The Giants played a terrific game breaking open a taut pitching duel with a 4 run burst in the bottom of the 8'th inning allowing Madison Bumgarner to cruise to a complete game victory. Key Lines:
Angel Pagan- 2 for 5. BA= .280. As long as he's getting on base 2 times per game, he's doing what a leadoff batter is supposed to do.
Marco Scutaro- 3 for 5. BA= .280. Love this move by Bochy. Theriot has made big contributions this year, but has been scuffling of late. Scoots is the guy you want in this lineup.
Pablo Sandoval- 0 for 2, BB, SF. BA= .295. Terrific PA by Sandoval to get the SF and drive in the first insurance run on the 8'th. And, I have to say, Pablo lost some more weight while he was on the DL. He looks like he's in terrific shape. I think he's going to do some serious damage to opponents coming down the stretch.
Hunter Pence- 3 for 4. BA= .260. Pence is officially out of his slump. What a great guy to have in the 6 hole!
Brandon Belt- 3 for 4, 2B. BA= .267. 3 Ribbies. Belt made some mental mistakes on the bases, but make no mistake, he is red hot and rapidly morphing back into the Belt we all thought we were getting last year. In fact, I have a new nickname for Belt. Forget that Baby Giraffe stuff. How about The Belter! How great is it to have two guys like Pence and a hot Belt this deep in the lineup. Now THAT is a deep lineup!
Madison Bumgarner- 9 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 2.97. Had it not been for Pence dropping a catchable ball in Triples Alley(admittedly, he had to run a long ways to get there, but he did get there), Bumgarner would have had his second complete game shutout. Amy G was so enthralled by it she just went ahead and kept calling it a CG shutout in the postgame interview! A dominant performance. He didn't walk anyone until the 9'th. Looking ahead, if schedules stay on track, there is a matchup looming that I have dreamed of since 2008: Bumgarner vs Kershaw in the thick of a pennant race. Can't hardly wait!
With the Win, the Giants kept pace with the Dodgers atop the NL West as the bad guys blasted the Pirates 11-0. The D'Backs lost to the Cards 8-2 to fall 5.5 games off the pace of the two leaders.
If there was ever a time for Big Time Timmy Jim to show up, it's tomorrow afternoon facing Stephen Strasburg at AT&T Park.
Brad Penny was placed on the DL with a recurrence of his shoulder woes. I don't know if Otero is the answer, but it was clear Penny is not. Let's see if Sabes can dig up a RH version of Jose Mijares off somebody's waiver wire.
Gotta be excited by tonight's game both for the outcome and for what it portends for the future. I love this lineup! Every single hitter is capable of doing damage. With Belt finally hitting his stride, Pence emerging from his post-trade anxiousness and Pablo returning from the DL looking like he's in the best shape of his life. Gotta like these Giants chances coming down the stretch run even if the Dodgers somehow keep up their torrid pace.
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In line with what you say, DrB, one might note that despite all the head-shaking over the past months about the Giants' hitting, we are--throughout all 2012 so far--about as good as the mighty Nationals. They have scored 518 runs to our 491, in 116 games each, for a per game lead of about a quarter run a game (4.4655 to 4.2327), but their home park has a considerably higher run factor than ours. With Pence in the lineup, we may be better than they. Where they are decidedly better than we are is pitching, so that their run differential is over +100, while ours is under +20. Yet commentators, the ones who get paid for it as well as those who don't, have fussed much more about our supposedly poor hitting than about our pitching; hence, for example, they objected to the Giants' signing Affeldt and Lopez in the offseason instead of angling for Beltran or Reyes or Rollins.
ReplyDeleteExcellent points!
DeleteOne more thought about Belt: For all the yelling about the supposed mismanagement of Belt by the Giants, well, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think they've handled Belt just right! We're seeing the fruits of that now.
DeleteI think it's a case of trial and error, like most human endeavors, including even science.
DeletePlayers can emerge under less than ideal conditions.
Perhaps it's more about one's faith in a player even at it's darkness, less about some objective, verifiable or predictable fact.
I totally agree, DrB, about their handling of Belt. If you look at his August stats, he only has 2 K's in the whole month. There have been games where he had much more than that!
