The Giants reaped immediate dividends from their decision to recall Brandon Belt from the minors as he drove in 3 of their 5 runs in the game. Key Lines:
Andres Torres- 2 for 4, 2B. BA= .239. Torres is hitting .314 over his last 10 games.
Mike Fontenot- 2 for 4, S. BA= .242. Fonty is hitting .289 over his last 10 games.
Pablo Sandoval- 2 for 3, BB. BA= .315. Stay hot Pablo!
Brandon Belt- 2 for 4, 2B, HR(2). BA= .230. The big story of the night. Belt takes over for Huff who sat out with an aching back and makes an immediate impact. No lack of aggressiveness tonight. Belt dropped the bat head on a down and in pitch from Rubby De La Rosa and stroked it into the RF pavilion seats down the line. Later he went the other way on down and away fastball and sliced it down the LF line for a 2 run double.
Brandon Crawford- 1 for 2, 2 BB. BA= .201. Nice game from Crawford who again brought his stellar D to the game.
Madison Bumgarner- 8 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 0 BB, 7 K's. ERA= 3.72. Bumgarner allowed 4 hits and 3 runs in all in the 3'rd inning surrounded by 7 perfect innings. The leadoff batter of the inning, James Loney took an off balance swing at a pitch up around his eyes and kind of tomahawked it over Cody Ross' head for a double. I think that rattled Bum just a bit. 3 singles later, a great defensive play by Nate, Crawford and Belt helped him get is mojo back and he was perfect the rest of the way. Juan Rivera had hit a soft single to RF with a runner on first. I think Rivera was expecting Nate to try for the lead runner at 3B. Instead, Crawford cut off the throw and fired a strike to Belt who put a nice tag on Rivera trying to slide back to first base.
Brian Wilson- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K's, Save(29). ERA= 2.96. Wilson gave up 4 hard hit balls, but 3 of them were right at fielders. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, not that Wilson isn't good....
With the Win, the Giants stretched their lead in the NL West back to 4.5 games over the D'Backs who lost to the BrewCrew 11-3. The Rockies pounded ATL 12-3 to stay 10.5 games back in 3'rd place. The Dodgers slipped into a last place tie with the Padres, who blanked the Marlins 4-0, 14.5 games behind the Giants.
Tim LIncecum tries for the sweep tomorrow against Clayton Kershaw, a matchup that had Ol' Vinnie reminiscing about Koufax and Marichal.
A few fun facts I picked up from Vin Scully tonight:
The Giants lead the league in advancing baserunners. I hope that puts to rest the notion that their problem is lack a "situational" hitting. Let's all say it together, "The Giants offensive problems have been a lack of baserunners and a lack of power, not a lack of "situational" hitting!
The Giants are 16-0 in games they have scored at least 5 runs(is that right? Unbelieveable if true.)
The Giants have beaten the Dodgers 6 games in a row. The last time they did that was in 1969.
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vin was wrong about the 16-0...giants have lost at least one game where they scored more than 5
ReplyDeletevin apparently had some very good lines tonite, but whoever is doing his stats has gotten some things wrong the past 2 nites
that d play between nate and craw was short of brilliant and should get play on espn
no way can craw be sent back to fresno...his d is just too good
wilson isnt right...giants need to start thinking about using romo more in the closer to give brian more breaks
if torres can keep this up for the stretch run, and with a guy like kepp in the two hole...the offense should open up
I'll add one more thing. Look out when Rubby De La Rosa learns how to pitch. He has some serious secondary stuff to go with the 96-100 MPH heater.
ReplyDeleteSecond that. Wilson is not right. Not even close.
ReplyDeleteAlright, alright Doc (and Vin), I've been the guy calling the Giants (specific ones actually, Rowand, Huff) for lack of situational hitting. Points taken: You can't advance runners that don't exist. And you can't advance runners every time.
However, as said above, the Giants have lost several times they've scored 5, starting with April 17th, 5-6 loss to Arizona. So, while not calling BS, I'm going to need some sort of confirmation on the Vin stats.
In support of Crawford: He putting together better ABs. I'm not expecting miracles, but the Giants aren't throwing away ABs with him in there.
Huff needs to get it together pretty quickly or he's going to slide down to Rowand status. I like the way Belt is patient,ut if tonight is Belt being aggressive, no contest.
If the offense is coming around like the past couple of games, no catching the Giants in the West.
Is Furcal done? I'd like to put the Dodgers out of it for good tomorrow, then throw them a B-C level prospect for Furcal. The guy is good when he's right. What do you think Doc, Bacci, OCG? Any merit to that? Any chance?
Furcal might have some fumes in the tank, but is a big risk and has a hefty contract. Now that they have Keppinger, I think they either need to try for a catcher upgrade like Ronnie Paulino or a "big bat" like Carlos Beltran. I'm not all that unhappy with an OF of Ross, Torres and Nate going forward, so maybe catcher needs to be the priority. I'm just not convinced Whitey is going to sustain a .280 or so BA going forward.
ReplyDeleteAs for the 5 run stat, I'm not sure I heard Vinny right. He may have thrown some other qualifier in there, but I know it had something to do with 5 runs.
