Coming off what might have been the weakest series of the season, the Giants opened the Dodgers' series with what might have been the gutsiest game of the season, putting together the winning rally in the top of the 13'th inning after the pitching had shut down the Dodgers' offense for 6 innings. Key Lines:
Gregor Blanco- 2 for 7, 2B, HR(5). BA= .260. The Giants don't get to the 13'th inning without Blanco who homered to lead off the game, then got all the way to 3B on an error by Matt Kemp in the 3'rd inning and scoring on a squeeze bunt by Joe Panik. He later drove in an insurance run in the 13'th with a double. Who says Blanco can't hit leadoff?
Joe Panik- 3 for 5, Sac. BA= .305. The Sac. was a squeeze bunt to get Blanco home in the 3'rd inning. Later in the game, Panik returned to rapping out the hits.
Brandon Belt- 2 for 6. BA= .231. Belt's bat came to life with a couple of late singles. He got thrown out at home plate by Yasiel Puig after his first hit, but came around to score the go-ahead run in the 13'th after the second one.
Brandon Crawford- 2 for 5, BB, SB(5). BA= .247. Crawford's drive to hit .250 stayed alive. All of a sudden, Crawford has a WAR of 2.5, good for 11'th best among SS's in MLB.
Andrew Susac- 1 for 1. BA= .264. Susac was apparently under the weather, but hung in there in the dugout all game and came through with a huge hit to get the Giants over the hump in the 13'th.
Jake Peavy- 7 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 3.78. Gutsy, gutsy pitching performance from Peavy. He might have been tough on the Giants when he was with the Padres, but he was even tougher on the Dodgers and he kept that going in this one. Wow! Where would the Giants be right now without Jake Peavy?
Bullpen- 6 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K's. Shut down effort by the bullpen with Jean Machi and Santiago Casilla going 2 innings each. Like Bochy said, he'll worry about tomorrow's game tomorrow. They had to win this one!
Hunter Strickland- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's, Save(1). ERA= 0.00. Strickland's first MLB Save. I am quite sure there are many more to come as I think we just got a glimpse of the future of the closer role. 99 MPH heat, Dodger Stadium, pennant race. It doesn't get better than that!
The Win cut the Dodgers' lead in the NL West to 3.5 games. The Giants remained tied with the Pirates for home field advantage in the Wild Card play-in game, but the Pirates hold the tie-breaker. Their lead over the Brewers for the final Wild Card slot grew to 5 games with 6 to play.
Madison Bumgarner faces off against Zach Greinke in game 2 of the series tonight.
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great win, but frustrating, because the giants had many opps to score once they got to a very gassed bums pen
ReplyDeletei think pablo just signed his release papers with the performance last night
belt did not find his swing, the dodgers pen is gassed after the cubbies series....and a huge thank you goes out to donnie dont know baseball, for pulling howell so quickly
giants ruined fat tommy's bday....the season is a success
bacci
Agreed on each point, bacci.
DeleteRuined the B-day. Old school success!
DeleteStrickland looks the part eh? Good thing nobody told him that the farm system is barren.
Can they avoid a let down after a huge win now?
Farm system was not barren - maybe it was at some point but it's been holding steady in the middle tier it seems.
DeleteWhat will farm system look like next with Panik, Susac, & Strickland graduated and with Escobar and Hembree gone? Probably somewhere towards the back of the middle tier, but definitely not barren.
Any farm system will take a hit after graduating 3 players in a year. Let's be reasonable with expectations.
DeleteI'm not sure it will look that bad, fwiw. It seems like our farm system was hammered because guys were undervalued and we didn't have stars at AAA. Next year much of the AA rotation moves up, and they (in particular Fleet, Blach, and Blackburn) should be pretty good. In the pen, Osich moves up at a minimum and maybe others. AA should have some new blood too.
DeleteStrickland will be the set up guy and maybe a closer by year end.
Ryan - pretty sure Shankbone was kidding about the system being barren....
