The Giants took a hard fought game into extra innings but ultimately fell short of a sweep in Philadelphia. Key Lines:
Nate Schierholtz- 2 for 5, 2 HR(5). BA= .253. Holy Toledo, Nate! You know, I'm not wild about giving grease to the squeaky wheel, but I have to say Nate is putting his money where his mouth is. With Blanco and Christian scuffling, I think you have to ride Nate 'til he cools off. Of course, Nate has had games like this before and he's tended to disappear for weeks afterwards, so we'll see.
Brandon Belt- 0 for 5, 3 K's. BA= .231. Another awful day at the plate for Belt. Gotta think Sabes is hard at work looking for a bat, but in the meantime, with a pennant race to worry about, also gotta think Whiteside catching with Buster at 1B is a better option and it's a no brainer as soon as The Hector comes back.
Emmanuel Burriss- 0 for 1, K. BA= .215. Belt and Burriss had consecutive K's after Brandon Crawford let off the top of the 12'th with a double. You kind of knew it was over when that went down. Not sure what Burriss is bringing to the team that just about any warm body on the waiver wire couldn't do better.
Barry Zito- 7 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 7 K's. ERA= 3.75. The Phillies' two best hitters are Utley and Howard, both LH hitting back-to-back in the lineup. Zito has been particularly tough on LH hitters this year. Figured he'd have a good game. When your #5 starter can give you a QS on the road in a bandbox, you gotta feel give him props.
Javier Lopez- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 3.48.
Jeremy Affeldt- 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 2.39. Lopez and Affeldt neutralized Utley and Howard two times through the lineup. Even though the Giants ultimately lost the game, that is huge and will get you more wins than losses in these types of games. Lineups like what the Phillies put out there is exactly why you need two good LOOGY's on your team.
Brad Penny- 0.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 0 K's. ERA= 3.86. It was obvious from the first batter that Penny did not have command of his stuff. When he can't put his FB on the corners down in the zone, he becomes a batting practice pitcher. Maybe he hasn't gotten enough work lately. On the other hand, how do you give a guy like this work when you are fighting for wins every game in a tight pennant race?
Dodgers did what the Giants weren't able to scoring 5 runs in the top of the 12'th inning in NY for an 8-3 win and a sweep. Ramon Ramirez was the goat for the Mets. That win left the Dodgers 1.5 games behind the NL West leading Giants. The D'Backs crushed the Astros 8-2 to move up to 6 games off the pace.
The Giants now come home to a much welcome 10 game homestand starting off tomorrow night with Ryan Vogelsong facing Clayton Richard of the Padres.
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Dingers evened out. G's lost because as usual they couldn't plate risp. 2 BB's eventually scoring was the coup de grace.Belt has too many K's,too few hrs and must be demoted before costing G's again. Ian. Victoria, B.C.
ReplyDeleteAnd guess what? Those RISP's would have scored by simply getting the bat on the ball and putting it in play. You don't need dingers to drive in RISP's!
DeleteDrB, You THINK? Ian, Victoria, B.C.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are getting a little negative for my liking. You guys keep repeating that RISP, RISP, RISP is the Giants keep losing. However, we just took 4/6 on the road. Can't win them all and no need to complain about having a .667 winning percentage road trip. This was a good road trip, Timmy looked good, Zito looked great and Buster is on fire. Make sure we enjoy the good with the "could be betters". Thanks Dr B.
ReplyDeleteWell, RISP has been a problem at times for the Giants this year. It may be that we just remember the bad ones and not the good ones so much. Beyond the Boxscore(linked over on the left) recently ran an article analyzing "clutchness" of all 30 teams in baseball. The score is based on production in high leverage situations vs average situations. Guess what? The Giants came out as the 7'th most clutch team in baseball this year! Now, put THAT in your pipe and smoke it!
DeleteNegative maybe but common sense dictates that when a team keeps squandering risp,they don't do well.These same concerns were echoed by Duane Kuiper on KNBR PGW. Anonymous, you may change your tune if Dodgers are able to reclaim 1st place in NL West.Check out todays'sfGate piece on Belt,hell even Eli can do better. Ian, Victoria, B.C.
ReplyDeleteSee my comment above. If you look at the stats instead of relying on bad memories, the Giants are better than they are being given credit for in high leverage situations, a lot better!
DeleteI enjoy the work you put into this site,truly must be a labor of love. Also enjoy the male bonding.If the sickos with guns were to expend their energy in a blog like this,many more innocent people would still be alive today.Just Googled:mlb team runners left in scoring position per game. Guess who ranks 30th.Ian, Victoria, B.C. Looking forward to good hearted polemic with all you good guys,gals?
ReplyDeleteThere is more that goes into "High Leverage Situations" than just RISP. The Beyond the Boxscore article was based on Fangraphs definition of "Clutch" which is basically derived from a player's perfomance in high leverage situations vs average situations. For instance, a hitter who hits .300 in high leverage situations and also .300 in non-high leverage situations is not "Clutch."
DeleteAlso, I think maybe the BtB study included both pitchers and hitters which would explain the Giants high ranking. If you think the Giants are bad at driving in RISP, opponents are even worse against the Giants pitchers who are off the charts in high leverage situations.
