The Giants got another QS from Barry Zito and a sustained attack from the offense to win the game and the series from the slumping D'Backs. Key Lines:
Gregor Blanco- 2 for 5. BA= .250. Blanco scored 3 runs and drove in 3 yesterday and today, both wins for the Giants. I think he's going to be staying in the lineup at leadoff hitter for awhile. It seems significant that he got this start against a LHP.
Melky Cabrera- 4 for 5. BA= .348. Melky is an absolute base hit machine. I don't expect him to sustain a .348 BA, but I don't think it's impossible either. He appears to be almost a lock to hit over .300 and get over 200 hits for the second consecutive year. Carl Steward on Extra Giants made an impassioned plea for the Giants to try to get Melky's contract extended before he hits FA at the end of the season. I agree with him, but am skeptical of Melky's camp agreeing to any deal as he will get PAID by some team in free agency. My guess? He'll be wearing a Dodger uniform next season.
Brett Pill- 1 for 5. HR(3). BA= .234. Let's see, HR's in last week for the Giants: Brett Pill 2, Melky 1, Rest of Team 0. Yeah, I'd say Bochy needs to find a way to get Pill in the lineup every day. With the emergence of Blanco in the OF, that might mean taking AB's away from Belt.
Angel Pagan- 2 for 5. BA= .277. Pagan has been on base 7 times in 2 games without scoring a run or driving one in.
Hector Sanchez- 2 for 5. BA= .267. Sanchez has been a strong backup. A very inspired roster decision out of spring training. Added benefit, he's the Zito Whisperer. Any bets as to what Zito's record would look like if Hector had not made the team?
Brandon Crawford- 1 for 3, 2B, BB. BA= .208. When Crawford hits one up the alley, it is a thing of beauty. He just doesn't do it often enough.
Charlie Culberson- 1 for 4. BA= .250. Culby made his MLB debut with his parents and wifey in attendence. Dad was moved to tears when his name was announced the first time. Did I hear right that Dad played in the Giants minor league system in the 80's?
Barry Zito- 6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 5 K's, GO/AO= 7/2. ERA= 2.53. Zito has 5 Quality Starts out of 7 and did not get shelled in the other two. I think we'll take that, right?
Sergio Romo- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 0.00. Non-Save situation, but Romo struck out the side in the 9'th and the hitters never came close to making contact, at least from what I recall.
The Dodgers pounded the Reeling Rockies 11-5 so the Bruce Bochy managed Giants remained in second place, 6 games behind the leaders. Meanwhile the Kirk Gibson managed D'Backs slipped further into 3'rd place now 8.5 games behind. The Rockies slipped even further back at 9.5 games behind. The Pathetic Padres lost to the Phillies and dropped to 11.5 games back in last place in the NL West.
New Nickname: Mike "Bronco" Zagurski. Did you see him on TV? The name fits to a T! LOL!
The Giants return home to face the Reeling Rockies in a 2 game series with Christian Friedrich in his second MLB start facing Ryan Vogelsong.
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Let's hope the 2 out runs aren't an aberration.What a great day for Melky. Barry's high pitch count was a concern and resulted in his mid inning exit.Zito actually pitched best in his latter frames.I hope they stay with this lineup.D'Backs poor pitching is why they're in free fall.I had opined how Dodgers would do if Kemp was out for a while.Now he is. Ian, Victoria, Happy, Healthy Mother's Day to all.
ReplyDeleteOne game, probably an aberration, at least until they start repeating it. I like the lineup too, but still want to see Belt get opportunities to play too.
DeleteSince you mentioned the D-back's pitching, I thought I would note that in the pre-season I didn't think that the D-backs pitching would be as good as it was last season, that there would be fall offs there. But it has been much worse than I thought it would be, especially since Saunders is doing much better than I thought he would, they would be in bigger trouble had he not been a steady spot in the rotation. I would also note that I said that Goldschmidt would not do as well either, given his proclivity for striking out.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/04/19/2807031/culberson-family-rekindles-fresno.html
ReplyDeletehttp://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/sports&id=8622320
i didnt post these at the start of the season? sorry...charles played with the thrill..
i think you are right about melky. which is too darn bad...but if i was melky, i would go fa...there will be at least a 5 team bidding war
doc, the amazing thing about zito is, he is starting off totally out of sorts...then figuring it out....he wasnt able to do that for 5 years
no errors today...there is a god
why is it better for huff to hang out on the bench, rather than hang out with kids in either sj or fresno? i just dont understand why he was activated
bums are for real...and now have the money to make moves at the break...this is not looking good
happy mothers day
EXACTLY what Bacci said.
