The Dodgers prevailed today in a tight, see-saw game that was worthy of this storied rivalry. Key Lines:
Marco Scutaro- 1 for 2, 2 BB. BA= .289. 3 times on base for The Scooter.
Buster Posey- 2 for 3, 2B, BB. BA= .325. Buster also threw out 3 Dodgers baserunners trying to steal.
Gregor Blanco- 2 for 3, 2B. BA= .238. Blanco gave Giants fans a ray of hope with a 2 out double off the glove of LF Castellanos in the 9'th. The Hector followed with a line drive right into the glove of 3B Luis Cruz that could have easily been a game-tying hit. Instead, it ended the game.
Matt Cain- 7.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 2.96. Cainer was a gamer, but was once again stuck with a lack of run support.
Jeremy Affeldt- 0.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 2.85. Affeldt hung a curveball to AGone and was lucky it wasn't long gone. Might as well have been, though, as he backed that up by giving up a run-scoring double to Hanley, the next batter.
Bruce Bochy- I'll go ahead and second guess Bochy on this one. As the home team, it's more important to hold the visitors down in the top of the ninth in a tie game than it is to keep your better pitchers in reserve for later. Not sure if Boch would agree, but right now, I believe Lopez is the better pitcher between him and Affeldt. With AGone and Ethier due up in the inning, I felt like Lopez should have been the guy out there. Of course, there is no way of knowing if the outcome would have been different.
With the loss to the second place Dodgers, the Giants lead over them in the NL West went back to 4.5 games.
Barry Zito faces Clayton Kershaw tomorrow evening. Kershaw tends to be unhittable with the sun going down. I don't think many Giants fans are expecting a win tomorrow which illuminates just how important last night's W was as it could be the difference between a 3.5 game lead and a 1.5 game lead coming out of this series.
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Well I don't expect a win tomorrow but Zito has pitched some gems this year including a 8-0 shutout on 6/25 against the Bums.. Sometimes the game might turn out differently then expected, which is why they play the games as the saying goes..
ReplyDeleteLG
Yup, there's a reason why they play the games, as I always say. Kershaw hasn't exactly been unbeatable lately and Zito occasionally has a surprise in him. If the game was being played in the afternoon, I might be more optimistic about the Giants offense chance of getting to Kershaw. Seems like every time I've seen Kershaw pitch in the shadows, he's been pretty much untouchable.
DeleteI'll go ahead and give Bochy a little second-guess love as well:
ReplyDeleteI don't mind him putting Affeldt in, but Affeldt waves his flag high and bold. It was clear he did not have it today. If Zito gets a short leash, extend that courtesy to Affeldt.
Even though I blinked...I did notice that there was a batter in between Scutaro and Posey. Pablo saw FOUR pitches in four ABs. Maybe, maybe one strike. If Pablo is not going to control himself, then Bochy needs to control him. Have him take a strike. Or, have a seat. Everyone goes through slumps, but our #3 hitter can not be giving away ABs. And it is disturbing to see the batter before Pablo and the one after put together sensational ABs, and then watch Pablo just hack at crap.
Why does the big dog OF automatically get RF. I love Pence. I want him here in a big way. But, I couldn't help but notice the guy who made the spectacular catch to preserve Cain's perfect game (while playing RF) was in left field today.
I hope no one is pretending that Pence is going to play a good, or even average RF at AT&T. I've seen this kind of RF delusion before with Jose Cruz Jr. Everyone raved about his defense all year in 2003. I didn't see it. At all. He looked shaky. I was waiting for the big error. Too bad it showed in the playoffs. Bochy, please, the best defensive set in the OF. It's important.
Can't win them all, but today was huge. And it was winable.
I agree on Pence to LF. On the historical front, I always thought Cruz was solid but not spectacular. I was surprised at the GG, but I wasn't as jaded about those awards as I am now. We definitely do not have any OFs who give us a sense of calm out there. Pagan and Pence are a bit spazzy, and have big play and big error potential. Makes for overly dramatic viewing maybe. Torres covered so much ground so smoothly, I think we got spoiled, as we did with Nate.
DeleteAgreed that against the backdrop of Andres and Nate, it's tough to look good. In this case, I'm arguing a relative point: I'd like to see the best defender in a tough right field at AT&T. I argued for Nate in RF when Beltran showed up last year.
