Monday, October 15, 2012

Game Wrap NLCS Game 1: Cardinals 6 Giants 4

A Giants starting pitcher once again staked the opposing team to a big lead early.  The Giants never caught up.  Key Lines:

Boxscore lines don't really tell the story here as the Giants scored all 4 runs in the 4'th inning.  The sequence was a single by Scutaro, outs by Sandoval and Posey, single by Belt, triple by Blanco, double by Crawford.  Scooter had the only 2 hit game for the Giants.

Madison Bumgarner- 3.2 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 1 BB, 2 K's.  Bummy looked good in the first inning hitting 91 several times on the radar gun.  By the 4'th, he was sitting at 89 and hanging his breaking stuff.  Add all that up and I see a tired pitcher who can't keep it going once the adrenaline rush wears off.  It tend to believe Bochy left him in 1 or 2 batters too long.

Bullpen- 5.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K's.  Another outstanding effort by the bullpen.  Too bad it went for naught.  Cards bullpen was almost as good and consisted of a parade of arms who were hitting the upper 90's.  You just aren't going to score a lot of runs when you see a different pitcher with that kind of stuff every inning.

With the win, the Cardinals take a 1-0 lead in the best of 7 series.  Ryan Vogelsong takes the mound tonight facing postseason veteran Chris Carpenter who is coming off Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery.  I know, I know, the Giants came back from a 0-2 deficit at home in the NLDS and this team never quits, but gotta think that luck is going to run out sooner or later, probably sooner.  Must win tonight!

Go Giants!

6 comments:

  1. I agree, once we were down 4-0, then especially after giving up another hit, I would have wanted Bochy to take him out at that point.

    Yeah, must win!

    Go Giants!

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  2. Bochy REALLY wanted MadBUm to give the team a quality playoff start. So did I.

    And that's the problem - in the playoffs there is NO time for loyalty, letting guys figure it out, etc. Thank god the Giants have Timmy and his rubber arm, willing to go out there and change the starters diapers when they mess themselves.

    Bochy has to manage from inning #1, like it's his last. And he better start using Timmy early and often if this keeps up. Yeah, we can all hope Voggie grinds it out, but what's the over/under. Fifth inning?

    Let Timmy smoke, what else you gonna do. Mota anyone?

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  3. Madbum was great early, i think I even saw a 92 on the gun. But he grooved that 3-2 pitch to Freese and really didn't look good. Dead arm? Bochy shoulda pulled him before Beltran for sure.

    Crowd was great. Especially the cheers for Huff. Come back was exciting, and Timmy out of the pen had the crowd going bonkers.

    Sort of expected this exact game. Now we have to grit it out against red ass Carpenter. Lucky we have our gamer going as well. Bochy daydreamed the first two games of the division series, hope he snaps back.

    I really feel we will go as far as pagan and scutaro let us. Pen was solid, even Casilla. Biggest hustler goes to blanco hands down - getting great jumps on balls out in left.

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  4. MadBum hasn't been sharp since his duel with Kershaw, I think Dr.B made the observation a while back.

    It wasn't a great day for San Francisco teams. I guess worthy things don't come easy. Setbacks can only make the story better.

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    Replies
    1. There has been a definite pattern of the starters struggling for several games after running up high pitch counts.

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  5. Matt Holliday = Lowlife

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