Put simply the Giants pitch great and don't score a lot of runs. Thus they play in a lot of low-scoring, close ballgames. Call it torture, call it lack of power, call out Bochy, call it what you want - but the Giants play close ballgames. This puts a constant, game-long, season-long, premium and pressure on RISP situations for the Giants.
DeleteYou want Bond's splash hits and easy chair, then go for it. You want a WS (or two) in your lifetime, then better place your bets on how the Giants are currently constructed.
Instead of pitching blowouts or home run fests where no one cares if runners are in scoring position when you are down/up by 6 runs, the Giants rarely lead by more than 2 runs in a game. So yeah, every game the Giants are GUARANTEED to fail with RISP and most likely it decides the game. Get used to it. Breath in the torture of failure. Because the Giants are in first place, scoring enough, and winning much more than they lose.
Rant over...
I figured out Fangraphs Clutch Scores are for hitters. The league average is -0.2 due to the "anti-clutchness" of relief pitchers.
DeleteThere is more to "high leverage" hitting situations than just RISP. As MS pointed out, the Giants play a lot of close games that are one by scoring a run or two in the late innings. If you measure "clutchness" by the difference in production between "high leverage" situations vs average situations, Giants are quite a bit better than average.
Amen!
DeleteBut, I think we all agree that another hitter with some pop would be nice, but personally, I want that hitter to be able to hit for average as well as power.
DeleteI notice on MLB Trade Rumors that the Giants are looking for a right handed bat who could play the corner infield and outfield. Do you think there's a chance that Corey Hart could fit the bill? I know he can't play 3B, only 1B and outfield. But as the Brewers fall further out of contention, this could be a possibility.
ReplyDeleteWell to come to think of it actually, the Giants DO have a corner IF/OF right handed bat already. His name is Brett Pill.
DeleteDon't think Brett Pill is the guy you want for a RH power bat going down the stretch run.
DeleteBurris is a waste of a roster space. He needs to go. In terms of right handed bat I am thinking Soriano. Yes he is going to give it up defensively but he is about as sure thing as you can get right now in terms of right handed power. Send Huff to the Cubs to balance out some of the payroll and depending on what level of prospect we give up would determine how much more we would have to take. A couple of months ago I would have said try to include Zito but he's pitching too well now. Who would have thought it?
ReplyDeleteSomeone over on the Giants Message Board suggested Jeff Baker of the Cubs. He's a FA after this year and his salary is only $1.8 M.
DeleteNot sure where you are getting the .220? He is hitting .268 with 18 HR's and has never hit below .241 in his career. We need a legit right handed power threat and he is one. It would be like the move when we picked up Burrell. Baker is not a game changer for us.
DeleteSoriano has gone through extended stretches where he hit .220. How much do you wanna bet he wouldn't do it after being traded to the Giants in the middle of a pennant race?
DeleteThe Giants need a sure thing in terms of power, not another maybe guy like a Baker, Pill, Belt. Soriano will give them power for sure.
ReplyDeleteJeff Baker is not Pill or Belt. His career line from around 1400 PA's is something like .278/.323/.440. That's a huge upgrade on Pill or Belt. Soriano's legs are gone and he's become pretty much a statue out on LF with no guarantees he hits above .220.
DeleteHadn't thought much about Baker. Huge splits. 129 OPS+ against lefties, 74 OPS+ against the RHP. His HR splits are the same: 25 against LHP, 12 vs RHP.
DeleteClassic platoon guy. He makes 1.375MM and is a FA at the end of the year. The price should be right.
I was alittle puzzled at something that Bochy stated concerning bunting Crawford to 3B. Bochy said, "I am not big on bunting guys over when you are not in the heart of the order."
ReplyDeleteI would be against bunting a guy over with the heart of the order. I figure the heart of the order would be better at getting a hit or even bat control to driving the ball to RF. I would bunt the bottom of the order because they are not the best hitters and every ball player should know how to bunt.
I must be to old fashioned...
Odd comment for sure. I'm not sure what Bochy meant there. Maybe he mis-spoke?
DeleteHaving said that, I'm not so sure it's ever a good think to try to bunt a single runner from 2B to 3B. I don't have the stats, but I'm guessing if you looked it up, a runner on 2B with no outs is more likely to score than a single runner at 3B with 1 out.
He can't rely on the bottom of the order (in this case Burriss), to hit a fly ball to score the run from third. He could rely on Cabrera, or Posey or Panda to do that.
DeleteOverall, Bochy has never been a big fan of sac bunts, although he'll employ them in limited situations. I have to agree with him here - asking Belt to sac-bunt (something he's never done), when you then have to rely on Burriss to hit a deep fly to score the run... those are some poor percentages. Plus its the top if the inning, so it's not a bad idea to play for more than one run. And playing for more than one run means not relying on sacrifing outs for a small chance to score.
On the other hand, when Burriss is the only option for pinch-hitter, there are few good scenarios.
Trade deadline getting closer, we really need to address the closer, 1st base, and bench.
ReplyDelete