It was Giants weather in Philadelphia and the Giants took full advantage as Brandon Crawford broke up a tight pitching duel with a grand slam HR in the 6'th inning. The Giants cruised the rest of the way to a 7-2 win. Key Lines:
Gregor Blanco- 0 for 5, 3 K's. BA= .246. The LH hitters seemed to be not seeing the ball well in the first 3-4 innings, none less so than Blanco who might as well have been blind up there.
Ryan Theriot- 4 for 5, 2B. BA= .279. Theriot started the big rally with a single and nobody was more excited about Crawford's big blow in the dugout.
Nate Schierholtz- 1 for 3, BB. BA= .250. Nate drew a key walk to load the bases for Crawford. Not that I have a ton of confidence in Nate, but if Blanco continues to look vision challenged at the plate, Bochy might want to think about giving Nate another shot at starting in RF.
Brandon Crawford- 2 for 4, HR(3). BA= .240. I think if we were told at the beginning of the season Crawford would hit .240 on the season, we'd have all happily given him the starting SS job. I don't know the exact formula for calculating WAR, but Crawford earned a full W tonight in my book.
Tim Lincecum- 7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 5.72. Timmy was on fire early and the cool weather helped him take it all the way through 7. Very solid effort from Timmy.
Laz Diaz(Home Plate Ump)- That might have been the most ridiculous strike zone I've seen all season, especially for Worley. He was calling pitches that were a full 8 inches off the outside corner to LH hitters strikes. He probably had a similar zone for both pitchers, but it was most noticeable with Worley.
The Dodgers outlasted the Mets 7-6 to stay 2.5 games behind the NL West leading Giants. The D'Backs are leading the Astros 9-4 late. A win would leave the D'Backs 7 games back.
Matt Cain takes the mound tomorrow against Cole Hamels in what promises to be an epic pitching duel.
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something interesting happened in fresno tonite. chris was pulled in the 5th...no injury timeout...just pulled. pagan's issue may be more than just a slump...may be the abdominal prob again...i would like to see what chris can do before sept callups
ReplyDeletewonder if this road trip will finally shut the hell up the craw critics
huff had a set back...huff shouldnt even be a part of the conversation...let him hang with freddie on the compound. im sure their families will get along famously
the mental component of timmy's game is fixed. lets see if the rest is when he faces a contending team
going to midnite movies is bad for your health...watch baseball...keep america strong
Every time I think Crawford's low B.A. will consign him to AAA he gets a hit to put him over.240.Giants have so many streaky players,i,e, Theriot, Blanco, The Brandons,Panda,Buster. Knee injury keeps Giants from having Huff and Whiteside in lineup. Hope G's acquire power bat before deadline. Nice to see Eli get rare rbi double. Ian, Victoria, B.C.
ReplyDeleteThere are several OF power bats that might be available on the trade market. With Pagan possibly injured and Blanco apparently having vision issues, there seems to be a job opening up in the Giants OF. 1B is an ongoing issue too although both Sandoval and Posey can play there
DeleteCrawford has 0.7 WAR in Fangraphs' version of it, better (given that WAR is additive over one's PAs) than Marco Scutaro, Alexei Ramirez, or J. J. Hardy, all of whom bloggers on McCovey C. have touted as preferable replacements for him. (He's at 1.4 WAR by the Baseball Reference method.) If usually he batted 7th, as he did tonight, I suspect he would have a higher OBP because he wouldn't be asked to expand the zone, hitting just before the pitcher, and he might well get better pitches to hit because he would have a competent hitter behind him should he get on base. As for Anonymous/Ian's implication that Crawford keeps bobbing about .240, one might note that since June 1 he has been hitting .270, with improvement every month. I don't think he's heading back to AAA, Ian.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Crawford's Fangraphs WAR went from 0.7 to 0.9 last night. Impressive!
