-saw battle with the Pesky Pesky Padres and win the 4 games series 3 games to 1. With one out in the bottom of the 6'th inning and Matt Cain pitching one of his strongest games of the year, Everth Cabrera struck out on a pitch in the dirt. The ump did not give the out signal. Whiteside stood up and held out his glove with the ball in it to prove to the ump that he caught it. Meanwhile, the speedy Cabrera was sprinting for first base. Whiteside belatedly threw down to Aubrey Huff and got Cabrera by a hair, but the first base ump called him safe. Cain then gave up a single to Maybin and a HBP to Ludwick to load the bases. He then got a ground ball that Brandon Crawford might have turned into an inning ending DP but it got past the diving Tejada scoring two runs and giving The Pesky Ones a temporary 3-2 lead. Whitey later redeemed himself by stealing 2B with 2 outs in the 7'th and scoring the tying run on a single by Andres Torres.
Whiteside would later draw a very tough walk against Heath Bell bringing in Emmanuel Burriss as a pinch runner. The Giants did not score in the 9'th but Burriss stayed in the game. With one out in the 11'th inning, Burriss singled sharply to CF. He then stole 2B and took 3'rd on the overthrow by beleaguered SD Catcher Kyle Phillips. Chris Stewart then executed a perfect suicide squeeze play with Burriss strolling home with the winning run as Bruce Bochy won a chess match with Bud Black after a couple of pitch-outs.
Key Lines:
Andres Torres- 2 for 6, SB(12). BA= .239. The Giants had 9 hits, all singles, plus 4 walks plus 5 SB's. Seems like they should have had more than 4 runs in 11 innings to show for it.
Nate Schierholtz- 2 for 5, 2 2 SB(7). BA= .287. Nate scored the first run and drove in the second on singles. His 2 SB's ended up for naught, but Nate is becoming a key force in the middle of the Giants lineup just by staying within himself and doing what he can do.
Emmanuel Burriss- 1 for 1, 2 SB. BA= .216. We already discussed Burriss but his second SB was decisive in this one.
Matt Cain- 6 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 K's. ERA= 2.99. Cain was dominant. Best stuff I've seen him have all year. I don't know if he could have gone another inning were it not for Whiteside's gaffe, but I think he probably would have at least started the 7'th inning.
Brian Wilson- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 3 BB's, 0 K's, Save(28). ERA= 3.02. Wilson causes heart attacks again. He was very lucky to get out of this one thanks to balls hit at fielders and very sharp defensive play by the Giants Chris Stewart and the Giants infielders.
With the Win, the Giants maintained a 3.5 game lead in the NL West over the D'Backs who beat the Dodgers 4-1. The Reeling Rockies dropped to 9.5 games behind the lead in 3'rd place by losing to the BrewCrew 4-3. The Dodgers stayed in 4'th place but slipped to 12.5 games behind while the Padres fell back to 14 games off the pace.
The Giants have now played 52 of their 96 games on the road. The Win today enabled them to maintain a winning road record at 27-25. Their home record is 28-16. They now begin a 6 game homestand with 3 games against the Dodgers and 3 against the BrewCrew before heading back out on the road for 3 vs. the Phillies and 3 against the Reds which will still leave them with an 8 game road surplus after 108 games. In other words, if they survive the next 12 games, they should have a considerable schedule advantage the rest of the way.
Ryan Vogelsong starts it off tomorrow night against Chad Billingsley.
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i believe that now, nate is a legit 5 tool player
ReplyDeletehe even got smart today, knowing that he wasnt going to hit anything out of dogfood park...just shorten up and hit singles
and i hope someone shows valentine a vid of the game...nate cant steal??? if anyone hires bobby as a manager, they are nuts
quick note...i think flem is getting an on air interview for sunday nite baseball...and he sounds great
giants announcing staff gets alot of respect around the majors
I was thinking after the first MLB telecast in SF with Al Michaels doing the announcing and reminiscing about his days as a Giants play-by-play radio announcer, Giants fans have really been blessed with some great announcers over the years.