DeleteThat's the Belt we all have been hoping for since he was hitting like this in AA and below. Well, almost, we now need to wait for the homers to come, but if he continues to hit like this, I am more than happy.
Unfortunately, the #FreeBelters will say "see? this is what would have happened if the Giants played Belt all season." Of course, they missed that the Giants have played Belt like this the PAST TWO SEASONS: when he is hot like this, they keep him in the lineup, I've followed their usage and it hews closely to his performance with a lag, of course.
Great points about Nats vs. Giants, offense vs. hitting.
DeleteI would also add that a large reason for the difference in differentials is because of Lincecum's very poor first half. He normally would have half the ERA he has now, so that is roughly 40 runs of that difference between the two teams, cutting the difference to 100 vs. around 60. On top of that, poorer defense has probably costed them 5-10 runs as well.
Plus, as you noted, with Pence in the lineup, we are improved, though I would note that the Nats has mostly played without Werth, so they might have a similar boost to their offense.
Where the Giants could catch up or even pull ahead is the fact that Strausburg has an expiration date on his arm and at some point will be shut down for the season. Not sure if they will tempt fates and try to use him again in the playoffs, or even in the bullpen, but if he is out, that should get us pretty close to them, given how well Lincecum is pitching again.
Nice analysis, good stuff.
Unfortunately wirh Belt, there is mo way to conclusively show it one way or another as in, let's re run that and vary this one variable and keep the other 35 constant.
DeleteProbably wiser to just enjoy it.
giants mini olympic moments
ReplyDeletepagan, warming up for the 100 meter http://i.imgur.com/cmgfu.gif
riot doing the mobot http://i.imgur.com/7GfKi.gif
and in keeping with this post olympic theme, what is craw's connection to the sydney and beijing olympics
Dunno on Crawford. You'll have to tell me.
DeleteDid his wife compete in those games for the U.S. softball team?
DeleteOlympic theme - Sydney USA b-ball beat Cuba, as did Craw in 06. Beijing - he played with Nate, who famously bowled over the Chinese catcher.
DeleteI imagine this being Bacci is has something to do with hawt wives though.
no, this time it has to do with hawt sis in laws
Deletejamie dantzcher was a member of the sydney gymnastics team that came in 4th at the time
she was the first to speak out against the karolyi system and how the gymnasts had been treated at the games
in beijing, it was discovered that the chinese had lied about the age of one of their gymnasts from sydney and in 2010 the all around bronze was awarded to the us and jamie
she went on to have a brilliant career at ucla and now coaches at az
and that is your olympic moment...cue john williams theme
here is jamie in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjXrRnWx0Dg
Yes, it is time for Big Time Timmy Jim to show up and smack down the Gnarly Nats. We need him now, more than ever!
ReplyDeleteHad he been OK all season, the Giants would have at least been .500 in his games, which would put us at 4 games ahead of the Dodgers and 9.5 games ahead of the D-backs right now, and only 4 wins behind the Nats. If he were above .500, make that at least 5 and 10.5 games ahead. We could be cruising right now.
And I think we still can, now that we got Panda back in the lineup and especially if Belt continues hitting like this.
Wow, just looked at the stats for August hitting: we have five hitters who has played significant time who have more walks than strikeouts! Posey, Pagan, Belt, Cabrera, and Scutaro. Only Pence is striking out at a crazy rate.
If the hitters can continue at a good pace, with our pitching back to almost normal (with BWeez gone), we should slowly pull away from the other teams in the NL West.
I was just on Belt's Fangraphs page and I noticed that throughout his professional career, his BABIP has been VERY high. This season, it is .355. Last season (in the Major Leagues) it was .273. His BABIP over his minor league career was in the mid-.300's. So the sad, sad truth of the matter is that his statistics throughout his professional career may be inflated. Is it possible that he can keep this up?
ReplyDeleteThe happy truth is that if a player does something long enough, that becomes his norm or baseline. There is no law that says every player always regresses to the league mean. In fact, many don't.
DeleteVery disappointing news about Melky. He let down a lot of fans who had come to love him. Will have more complete commentary tonight.
ReplyDelete