DeleteI didn't mention in the game wrap, but Crawford also made a fantastic play on a ball hit up the middle laying out flat to grab it and then throwing out the runner at first from his knees. Some other SS's might have the range for that and some might have the arm, but very few have both. Chalk that one up as a play very few if any other SS's make.
Since recovering from early season yips, Crawford has been improving each month for sure. The front office admitted their mistake in trading for Orlando Cabrera last year (source: Baggs). I'd say its very big of them to admit that, and I think there are many bigger fish to fry than nitpick Brandon Crawford.
DeleteI've always seen Crawford as a better fielding Alex Gonzalez, which is a pretty high praise because Gonzo in his prime was very good. Sneaky 15 HR power at best, with maybe a bit better hitting as he works on it.
We don't need all-stars at every position. Of course it'd be nice to have a Justin Upton, but we don't NEED that. We need solid role players, and to not make big mistakes with lockup contracts.
Now that Timmy's had 2 consecutive decent starts do the Giants consider moving him for a power hitter? His increased trade value may now have some GM's drooling when they can spare a long baller. Timmy turned down $100 million,he won't get near that from the G's now, given his record but he still wants big bucks. Ian, Victoria, B.C.
ReplyDeleteBig Time Timmy Jim, or his alter ego of the past few months, are both going nowhere. Dead discussion.
DeleteI think Lincecum has been and will be pretty happy with signing relatively short contracts for big bucks. I think he uses them for motivation, and maybe he fears a Zito-like contract anchor. For now he is a Giant. He may leave as a FA someday, but I don't expect any trades.
DeleteI think it is safe to say Tim Lincecum is not going to be traded.
DeleteLaz Diaz - his zone was shifted to the outside. Balls were called strikes on the outside and strikes were called balls on the inside. Worley took advantage in the early innings, and it contributed to some bad strikeout lookings for Giant's players, and some bad hacks as they tried to protect and figure out the zone.
ReplyDeleteGreat game for Crawford. He looks dialed in at short and at the plate right now. Stay hot.
I don't think I have had a nice thing to say about Craw all year but he deserves credit for a hell of a game last night. Like most Craw critics, I would like nothing more then to see him have success. There is every reason in the world to want to root for this guy. That doesn't mean he is going to be a good major leaguer however.
ReplyDeleteCelebrating over him doing the bare minimum (.240, 4 HR, 28 RBI's) to justify him starting on this team is setting the bar kinda low. I know his defense is way way better but those are pretty close to the offensive numbers that OCab and Tejada produced last year.
Craw supporters have a lot in common with Belt and Nate supporters. You support them because all 3 are homegrown but if they were on any other team you probably wouldn't even know they existed. Everybody loves our homegrown talent but if you can't trust your eyes and are blinded by your hometown crush, your opinions are biased. I try to keep my opinions solely based on what I see with my own 2 eyes while others prefer to trust formulas that nobody knows how to calculate.
Speaking of eyes, Affeldt has looked like an entirely different pitcher the last couple of weeks. If he continues to pitch like 2009 then he may earn his paycheck yet. Other than him, Lopez, and Romo there aren't too many others I trust in that bullpen. Because they need so much help in the pen I don't think they will also be able to acquire a difference making bat. I'm not so much worried about getting to the playoffs anymore but this lineup is very different from the 2010 lineup so I am hesitant to believe that our pitching will carry us through again.
While I don't know the exact formula for UZR or WAR, I do understand the basic concept of how they are derived. Neither is the be-all end-all of any discussion, but I do think they give a fairly accurate idea of the value of a player's total defensive effort and their total value respectively. By those measures, Crawford is in the top 3'rd of SS's for defensive value and middle 3'rd of SS's in total value. Given that he did not require a large $$$ FA contract nor did he require players in exchange for a trade, I'd say he is giving the Giants a very large bargain independent of his single game performance last night.
DeleteTime to demote Belt.Has little trade value, maybe a throw in. Trout's a rookie and is 10 times the hitter belt will ever be.Too many times he's made an out with risp.Potential doesn't win games.Ian,Victoria,B.C.
ReplyDelete