Nate Schierholtz hit his second home run of the game in the bottom of the 14'th inning to cap a come from behind win for the Giants against their division rivals, the Pesky Padres and in the process gained a game on the rest of the NL West in their bid to repeat as division champions. Key Lines:
Andres Torres- 3 for 6, 2 2B. BA= .226. Torres looked like the Torres of last mid-season in this one. Getting him back on track would be a huge boost to this lineup.
Brandon Crawford- 2 for 6. BA= .221. Crawford is hitting .306, 11 for 36 with an additional 6 walks, over his last 10 games. He's getting great AB's up there to boot. This actually looks sustainable! He's all over the field playing the best defensive shortstop we've seen since Omar Vizquel, and he may be covering more ground out there than Vizquel did! I think the Giants have their shortstop of the future here!
Pablo Sandoval- 2 for 5, 2B, BB. BA= .303. Sandoval is hitting .340 over his last 10 and stroking the ball like the Panda of 2009. We KNOW that is sustainable. Stay healthy and stay hot Pablo!
Nate Schierholtz- 3 for 6, 2B, 2 HR(6). BA= .278. Nate is hitting .395 over his last 10 games and has steadily raised his average from a low of .250 on June 21. He's hit .367 over the ensuing 16 games. Nate's history is that he takes awhile to adjust to a new level, but once he does, he stays hot. Hopefully this is what we are seeing unfold now. What a great game for Nate though. He is the toast of the town right now.
Madison Bumgarner- 6 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 3.87. Bumgarner gave up some hits but the K/BB looks good. I was checking in and out on the game so didn't get to see his whole start, but Kruk and Kuip sure sounded like they thought the ump was squeezing him, something he's had to put up with quite a lot this season. Maybe the umps still consider him a rook, or maybe they know he can get hot when he's being squeezed and are testing him, but it sure seems he's had more than his share of tight strike zones this year.
Bullpen- 8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 13 K's. Another yeoman performance by the pen. Wilson, Romo and Lopez went 2 innings each. Man how can you send any of these guys out when Sanchez comes off the DL? Maybe they can rotate DL assignments and give all the starters some R and R until Sept 1? Trade? The Giants philosophy seems to be to worry about it when the time comes and it usually does work itself out.
There are still some weak spots in the lineup, but between Torres, Crawford, Pablo, Nate and Cody Ross, they might have the makings of a group who can put some rallies together. Gotta think if those 5 keep it up, Huffy will eventually join in and make it 6 deep. Make a trade for a 2B upgrade at the deadline and now it's 7 deep and you can put up with CStew and Whitey catching. I think this lineup may be finally jelling.
The D'Backs, Rockies and Dodgers all lost so the Giants gained a game on the entire NL West with this Win. They now lead the D'Backs by 2, the Rockies by 7.5, the Padres by 9 and the Dodgers by 12.
Barry Zito tries to keep his success going tomorrow evening facing Rookie LHP Cory Luebke who has pitched 11 shutout innings in 2 starts since joining the Padres rotation.
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Kruk and Kuip had Buster Posey up in the booth during the 3'rd inning of the TV broadcast. I thought Buster had a surprising edge to him. It was almost like Kruk and Kuip were intimidated by him and were walking on eggshells. You just had the feeling that if they asked the wrong question, Buster might not take it very well. It was a surprisingly tense atmosphere. At least that's what I felt. My daughter was watching with me and she felt it too.
ReplyDeleteThe cast is off but he can't bear weight for another 3-4 weeks. He and the wifey are expecting twins in August and he hopes to be weight bearing by then.
Get well, Buster!
mlbtraderumors.com reports a tweet by Hank Schulman that the Giants are interested in Ramon Hernandez as a trade target. Not surprising in that he was San Diego's catcher when Bochy was the manager there. Schulman also reports that Ronny Paulino and Pudge have been part of internal discussions.