Deletecongrats to the giants for making cappy look like a cy young contender...with huge ups to pablo and pence
ReplyDeletei thought the philly's fans complaints about pence's plate approach this season were sour grapes...he really does, for the most part, look lost up there
and im sorry...pence does not belong in rt field...and he is hitting 230
if nate was hitting 230, he would be sitting...no more excuses...
according to jeremy, he made his pitch to agon....today was god day at the park, so im sure right after he was taken out, jeremy had a little chat with jesus and jesus told him that was not a hanging curve....but jesus doesnt run the game of baseball...the gods of baseball do...and i just got off the phone with them...and they told me...THAT WAS A FRICKIN HANGING CURVE...they said this while laffing that jeremy would serve one up to a guy....WHO HASNT HAD A TRIPLE ALL SEASON....AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH
hector hit that ball right on the screws
dont care what belt says about his being uncoordinated, his body language and facial expressions at the plate when he isnt doing well is a tell...and he has gotta learn how to fix that
the game was filled with mccrappyisms....here is a great one
"i was talking to (some old retired manager nobody today knows)and he told me, 'give me a team of 25 selfish players, and i will show you a winner'"
an inning later, hanley tried to steal 3rd on posey with no outs and got cut down like a dog.
mccrappy, "that was bad base running"
by mccrappyhead, dont you want a squad of hanley's playing for you?????
i hate fox...they are all that is bad and evil about this country
Yeah, the curveball to AGone was definitely a hanger.
DeleteHave to say I've been disappointed in Pence, even though he does have 26 ribeyes since coming here. What's with that chop swing he does in the on-deck circle? I remember Kruk and Kuip making fun of it when he was still with Philly. Remember when Bobby Bonds used to stand down in the first base coaching box and tuck his chin into his shoulder before every pitch to Matt Williams to remind him to help keep him from flying open every pitch? Well, somebody needs to do that with Pence except I'm guessing ballplayers who make 8 figure salaries don't think they need to pay attention to stuff like that from the first base coach. Ha! Now I'm sounding like Ian/Tito!
I watched the early innings, caught the run scoring on the radio on the way to a birthday party and then missed the meltdown. I would second guess Bochy a bit on letting Cain hit with a chance to add on. Maybe that is just how little faith he has in his pen, or maybe they are gassed for the moment. That is a tough choice, and he gets second guessed no matter, but I would have pulled Cain and let the mix/match rock and roll for the final 6 outs.
ReplyDeleteHanley Ramirez - just wow, what an idiot.
Affeldt appears to be getting more inconsistent as we progress. He got a quick two outs last night though. Lopez seemed a much stronger choice.
Pence has to make them pay. Could have been a slam dunk nail in the coffin for the Doyers. He is really in the weeds. However, he is outproducing Mr. Sandoval lately, not that that is a big deal. Both those cats are trying to get a feel for it, and both are doing it the way they know how - hackin'.
Lets see what Barry Z brings. Petit was recalled for implosion situations, hopefully we don't have to see his return to MLB on national TV tomorrow night. Definitely going to be tough, if Pagan and Scutaro want to continue their first inning routines that would be nice.
Magic # is 19.
I hate, HATE, when fans judge a player by his overall numbers, especially when that is overwhelmed by a hot or cold start. That happened with Freddy Lewis, who had a hot 2 weeks and as his batting line declined, but still looked decent, people clamored for his bat in the lineup, ignoring the fact that he had been hitting .600-something OPS for two, TWO months.
ReplyDeletePence had a bad start, and really, bad is all relative because he slumped when the bases were empty or a man on first, but when it was RISP, his OPS was .900-something. That is why he has 26 RBI in 35 games with the Giants (He has averaged 156 games played, so that is 115 RBI pace for an average season for Pence). I'll take slumps like that. Then after 10 games of slumping, he started to break out of his slump, but because he has a unique batting style, people don't notice that in the next 25 games, he has hit .272/.355/.435/.790, which is slightly better than the average NL RF. And in his last 11 games, he is hitting .317/.404/.512/.916, but no, his overall batting line is bad, so let's sit him down.
I'm not a huge adherent to the RBI stat. But, in this case, it does show some clutch hitting by Pence. And when he does make contact (and "when" is a huge qualifier, because he has a lot of 1-2-3 whiffs) it's usually loud contact.
DeleteI feel like he's been productive considering poor overall numbers. I don't know...is this a man-crush or is Pence the guy I think he is?
Anyway, OCG, I don't think anyone is advocating sitting Hunter. I mean, for good or for bad, we're all in with him for the rest of the year.
Nor am I advocating to sit Pence. It's just that I've been a vocal Pence fan for a long time and now I'm thinking maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention to his swing mechanics. I've always known he looked like a geek up there, but I'm upset about a specific problem that he seems to be either unaware of or uninterested in correcting. He flies open on every swing! He's talented enough to make up for it a lot, but it's hard not to think about what he might be if he corrected that.
DeleteI'm just thinking what if he was earlier in his career and he had a coach like Bobby Bonds who insisted he keep his chin tucked and held is feet to the fire on it every single pitch?
I was referring to Mr. Sunshine's comment: "if nate was hitting 230, he would be sitting...no more excuses..."
DeleteSo yeah, someone is advocating that Hunter be sat down, based solely on what his overall numbers are, the way I read it.
I have no issue with what you said DrB. He's just an awkward guy swinging freely (watching him, I thought of Honus Wagner; some people are just gifted, if odd looking). I imagine that the boost to his hitting would be similar to early season Belt vs. Belt now, maybe we can get Barry Bonds in during spring training and give Pence some advice for 2013. That would pay huge benefits if Pence could hit as well as, say, Posey or Sandoval when he's going good (2009 and 2011).