ReplyDeleteI cut my teeth on Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons. Then there was Al Michaels in the 70's and now Jon Miller. I think Fleming is really good too and quite funny when paired up with Jon Miller. Maybe he will be the next HOF announcer for the Giants? I don't think Kruk and Kuip are quite HOF material, but I really like them too. They are more of a down home taste, kind of like chicken soup for the Giants fans' soul, or else a nice warm fire with an ocean view. They just make you feel good inside. Kruk may be a homer, but he gives you an absolute college level education on pitching every single game. I've watched literally hundreds of games on TV with Kruk commenting and I still learn something about pitching from him every game I watch.
When we think we are they only ones than can't score; Boston had the bases loaded with Gonzales, Youkills and Ortiz up with no outs, and they dodn't score.
ReplyDeleteWilson gives me gas, lots of it...
We were lucky in Hawaii that a couple of great former Giants announcers started off announcing AAA games for the old Hawaii Islanders in the Pacific Coast League: Al Michaels in the 70's and Hank Greenwald in the 80's.. I'll never forget Greenwald's call of the final out of the 89 NLCS. Really enjoyed him..
ReplyDeleteDave Fleming is much better to listen to then the announcer he's subbing for.. What a game for Fleming to announce, its in the 15th inning
Wow, that was outstanding.
ReplyDeleteThe Padres pitched very, very well. The kept everything down, until Heath Bell. The Giants earned their baserunners. How satisfying was it to beat the Pads at their own game, running like Forrest Gump? (And catching the Padres twice on the basepaths.)
I'm not sure when the wheels come off for Wilson, but that day is coming. Something is wrong. His velocity is off and he's trying to pitch around that loss in velocity by nibbling. His slider is not breaking nearly as sharply as last year. He usually needs all the empty bases he starts his closing innings with. He is probably the 4th or 5th best guy in the pen right now. (Romo, Lopez, Casilla, Ramirez all pitching better) He is going to cost us some games.
Great to stick it to the Pads, who somehow think they were robbed last year. Yeah, right.
Agreed with all. We've been really fortunate and had some fantastic announcers for the Giants. Yeah, Kruk and Kuip are definitely local, not on the same level as the true greats: Greenwald, Simmons, Miller. I think Flemming is just as good as those guys.
Good Lord Bobby V and Orel S-U-C-K. It is an absolute travesty to the game of baseball that John Miller and Joe Morgan were not renewed.
ReplyDeleteBobby V's great observation during the Sox/Rays today: "Every single game I've announced this season someone has fouled a ball that bounced right between their legs!"
When I was a kid and the Giants were covered on FOX, my dad used to mute the TV and turn KNBR on, we'd just listen to the play-by-play while watching the game.
doc,
ReplyDeletethe first simmons partner i really remember is michaels...for some reason, i always thought simmons worked alone...i missed listening to hodges
i loved simmons, michaels and greenwald, because they told it as it was, and even when the giants were terrible, they made the games interesting
back to the game, really hope bochy rethinks this whole, "we need miggs in for his bat"
his d at ss is horrific...he cant move to his left or his right and will cost more runs than his bat can bring to the team
Tejada is also not going to beat good pitching. He's a mistake hitter at this point. He doesn't work the counts very much, so he's not really forcing any of the mistakes. His HR yesterday is a good example of what he can do with a dead center high in the zone fastball. But with no protection and no patience, there just aren't that many fat pitches for Tejada.
ReplyDeleteYep Bacci, his D is tough take. That roller in the hole today was pretty bad. Not sure he makes that play, but he's gotta come up with the ball at least.
Well, I agree that Tejada's D is terrible and will cost the Giants runs. Might have cost them two yesterday. On the other hand, I'm not sure this lineup can function with a sub .200 BA at any position regardless of how good the D is. We thought SS was solved with Crawford and all of a sudden it might be their biggest problem.
ReplyDeleteI was as excited as anyone at Crawford's initial splash with that grand slam in Milwaukee. But just considering his minor league numbers, we couldn't have realistically thought he was ready to hit at the this level, could we?
ReplyDeleteI think Crawford has potential to be a good hitter at the MLB level, but yes, it was a realy stretch to think he was anywhere near being ready. I'd say he probably needs another 500 minor league AB's at AA or higher and then will probably need another 500-1000 AB's at the MLB level to get his feet on the ground. Kind of a similar timeline and career trajectory to Nate Schierholtz.
ReplyDelete