ReplyDeleteNow that CStew has come up with some throwing issues, the Giants hand may be forced. I don't usually engage in trade speculation, but here's two low cost trades that could help the Giants tremendously down the stretch:
1. Clayton Tanner for Ramon Hernandez or Ronny Paulino
2. Conor Gillaspie for Clint Barmes.
Tanner has terrible peripheral numbers but the Reds seem to like polished contact pitchers. Gillaspie has to be kept on the 25 man roster next year and there does not appear to be room.
Hernandez would bring stability and a better bat to the catcher position. Barmes is a superior defender at 2B and a better bat than Burriss by far.
Dr B, Isn't Fontenot the guy that pushes Burriss back to the minors? Or do you think they DFA Hall? I'd probably rather have Barmes or Carroll than Hall, but I don't know if I'd want to make the trade. Heck, Maybe Conor Gillaspie is the guy to replace Hall/Burriss.
ReplyDeleteYou can watch Buster in the booth at sfgants.com. The kid is so intense. You can feel it when Denorfia hit a double and then Nate almost nailed him at 2nd-base. Buster looks pissed.
ReplyDeletei live in san diego and watched the game with the padres announcers griping the whole time about the strike zone for their guy. strike zone excuses are ALWAYS weak, and you should stop reaching for that as any kind of excuse for bum. he is better than that and doesn't need it, no matter the results for any individual game. excuses are for the weak minded.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
ReplyDeleteI watched the Padre broadcast as well, and I noticed the same thing. They would show the pitch FX for the Giants when "balls" were called strikes, but they only showed the pitch FX for a Padre generous card once that I noticed.
I think every local broadcast team is homer-ish, and if you are a fan of the other team, it is hard not to be slapped in the face by the homerism of the broadcast team.
If you were watching the game, MadBum was NOT getting the low and outside pitches at all, especially the ones to the right handed batter. Call it an excuse all you want, but it was a fact. MadBum is calm as they go, but he does tend to get aggravated over bad calls.
ReplyDeleteI have been watching alot of games and noticed a trend in bad pitch calling throughout the league. Yes, it has always been there, but this year and last seems to have been ALOT more than usual. Umpires are almost looking for a fight. I am not a Leyland fan at all, but he is right in calling them out.
Torre needs to weed out the aggressive umps and the ones that have a problem with strikes and balls. Umpires are accessories to the game and are not the focal point.
Hopefully Qualls woke up Torres. Torres was probably thinking too much when batting and got too wrapped up in that. Sometimes it is just as simple as See Ball, Hit Ball.
ReplyDeleteNot a hug fan of conspiracy theories, but this isn't all that far-fetched:
ReplyDeleteIt is well documented that casual fans (which far outnumber dedicated fans) love to watch offensive baseball. It doesn't take a genius to understand why! Well, if pitching is on the rise and runs being scored are down, why wouldn't baseball desire for umpires to squeeze pitchers a bit and make them pitch to the fatter spots of the plate (leading to easier to hit pitches and more runs over time)? Doesn't surprise me at all that guys are getting squeezed...
The umps have it a lot tougher now with HDTV and great camera angles, even casual fans can probably see the strike zone better than the umps. Then there is Pitchfx which is even more intimidating. I do watch the game rather intently and have an opinion about whether the ump is calling it right or not. I give the benefit of the doubt to the ump if it looks close. There are some that quite blatantly either don't have any idea where the strike zone is or else they choose to blatantly ignore it and set their own zone. That drives me crazy and I will continue to comment on it when I see it.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, I was just commenting on what Kruk and Kuip were saying, but there is supporting evidence from his stat line that Madbum might have been squeezed.
I liked it better when Sandy Alderson was in charge of the umpires and riding herd on them. I was ecstatic when the umpire union came up with the stupid idea to tender resignations from every umpire to the MLB, whereupon Alderson selected accepted the resignations from some and not for the ones he wanted to keep.
ReplyDeleteI find that I seem to hear more complaints about umpires after he got out of the MLB front office, but that could be my bias and small sampling.