ReplyDeleteWhen things start going south for Zito, he completely folds. Which just made it SO difficult to get behind him.
Until now. He's fighting back this year when he starts to get roughed up. Maybe he's accepted the type of pitcher he has become and has learned to work with it. Some pitchers have success with a high WHIP.
But, yeah, Zito is truly battling this year. And, honestly, for the first time I'm with him.
Kemp came out of the game today, I think. Tight hamstring. Maybe not a phantom injury, Doc.
Dodgers playing well, esp. at home. But, they have holes. And Capuano and Lily aren't going to do this all year. Give 'em a few more weeks to settle down. And if they don't, no matter. FIVE friggin playoff spots in the NL. Let's go get ourselves one and take the Dogs down in the playoffs.
Yeah, you could tell Kemp's hammy was for real in the Giants series. He wasn't running well at all. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Dodgers if he is out for an extended period. Hammy's can take forever to heal.
DeleteZito deciding to lose the mental midget act is an impressive story so far.
DeleteThe Doyers have had everything go right so far. They do look legit though, they already have the right closer installed. Dee Gordon hasn't been up to snuff. They can take quite a few injuries to the middle infield, Coletti has em prepped for that. I think the mid season trades where they take on contracts is going to be the scary part. Our RDF crew might want to think about this a bit.
Yeah, DrB, as we learned with Ray Durham, he might hit when in and healthy, but the real question is when he'll be in and healthy.
DeleteWhile I am impressed with the Zito story so far, I would note that his 2010 season started pretty nicely too, so I would advise caution on jumping on his bandwagon. And he had some DOM starts after that in 2010 too, after some bad starts. Looking at his stats, he basically had a great first month, then the rest of the months were average except for August, when he did horribly, in 2010. I think his comment is most apt: "I don't feel I've made any kind of statement, and I won't until the season is over," he said. "I've got a lot of work to do, and I'm not taking anything for granted."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/13/SPER1OHH2M.DTL#ixzz1ur7VWLm4
The way I saw the Dodgers schedule, they will hit a tough stretch soon - tougher teams, more road games - so good time for Kemp to be iffy. But they are so far ahead at this point, unless we make a move up ourselves, might only get close, not pass them up. But by that point, Sandoval should return at full strength (relatively, based on last year) while Kemp should return to full strength but hammies, once cranky, seems to be cranky all season (and as noted by DrB, could take forever to heal; given that Kemp has been trying to play instead of shutting down once it was cranky, he could stay affected all season, pushing too hard on it). But then, as Shankbone cautioned, they might pick up a lot of players in trades, taking on money.
I don't call too many of 'em, but, yeah, that was me barking for the Giants to try to land Furcal while his stock was low last year.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of Cards that might have been Giants...the NL leader in HRs.
Yeah, I know, both of them are muy, muy brittle.
But, Lord, while we starve for offense and try to figure out what we have to show for Wheeler...
If the Cards can keep that thing together with bailing wire, more power to 'em. With the Giants recent luck with injuries, I don't think it would have happened here. Personally, I'm loving the youth movement, win or lose. I guess that means I'm with Bacci on this one.
DeleteI wish Beltran nothing but the best. With his power surge its a popular topic again. Shulman even felt the need to post about it. Forget about his declaration the Giants had to fix their leadoff situation before he considered it, or that his decision came down to a lowball offer from Cleveland or the Cards - meaning other teams weren't taking the chance on his injury risk. Let's focus entirely on the fact the Cards got him and got him cheap. And rage. If he gets hurt, and I hope he doesn't, there will be a single "Sabes wuz right" and then it'll be onto the next thing our bumbling GM did wrong.
