Game Wrap 5/27/2012: Giants 3 Marlins 2

The Giants got another tremendous effort from Melky Cabrera, a well pitched game by Matt Cain and the bullpen and a mostly well managed game by Bruce Bochy to complete a successful road trip.  Key Lines:

Melky Cabrera- 4 for 4, HR(4), 2 SB(9).  BA= .369.  Melky continues to be just amazeballs!  I paid just $4 for him in my fantasy auction draft and said at the time he was the most underrated player in all of fantasy baseball.  Kruk and Kuip were pimping him for All-Star starter and I fully agree.  I've seen all 4 of Melky's HR's and every one has been a line drive.  No sirree!  No high majestic moon shots from Melky even though I'm sure he is physically capable of it.  In his first AB, he turned on an inside pitch and pulled it down the line for the second time in the series.  Many hitters would have been tempted to start trying to pull everything down the line.  Not Melky!  He went right up the middle in his next 3 AB's for 3 more hits  and 2 more runs scored.  In fact, he scored all 3 of the Giants' runs in this one.  Here's what I've come to appreciate about Melky:  He plays within himself and refuses to be distracted from that.  Melky now has 46 hits in the month of May.  Only Willie Mays has more in the same month in the history of the Giants at 49.  Melky has 3 games to try to pass it.  At this rate, it should be a slam dunk.

Buster Posey- 2 for 4, 2B.  BA= .295.  Buster and Melky were the black hole in the Giants lineup yesterday.  Today they, along with Angel Pagan were the entire Giants offense.  Buster's double would have been a HR in AT&T, especially in the daytime and that's saying something.  What if Buster played all his games in Miller Park?

Angel Pagan- 1 for 2, 3B, SF.  BA= .308.  Another good day at the plate for Pagan.  He continues to be a bit of an enigma in the field.  He made one clutch running diving catch in left-center, but later turned a single into a double with a bobble of an easy chance on a ball that rolled right to him.

Aubrey Huff- 0 for 3.  BA= .167.  I think it's past time to give up on the notion of trying to get Huffy going.  Just ain't gonna happen at this point.  If you are going to try to get somebody going, might as well be Belt.  Alternatives would be to move Buster to 1B full time with Sanchez behind the plate.  Another idea, move Pablo to 1B when he gets back, leave Arias at 3B and trade for a 2B or else try to get the Riot going(more on that later).

Brandon Belt- 0 for 1, K.  BA= .228.  The Giants have been tinkering with some technical/mechanical aspects to Belt's swing to keep him from getting tied up on the inside stuff.  This was just a horrible AB though and had nothing to do with mechanical stuff and everything to do with an apparent inability to pull the trigger when it's necessary to swing.  Runner at 3B, no outs.  You CANNOT stand there and watch 3 strikes go by, you CANNOT! Still a better option than trying to get Huff going.

Joaquin Arias- 0 for 3, BB.  BA= .263.  Arias made several sparkling plays and had Kruk and Kuip raving about his D at 3B.  He may have been a tad slow to react to a ball that went past him to his left, but he was guarding the line on that play.

Ryan Theriot- 0 for 4.  BA= .191.  Another 0 for 4, but Riot has been hitting the ball hard.  At least two of his outs today were hard hit line drives right at OF's.  I think he probably has more offensive upside than Burriss.  The big question is on D where he made a nice acrobatic play but later almost fell down while transferring a rather routine grounder to his throwing hand and barely got the runner at first.

Matt Cain- 6.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K's.  ERA= 2.79.  Pretty routine start for Cainer which is pretty darn good for most pitchers.  He even got the W and is on a pace to win 15 games on the season!

Santiago Casilla- 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, Save(12).  ERA= 1.29.  4 out Save for Casilla, but I'm glad he didn't have to face the middle of the Marlins order.  Still don't have complete confidence in him against the best hitters in the game although he usually closes out a game with a lot less drama than BWeezy.

Bruce Bochy-  Mixed bag here:  1.  I think Kruk and Kuip were making fun of his reasoning for putting Huff in the lineup against Nolasco.  There's that HR he hit back in......???  OK, Boch, just say you wanted to play Huff and be done with it!  Belt's AB was argument enough for it even though I think it's probably better to play Belt.  2.  The suicide squeeze with Pagan on third and 1 out with Arias at the plate was ridiculous.  I think it might have been born out of frustration with Belt's horrible AB that preceded it, but you gotta stay calm.  Arias' best bet was to put the ball in play and hope for at least a productive out.  3.  Beautiful job managing the pitching and you can't overestimate the the importance of that.

I always hesitate to criticize Bochy in even the mildest way because it always seems to invite a firestorm of hyperbolic knee jerk reaction, so please keep the comments rational.  Gotta be able to evaluate and discuss the good and the bad without the kneejerk stuff.

The Giants end up splitting the series and winning the road trip 4 games to 3.  Dodgers beat the "Stros so the Giants remain 7.5 games behind in 2'nd place in the NL West.  The D'Backs topped the BrewCrew 4-3 to remain 10.5 games behind the Dodgers in 3'rd place while the Rockies and Padres both lost to fall 14.5 and 16 games behind respectively.

The Giants open a 3 game set at home against the D'Backs with Barry Zito appropriately taking the mound in a Memorial Day afternoon start.