You're right about the Giant needs now that Keppinger is here: Big bat, catching upgrade. (Even if Eli could maintain .280, which he won't, his defense scares me).
ReplyDeleteFurcal. Yeah, I should have said I expected the Dodgers to pick up some of the huge contract. I'm probably living in the past. But he was always such a fierce competitor. Always a tough out. Phenomenal defense, arm, etc.
I agree, the OF looking pretty good right now. And if Belt can stick this time around (does he even have any options left???) there's another part-time OF. Nice to have things coming around in the outfield as bidding might get out-of-hand with Beltran.
i am going to offer some helpful advise going forward in your analysis of brandon belt:
ReplyDelete- no player is perfect.
- over-selectivity (if there is such a thing - i am not sure i think there is, but for the sake of your argument...) is always better than the alternative.
- please look at the evidence of your over-selectivity theory. his numbers in the minors are good across the board. he struggled in the majors his first time there, which apparently gave you the 'it's because he is too selective' idea. well, i would guess, in a completely unscientific way, that at least 95% of major leaguers struggle to one degree or another their first time up.
-you had this strange thing where he would follow a 3-5 day with a homer with a 0-2 with 2 walks or something and you would complain that he was too selective. let me explain the basic theory of hitting to you: you make the pitcher throw pitches that you are more able to hit, which just happen to be the same pitches that generally cover the strike zone. or from the pitchers point of view, you try to fool the hitter into hitting your pitches, those out of or on the fringe edge of the strike zone.
in other words, your over-selectivity theory is asinine beyond words. and your evidence seems to rely solely on a few weeks in the majors. now he may struggle again, but give it some time dude.
at least that is how i see it...
I love when "anonymous" posts on a popular, free blog and muscles up.
ReplyDeleteThe internet is beautiful, isn't it?
Belt looked good last night and was definitely not overly selective.
ReplyDeleteThere is more to selectivity than just swinging at strikes and not swinging at balls. Very selective hitters let hittable pitches go because they are looking for specific pitches in their "zone" which they can hit, presumably harder than pitches in the strike zone but not in their own hitting zone. There do exist hitters who are too limited in what pitches they will swing at. At the MLB level, pitchers are good enough to be able to throw strikes but still stay away from the hitter's zone.
Time will tell whether that is a problem for Belt. I remain optimistic about his future an Anon is off base if he thinks anything I have said is contrary to that.
Anon,
Here's some advice for you: 1. Learn to spell. 2. Your "advise" would carry more weight if you got a handle and took some responsibility for your posts.
Pablo Sandoval's problem last year was that he was swinging at too many pitches that weren't even close to the strike zone, but Sandoval's big strength as a hitter is that his hitting zone is approximately the same as the strike zone, maybe a little bigger. All he has to do is lay off the "easy takes", as Kruk calls them, and he is a very tough guy to pitch to because the pitchers can't throw pitches that will be called strikes that aren't in his hitting zone.
ReplyDeleteHa, because dr. B is so clear about your true identity. Whatever, it is 2011, the Internet is what it is. If you are just figuring that out, then god bless you. And my inadequacies at spelling, such as they are, are an easy way to avoid facing your own reactionary and poor reasoning and analysis (you do the same thing with brown: first he is too good for A ball and the giants need to promote him and now he is a busted prospect with no future. It's as if your memory only goes back a week at a time. Learn a little patience and perspective and your blog will improve. See, I'm just trying to help. I even used poor grammar and run on sentences so you could avoid the actual substance. Once again, you are welcome.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
ReplyDeleteSorry if you don't like the blog. You can start your own any time. I'm happy with this one the way it is. BTW, I've never, ever said Brown is a busted prospect. I believe he is the Giants CF of the future and would be extremely disappointed to see him traded for a rental like Beltran. If you have a criticism, fine, but don't put words in my mouth that I've never said.
I was looking at some of Keppinger's stats. He averages seem to be best out of the #3.
ReplyDeletePablo reminds me of Manny Sanguillen. They make up their minds that they are going to swing and go after it no matter where it is pitched. Does Pablo have a strike zone?
ReplyDeleteI believe Pablo not swinging at "easy takes" as much this year. Other than that, he pretty much kills anything in or near the strike zone.
ReplyDeletePablo really defies conventional batting wisdom. I only played baseball into high school, so I don't know the intricacies of the bigs, but at every level the batter is trying to get in a count where the pitcher needs to throw a strike, preferably a fastball.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I see Pablo is able to do: He is so damn strong, that he can basically wrist balls to the gaps off-balance, even on pitches that are probably balls. This is a nightmare for a pitcher who tries to pitch like Matt Cain, who has always pitched to bad-contact... nubs and jams are usually easy outs, especially if the ball looks like a strike out of the pitcher's hand. Pablo can literally take extra bases regularly on pitches that are meant to be enticing swing and miss or poor-contact pitches.
To every big league manager going forward: Good luck coming up with a scouting report if he doesn't swing and pitches way out of the zone.
Also, consider me guilty... After his "down season" last year, I forget that the dude isn't even 25 yet. Considering hitters tend to peak late, if the Giants get the in-shape, motivated Panda, they really have an elite 5-hitter for years to come.
ReplyDelete