DeleteI am shocked at Furcal's play. I will be further shocked if he isn't on the DL by the all-star break. Sabean is predictable if you look for it. No way he was going near a Renteria situation so soon after being burned, especially after the 2011 squad.
Cards were forced to play with fire: Pujols left them and they wanted to defend their title. Signing Furcal and Beltran is like playing Russian Roulette (much like how the Twins have with Liriano) with your chances for the playoffs that season. One could gloat about this for now, but neither player has played a full healthy season in ages and they are really on the wrong side of 30, probably wrong side of 35 even, if I recall ages right. Plus, they are already experiencing that with Berkman out, missing a lot of games.
DeleteGiants simply didn't have the money to afford Beltran or Furcal, no matter how cheap the Cards might have got them; who knows what Sabean might or might not have done had he the money to sign either one. They rightly spent it on their pitching, is the way I see it. Unless Kelly is saying that the Giants should have gotten Furcal and Beltran and traded away either Lincecum or Cain, in order to have the money to afford those two hitters.
In any case, the way I see it is that the Giants in recent seasons have been willing to give the starting jobs to young prospects who have earned it. Crawford did have a really nice end to 2011 then a good AFL. That plus his great fielding, earned him his starting spot at SS. So my thinking there is more the Giants viewed he earned it, than to avoid another Renteria situation.
And what we have to show for Wheeler is Sabean trying to hit for the fences in 2011 for us, while we had the advantage in the standings. It just didn't work out. That happens. If Beltran had hit for us then what he is doing for Cards now, with all those homers, there would be less talk about what we have to show for the Wheeler trade, there would be more talk about how we did in the playoffs, and perhaps another shiny ring to show off.
Wilson going down gives the Giants the pocket change to buy a Melky Bar. A beard for a bar. SIGN MELKY.
ReplyDeleteOh and a Melky Bar now costs 3/$50MM when last month you could have had it at 3/$30MM. SIGN Melky!
DeleteAlso okay with not signing aging vets: Furcal, Beltran. That is Sabes old school, no more. We agreed, give the kids a chance and now we have to give them a chance - errors and all.
ReplyDeleteI just want Bochy to manage to the youth. I think he is coming around after trying to "get the vets going" early (Huff, Riot, too much Buster, Pagan lead off). He is shifting to lead off OBP/speed (Blanco), Belt/Pill 1B, Arias 3B, Sanchez really giving Buster days off, etc. And the lineup is becoming more defined with less LH/RH splits and more starters and backup switches. Stick with it Bochy.
Regarding Beltran & Furcal, it's just interesting how it's worked out.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wanted Furcal during the 2011 season. The Dodgers probably would not have traded him to us. And the Cards gave a decent prospect for him. So, how realistic Furcal was for the Giants is debatable.
And I was in favor of the Beltran trade. Who knows what happened between the Giants and Beltran in the off season. But I've yet to see that the Giants made an offer to him. And if there was no offer, then the trade was extremely short-sighted. And a bad one.
Also, it's odd how fair/mediocre Wheeler's minor league numbers (traditional numbers) were with the Giants organization, and how they immediately improved in the Mets org. ERA more or less cut in half. Small sample size, etc. etc. But, interesting.
On the whole, I agree, go with the kids. The Giants seem to have a plan to lock up the homegrown pitching. But, I think we have to admit that we don't have the kids to go with. Out of Belt, Crawford, Burriss, Nate, I'd feel fortunate, at this point, to end up with ONE starter
I guess I'm more optimistic about the kids than you are and there's more than just the 4 you mention. There's also Hector, Pill and Culby at the MLB level right now. Blanco and Arias aren't old. Still down on the farm there's Roger K, Franky Pegs, Gary Brown, Chris Dominguez and Tommy Joseph all at AA or above. Don't write off Nick Noonan either.
DeleteWhether or not the Giants made an offer to Beltran has no bearing on the trade. He was a FA whether the trade was made or not. The reason why it was a trade that had to be made, for better or worse, was that the Giants were defending champs, in first place with a moribund offense and Beltran was the best hitter on the market. When you find yourself in that situation, you have to go for it. Simple as that.
