Monday, May 5, 2014

Game Wrap 5/5/2014: Giants 11 Pirates 10

The Giants came back from an 8-2 deficit in the 5'th inning to win in 13 innings.  They had 8 hits with RISP and no HR's.  As Vin Scully would say, "go figure!"   Key Lines:

Angel Pagan- 3 for 7, SB(6).  BA= .333.  Pagan continues to lead the way from the top of the order.  He had an assist from CF to boot.

Hunter Pence- 3 for 6, BB.  BA= .270.  I had a pretty good feeling when Pence drew a walk with 1 out  in the top of the 13'th.  I thought his speed on the bases might be the difference.  He got some help from  Pirates P Jared Hughes who hit Juan Perez with a pitch to advance Pence to 2B.  Then Jean Machi laid down a perfect bunt down the 3B line that Hughes scudded to 1B.  Pence scampered home when the ball got behind the first baseman for the winning run.

Buster Posey- 3 for 4, BB.  BA= .292.  Posey's BA is about 70 points higher than it was about 10 days ago.  He is stroking the ball!

Michael Morse- 2 for 5, 2 2B.  BA= .307.  Morse continues to swing a hot bat, but PLEASE tell me he did NOT pull a glute when he was jumping on the railing while the winning run scored!  I mean, that is sure what it LOOKED like!

Hector Sanchez- 4 for 7.  BA= .239.  Hector is hitting .381 over his last 5 games.  You can't tell me that Bruce Bochy is not thinking about running out a Hector/Buster lineup against all LHP's!

Yusmeiro Petit- 4.1 IP, 9 H, 8 R, 3 BB, 4 K's.  ERA= 5.04.  Maybe they should have waited until 1 hour before game time to put Cain on the DL? Having 24 hours to think about this one might have gotten Petit a little too pumped?

Jeremy Affeldt- 1.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K.  ERA= 0.00.  Affeldt stays in a groove.

Santiago Casilla- 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K's.  ERA= 0.92.  Huge effort by Casilla to get the game into extra innings.

Jean Machi- 2 IP, 3 H, 0 R,  0 BB, 2 K's, W(5-0).  ERA= 0.53.  2 of the hits were comebackers off Machi's glove.  Ironically, both would have probably been outs had he not touched them.  Another huge effort by the Machi Man, punctuated by his tremendous sac bunt that probably should have been a hit.  Man, he got down that line in a hurry!

Sergio Romo- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K, Save(10).  ERA= 1.88.  Things weren't looking good when Romo hit the leadoff batter, Walker, after going up 0-2 on him with McCutchen and Alvarez coming up.  He got McCutchen to fly out to Pagan in CF then made a beautiful series of pitches to induce a game-ending DP from Alvarez.  Unlike in previous years, Romo has weapons against LH batters in the 2-seamer and changeup.  He does not have to go to the slider against them, although he did steal a couple of strikes on Walker and Alvarez with little back-door sliders.  When the chips are down, though, he can go to either the changeup or 2-seamer as out pitches.

The Win was the Giants 6'th in a row and 4'th in a row on this road trip.  Their NL West leading record improved to 21-11.  The second place Rockies beat the Rangers 8-2 in interleague play and they remain 2 games behind the Giants.  The Dodgers are trailing the Nationals 4-0 late in their game.  If that holds up, the Dodgers will be 3.5 games behind in 3'rd place.  The 4'th place Padres are tied with KC 4-4 late in their game and are sitting at 7 games behind pending the outcome.  The last place D'Backs lost to the Brewers 8-3 to put the Snakes 11.5 games behind and the wheels seem to have completely come off down in Arizona.

Tim Hudson will try to keep the winning streak going and spare the bullpen in the process tomorrow evening facing RHP  and Giants nemesis Charlie Morton.

10 comments:

  1. shocked that you are still awake

    that was a wacky game

    bacci

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  2. This game shows the difference between a club that has camaraderie and one that doesn't. The Giants having used the whole bench, reduced to having pitches as pinch hitters, Sanchez was taking a beating at C, and things were not looking up. Yet they were laughing, having fun, yelling "Viva Matchi". This team knows how to hang in and win ballgames.

    Hector = clutch

    Matchi is a hell of an athlete.

    Really, it passed my mind with the Giants ahead 2-0 in the first, that the Giants had won the game. And they had, it just took a little longer.

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    Replies
    1. They got to the soft tossing lefty. Then they forgot they should get to him some more. Then they remembered.

      Viva Machi! That was a hilarious sequence.

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  3. Awesome game. Great recap for those of us out of the broadcast range. Hanchez continues to excel both at the plate and behind it. Pen steps up - kudos to Casilla & Machi as well. Great team effort for the NL West leaders!

    And Happy Birthday to the Say Hey Kid!!!

    NWGiantsFan
    DtF!!!

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  4. Good teams find ways to win.
    Leason here, Giants are showing how much " team" means.

    Richard in Winnipeg

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  5. That was a hard fought game. How about that 14 pitch battle Casilla had with Walker. Cain must be feeling snakebit watching the team score runs that he could have benefited from.Too bad Sanchez can't play another position to get his bat in the lineup more often. I've never seen a team have a home record like the Dbacks, last I checked it was 2 wins 14 losses. Unreal!

    LG

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  6. DrB and others:

    Great streak of games lately. Hope the Giants can keep the mojo going and win the Dodgers series particularly.

    I'm interested in your thoughts about this proposal I heard on the radio:

    MLB should consider reducing the length of games from 9 innings to 7 innings.

    Perception is, that the typical game can often stretch to 3 hours, and the typical attention span of the Gen Y and Millennial generation is much shorter than that.
    Other potential benefit is less wear and tear on pitchers, where fatigue becomes a problem at the end of a 182 game season + ? post season games.

    I know the traditionalists would find this pill somewhat less appetizing to swallow, but what if the regular season was 7 innings and the post season was 9 innings? The extra innings would still apply in both scenarios for tie game situations.

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    Replies
    1. They play 7 inning games in the minors and I hate them because each batter only gets 2 or 3 PA's. There are other things they could do to speed up games.

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    2. only play 7 ip for dh....which makes sense...the grind in the minors is bad enough

      the game as created is perfect

      most nl games are not that long

      the problem is the al, where the dh is in play

      wanna speed up games? get rid of the blind dude calling balls and strikes behind the plate and replace with a laser system

      bacci

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  7. So I just checked a F/G chat... Jeff Sullivan choking up because of two questions: are the Giants this good? And how is their pen good? (Remember, our pen was their least rated). This is just comedy gold, as always.

    Can we get an undercover agent to tweak Dave Cameron into some trash talk of Matt Cain? Just to help him out a bit. Pixie Dust and Kool-Aid baby.

    ReplyDelete