Ryan Vogelsong, once again, went head-to-head with the Dodgers' ace and one of the most deadly of Giants nemeses over the last couple of seasons and came away a winner. Key Lines:
Melky Cabrera- 1 for 3, HR(7), 2 BB. BA= .352. Melky was again in the thick of it for the Giants offense putting the first run on the board with a dinger off Kershaw.
Buster Posey- 2 for 4. BA= .298. Buster's two outs were scorched as he slammed one off Kershaw's back that Kershaw recovered from in time to field it and throw him out. The other was scalded down the 3B line and speared by Herrera who then turned a DP.
Ryan Vogelsong- 7 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 2.23. Vogelsong now has two pitching duel wins against a true ace on his resume. I'm really not sure how you keep Vogey off the All-Star team but I guess there are a lot of deserving pitchers. Oh, and I have a new nickname for Ryan Vogelsong: True Warrior Spirit!
Jeremy Affeldt- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 2.48. Affeldt cruised through the 8'th.
Santiago Casilla- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K, Save(21). ERA= 2.70. After walking Abreu with one out, Casilla gave up a hard hit ball to, who else, Hairston that I thought might split the left-center gap, but Pagan used his speed nicely to track it down
The win leaves the Giants just 1 game out of first place in the NL West. The D'Backs lost to the Braves 8-1 so they remain 5 games behind the Dodgers. The Giants lead the Cardinals by 2 games for the top Wild Card spot.
Tim Lincecum tries for the sweep against Chad "Baggy Pants" Billingsley in an afternoon game tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It's all about Voggie:
ReplyDeleteVoggie leads the way, again.
Anyone still think last year was a fluke?
Won't make the All-Star team missed to many starts/wins early.
Love seeing Kershaw eat crow at Willie Mays Plaza.
The Bums deserve to be shutout - they need to be exposed and beat down as weak offensively w/o Kemp.
Hopefully Voggie leads Timmy, out of the wilderness today.
Didn't Vogelsong make the All-Star team last season even though he didn't join until after Zito's DL? Yep, first start in 2011 was April 18th, first start 2012 was April 15th. And he was on the All-Star team last season, so we can still hope for that again.
DeleteI analyzed Vogelsong's 2011 starts in this pre-season and opined that his strong performance in terms of quality starts (using PQS methodology) at the end of the 2011 season suggests that he has the skills to continue doing what he was doing in 2012. That he has done even better is probably related to him building off of the improved confidence he has with 2011 under his belt, and pushing himself to prove that not only that 2011 wasn't a fluke, but that he deserves to be the All-Star that he was named last year.
I think that it is conceivable that we could have up to five pitchers named to the All-Star game: Cain, Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Romo, and perhaps Casilla, but I think Casilla's chances are reduced because 1) that's 5 pitchers and 2) the Giants are probably going to have Posey and Cabrera named to the team as well, which would give them 6 players under this scenario, so Romo is probably on the edge as well, I don't see the Giants getting that many players named, 5 is probably the match, what do you all think?
Good catch on Voggie's late start last year as well - but no 2011 WS win, so Bochy won't be pickn'em. Still beating Kershaw 2x stands out.
DeleteAlways felt Voggie would be better in 2012 - he has always had the tools and in 2011 he learned how to harness his tools. Once learned, he was not going to forget how to pitch. Now he is just applying his knowledge and tenacity. A beautiful sight!
Indeed, indeed...
DeleteBig time win last night. I was expecting a Bacci comment along the lines of "In your face, Fangraphs!" but maybe the bacc man is on vacation.
ReplyDeleteNice to see good fielding Pagan show up. Posey is smoking the ball, and Melky just won't be stopped. Pablo should have scored on Belt's bombin' ball, conditioning issues for sure.
It feels really really good to beat Kershaw, and they were slapping him around pretty good in the middle innings. Haven't seen the Giants tee off like that as a team since... well, the 2nd half of 2010 really.
Maybe I'm imagining it but Buster smoking that one back up the middle and nailing Kershaw in the back was sending a message. I thought I detected just a bit of fear in Kershaw's face after that and it seemed to take what little wind the Dodgers as a team had in their sails before that.
DeletePagan giveth and taketh with his defense. That's the story right? He'll use his speed to make catches you didn't think he'd range to, and then occasional miss the easy play. And since he didn't dive or break his nose, he won't make the highlights (until his next blunder).
ReplyDeleteEven when I get a chance to watch most of the game (which I don't get enough of living out on the East Coast), I love reading the DrB summary. Thanks DrB!
Thank you. Glad you enjoy reading.
DeleteI think Cabrera says, 'Soy Melkyman.'
ReplyDeleteThere you have, soymilk...hopefully fortified with calcium.
Drink your soymilk everyday and you will grow up like Cabrera.
I lost two posts yesterday. Not sure what happened.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I mentioned, following Lucky's comment about Sanchez making the jump from San Jose yesterday, many of our players did not spend a full season in Fresno.
Guys like Posey, Panda, Belt, Crawford, Romo, Bumgarner, Lincecum and maybe even Cain never spent a full season there.
So, what can we say about the players who seem destined to spend a full season there or two, in Conor's case?
And what can we hope to see frmo the players now in Richmond, granted every player is different?
Maybe DrB don't know, but Blogger puts aside comments that it deems to be questionable and hold it off for the blogger to moderate and approve or delete the comment.
DeleteI didn't realize that Blogger did that until one day I noticed it. Looking in it, I found comments, for example, Shankbone had one that he thought he accidentally deleted but it actually got placed aside and I didn't know it, because I received the e-mail that it had come in. I had reposted that comment for him, but once I approved the comment, it put it in there, just ahead of my repost.
What that says is that these players needed more time to develop. There's nothing wrong with that, they can still become useful players for us, but most probably won't be a star player, but that's OK, every team can use useful players to fill out the roster and be complementary players.
And sometimes they do become a star, that is a great thing about baseball, you get guys who struggle for a long while to stick and then something finally clicks and they are a star. Vogelsong is an extreme version of that, but Chase Utley spent almost two full seasons in AAA before making the majors to stay. Matt Williams never spent a full season in AAA but spent significant time in AAA for three seasons before sticking for good.
Does it mean DrB has them?
DeleteYes, every player is different. I forgot to mention today, but it was in yesterday's lost comment, that Sabean said once that all the good players were in AA. Was he referencing a one time event or in general, in his view, all (or almost all, can't remember the exact words he used) the good players were in AA.
So, I ask with that comment in mind.
Lots of stuff to keep track of between the blog and my fantasy team. Gotta admit I don't usually check in on the comments Blogger deems to be possibly junk. Sorry about that. Will try to do better.
DeleteI seem to remember that what Sabes said was you can't tell much about hitter prospects at AAA because the pitching is so bad there. All the good pitching prospects are on AA and don't spend much time in AAA before getting called up to the majors.
Sweeep!!! First time since 1954 to sweep with shutouts.
ReplyDeleteAnd Lincecum is back!!!
Woo hoo!!!