Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Game Wrap 7/23/2014: Giants 3 Phillies 1

Madison Bumgarner shut down the Phillies for 8 innings including coming back after a rain delay after the 3'rd inning and a drenching rain in the middle innings, and Hunter Pence drove in all 2 runs with a bloop double in the top of the 9'th inning as the Giants clinched a series win over the Phillies in Philadelphia.  Key Lines:

Madison Bumgarner- 8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K's.  ERA= 3.19.  Bummy pitched this one in extreme conditions including a rain and lightning delay after 3 innings and a steady downpour in the middle innings after the game resumed.  He came through like the champ he is outpitching a pretty darn good pitcher in AJ Burnett in the process.  He saved the bullpen in the process after they had pitched a total of 15 innings in the last 2 games.

Jonathan Papelbon(Phillies)- 1 IP, 1 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 2 K's, HBP.  ERA= 1.96.  Papelbon has asked to be traded out of Philly.  He's not making a case for other teams to want him as he blew the Save last night and took the loss tonight.  He started the inning hitting Michael Morse.  Blanco came in to pinch run.  Pabelbon struck out the next two batter but Blanco stole 2B.  He then walked Brandon Crawford intentionally, possibly remembering Crawford's game winning hit the night before.  That brought up Hector Sanchez, of all people, to pinch hit for Bumgarner.  Now, you could make a case for Bummy being a better bet in that situation than Sanchez, but Sanchez managed to draw a walk setting up Pence's bloop double down the RF line to clear the bases.  Casilla made it hold up for the Save.

A very gutsy win for the Giants and it's pretty easy to see why the Phillie fans are booing.  That team has NO HEART!  Least of all the guy who wants out of there.  If Brian Sabean was looking for evidence that this team deserves reinforcements at the trade deadline, I would say this series has provided it and 3 times over!

The Win extended the Giants lead in the NL West to 2 games over the Dodgers who lost to the Pirates 6-1.

Tim Hudson tries for the 4 game series sweep against Cole Hamels in a day game tomorrow.

4 comments:

  1. i wonder if this will be hamels final start in a phillies uni

    gutsy performance by maddy

    pence is the best pickup of sabey sabes career...hardest working man in the game today....he is underpaid imho

    team has needs....but sabey sabes should only trade for players who will sign extensions...cant mortgage future for rentals

    bacci

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    1. Pence is a huge pickup. It looks pretty silly to be comping him to Choo and Ellsbury now, and both those guys got more $ and more years. And that's why I'm so positive about Sabean these days - he keeps picking up guys I've liked for a long time: Pagan, Scutaro, Pence. Obviously Angel's injury issues have really hurt the club in the past 2 years. But Pence has been a rock.

      I agree, you really want to get a guy in the 27-30 age group, its almost impossible to get somebody younger, you ideally want one year to evaluate before extending. Its really important to get some new blood in the org, every year.

      Its shocking how bad the Phillies have become. They were sold out every night just 2 years ago. Its also shocking how bad their pitching staff has become, it was vaunted as the best in baseball after they signed up Lee. There are some lessons somewhere in there.

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    2. Lesson #1. Choose wisely.
      Lesson #2. Only sign 1 year contracts.
      Lesson #3. Don't trade Pence, ever.

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  2. When Sabean looks at potential non-rental trades, and as DrB points out, this team deserves help given all the injuries, I hope he will do what sabermetricians think not-measureable (or irrelevant, not quite sure what their distain is) - I hope he will consider chemistry.

    Please, no prima donna guys, but people who will get along with the players we already have, wanting to be a part of the team.

    I know a lot of us look at stats and scream, more attempts at catching lightening in a bottle!, but even with passable stats or good numbers, chemistry is important.

    Right now, we play as a team, good or bad (lately, not necessarily all-worldly, but heart-warmingly good). Keeping that chemistry would be critical.

    ReplyDelete