I don't find any reason why Wheeler's numbers being great with the Mets organization is unusual or interesting. The people who blithely said he won't likely be good because Sabes and Tidrow know pitching and know which ones to trade were simply barking up the wrong tree. If you want the best hitter on the market and the Phillies are also in the market, you are going to have to pay and pay a lot. Wheeler was and is a tremendous prospect who, barring injury, I think is almost a lock to be a star in the major leagues. I saw him pitch for San Jose against Lake Elsinore and it was the most dominant, impressive pitching performance I've seen at that level. That's not a huge sample size, but it includes Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Merkin Valdez when Valdez was a highly rated prospect.
The trade was expensive but necessary under the circumstances.
I appreciate your reply Doc.
DeleteI kind of address some points on this below.
Yep, I know there are other prospects. (I listed Nate above, and he's not really a prospect at all.) And I really, really like the play of Arias so far. And yes, the other kids you list are exciting to dream about.
But, considering this trade, resigning Beltran for 2 years does not hinder the youth movement. Out of all of our OF prospects, I will feel fortunate if one of them becomes a MLB starter. And 2013 looks like the absolute SOONEST that could happen. That leaves a lot room for Beltran.
I suppose I'm coming to terms with the fact that I whole-heartedly supported that trade. To pay the price. But, at minimum, I assumed the Giants would make an effort to have something here for our run at the 2012 title.
On Wheeler I read where the Mets let him go back to a delivery he used to use. The Giants thought it might cause injuries down the road and were making him use another. If that is the case, time will tell.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info on Wheeler. Makes sense. In the whole TINSTAAPP world (did I get the acronym correct, Doc?) we'll see how Wheeler works out.
DeleteI would also note that Wheeler went from a hitter's league, the Cal League, to a pitcher's league, whichever one the Mets have. He's also now in the Eastern League, also a pitchers league. Both contributed to his improvements from the Giants to Mets.
DeleteHowever, he's at least doing well at both places for the Mets so far.
However, he's still walking way too many batters and his strikeout rate, while good, is not great, and the MLE goes down when you translate that to the majors. But he's only 22 YO, doing well in AA, so that's pretty good too. I still think that he will have troubles once he makes the majors, and that he probably don't be solidly in the majors for a number of years.
It's true that Beltran is at .296 / .406 / .653, with a 187 OPS+ this year. Melky Cabrera is now at .348 / .396 / .504, with a 155 OPS+. Cabrera in 2012 has just about the same OPS+ that Beltran had last year and the two years before that, and which during his whole career he has never exceeded. Mightn't one expect that regression to his own mean will strike Beltran at age 35? (Beltran's career averages are .284 / .362 / .499, with an OPS+ of 123.) Since Cabrera is in principle re-signable for some years, plays defense as Beltran no longer can, and costs half as much, I have no regrets about the Giants' choice to go with youth and speed, with what one can reasonably speculate will be a similar offensive performance. Once the loss of Wheeler was a sunk cost--more than defensibly so, as OGC says--the Giants acted rationally in not getting into a feverish pursuit of Beltran.
ReplyDeleteYup, I agree with this completely.
DeleteMe, not so much here.
DeleteWhy is it either/or Beltran and Melky? Why not Beltran and Melky? Melky is a separate deal. You think the Giant's OF can't hold Beltran, Melky and Pagan?
Anyone think the Dodgers are not going to pursue Hamilton (if available) because they already have Kemp & Ethier?
Most anyone else at the time of the trade, did not believe that we traded Wheeler ONLY for 1/2 a season of Beltran. Re-signing was anything but a sure thing, BUT, as part of the trade (if Beltran's cost was not excessive) the Giants would pursue him. 2 years at $13 million per is not excessive in regards to either price or length.
As Doc has noted, maybe Beltran was not interested in resigning with the Giants. But, if I'm GM, making a trade giving up my #6 overall draft choice, I'm damn well going to know if the guy I'm trading for is planning on sticking around.
So, it's fair to wonder, as Beltran tears out of the gate, what happened? If Beltran had signed a 4-year, $56 Million deal, I've got no problem with how this turned out. But he signed a reasonable deal and we did not (as far as I know) make an offer.
So, I'm not going to sit by and say, oh, well, sunk cost. Something is wrong. Either the Giants are OK with giving away A-prospects, or they didn't know enough about Beltran.
Maybe OGC and some are OK with giving up Wheeler for a chance at the 2011 title. But, if that's all it was for, nope, not a good trade.
And as far as the youth movement, fantastic.
DeleteBut who are we holding a spot for in the OF? Brown, sure. Hopefully that works out. After that it's nothing but long shots. We have nothing close to a blue-chip prospect in the OF.
I like the youth movement. I want the kids to play. But, I would have hoped that management saw it coming (THEIR decision to go young). And would have had Wheeler in their plans.
And had some LEGITIMATE prospects on the Major League Track.
I really enjoy following our prospects. And in the past few years it seems like the quality of system has improved greatly. But NOT to the point where we can dump a top-ten pick. And not to the point where we have ANY position player who is someone we need to hold a position for.
Well, at the time of the trade, I made a pitch here and on a couple other sites for Hunter Pence instead of Beltran precisely because Pence was under contract for a couple more years and all I got back was crickets chirping or a quick thumbs down, so don't count me in the group who thought Beltran as a lock to re-sign.
DeleteYeah, one more thing on the Wheeler trade: Lest anyone get the mistaken notion that I'm just a knee-jerk apologist for Sabes on this, I said it then, I've said it since, I'll say it again. If the Giants had a choice between trading Gary Brown and Zack Wheeler for Carlos Beltran, they traded the wrong guy.
DeleteHang on Doc - Pence was completely unreachable for the Giants. It would have been Brown, Wheeler and Hembree. The Phils gave up a lot for him. The Giants don't have that type of farm to take hits, and they're not drunken sailors like Amaro. This is what you get when you punt draft picks deliberately.
DeleteI'm completely the opposite, when the Twitter was blowing up and rumors were flying, Brown getting traded sank me. So we'll see how it turns out, but I think they traded the right guy. Counting on Galindo or Shawn Payne to fill the shoes of GB isn't a good bet. They are nice to have though.
Agree that was the problem with Pence. The Phils got more than a 2 month rental, but paid a big price for that. Still, while I'm very high on Wheeler, I'm not sure it's a lock that between Brown, Wheeler and Hembree, you'll get a cumulative value that's equal to 3 years of Pence at a reasonable cost.
DeleteYou don't have to count on Shawn Payne or Galindo. There are several players who they could draft this year who would replace Brown, Naquin, and the dude from NY are just two who come to mind. If they still had Wheeler, they would not be as compelled to draft pitching.
The punted picks were looong ago, the expiration dates on those prospects are long gone, Shankbone, so you can't blame that for the farm system.
DeleteIt has nothing to do with punting. It has a lot to do with the low odds of drafted players making the majors as a good starter, and the fact that the Giants have graduated a lot of prospects to the majors already, and that fact that most fans do not have a realistic grasp on the actual difficulties of developing players from the farm system. You can see it in these comments, the Giants have done a FANTASTIC job with their draft picks in recent years, yet people are still not satisfied. Find me a team that has done a better job of developing players via the draft, and I will show you a team that had lost for long stretches, building up a barrel full of talent. The Giants did it with only 4 years of losing, only 2 of big losing, yet fans are still not satisfied.
I preferred keeping Brown over Wheeler too. We need the cheap offense, and if we can sign the pitchers and they stay healthy, we can pay for the expensive pitchers with a cheap offense built up over the next few years. Sometimes you take the shot.
I see people yearning over Pence, but nobody bothered to post his stats so far, and in an extreme hitters park: .243/.291/.450/.741, which is NOT worth all those prospects or all the money we would have paid for him. Beltran was the way to go, Sabean just swung for the fences and failed because Beltran had one of his usual niggling injuries; remember, if the Giants didn't force him back, he would have stayed out longer. That, if anything, killed the Giants chances, seeing the star sit idle while everyone else is battling.