DeleteI was joking. The Giants are usually put into the third tier, 21-30 in MLB. They have shown flashes of having a future closer, a future 2B and a future C, as well as the hero known as Matt Duffy! who might be a super utility player or a jack of all trades type. That is top 5 in baseball, easy, in the year to year results, and it kicks the hell out of what the vaunted Red Sox and Cardinals have done this year.
DeleteThey'll be a bottom third rated again most likely. Crick, Beede, Blackburn plus the IFA lefties Mejia and Ysla? And Mella, who most likely has the third best fastball after Crick/Beede? The dirty secret is everybody in the prospect rating bidness calls the Gints pitcher whisperers and calls it a day... but there has been precious little pitching development finding a home on the big club. Madison Bumgarner is so 2010...
I know you're not saying farm is barren, that you're just playing the meme about the pundits saying the farm is barren. And you should just ignore those people.
DeleteNothing wrong with being in the middle talent wise, but still being productive.
The thing they are missing are significant trade chips. Plays that are oozing talent in the minors that can wield some serious trade leverage.
Its mainly determined by draft order. If you ignore the draft odds and the losing cycle you're missing the big picture. Would we trade places with the Cubs for the past 5 years? Not a chance. The biggest prospect trades almost never happen. I'm talking top 20 out of the BA100. Wheeler was #55 when the Giants sent him along, he became a top 20 guy with the Mets for 2 years. Addison Russell was #14 pre-season, that trade will bite Trader Billy for years. Wil Myers was #28 pre-season with the Royals, that's most of the traded off guys, except for Trevor Bauer, that was a different situation. Travis d'Arnaud was pretty highly ranked.
DeleteI wouldn't really compare what Sabean does with the Jays/Royals attempts at relevancy though. The D-backs sold off huge swaths of their talent in pursuit of gamers, and Beane is Beane. If you get a top guy, usually teams keep them.
Okay. It is what it is and we can leave it at that.
DeleteHow about the Angels? Regarded as one of the worst farm systems in baseball.
Yet, Cole Calhoun becomes a significant position player. Matt Shoemaker a significant rotation arm. They trade their top prospect (Lyndsay) for Huston Street. Plus Richards was having a studly season and I'm sure they've received other farm help.
So how about those farm system rankings?
Just can't say enough good things about the Giants farm system delivering up the goods this year. I had little hope we would see any impact-making contributors, boy was I wrong...
DeletePanik, Susac, Duffy, Duvall?
Strickland, Kontos
Escobar + Hembree for Peavy - steal of the trading deadline! And if they sign Peavy for the next three years, he will be worth more than the farm guys we gave up.
Now we need two stud starters for 2016. Make it so greybeards! Oh, and a backup/full time CF/leadoff hitter too, please.
Farm system rankings are fluid. The Angels have been at the very back for a while now, in part because of signing Pujols and Hamilton and losing the picks. They've definitely had a big impact.
Deletehttp://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/baseballs-best-farm-systems-how-much-do-they-matter/
There are some good links in there. One thing is there are certain teams that coast on reps the opposite of where the Gints are: I'm talking about the Rays, who somehow always get good rankings even though they have had bad mojo once they had to deal with draft position.
Also, our buddies in the NL West have had much more hyped systems. Not sure we're seeing the results, although there have been some sweet players like the Rocks Arenado come through the ranks. Of all 5 NL West teams, which team had their farm help out the most this year?
Everyone looks at the pitchers, and rightly so. But this year we graduated Panik and probably graduated Susac and Duffy. Coming right behind them are Williamson and Carbonell and Miller. Miller may be a Duffy clone and Williamson and Carbonell may each be very special players. And behind these guys are Thomlinson and Delfino and Arroyo and Horan and Jones (x3) and...
DeleteTo echo Shankbone's comments, 2 organizations that are generally regarded as excellent at scouting and developing from within are the Rays and Braves. If you look carefully at both of those teams' track records over the past 7-8 years or so, they are quite dismal and the Giants have done far better, and not just with high first round draft picks.
DeleteI hope we can retain Peavy. With Cain coming back from his surgery, it's always a little iffy what we can expect.
ReplyDeleteI think Peavy returning is a done deal. Boch will make sure that it gets done, and Sabes will overpay if he has to. I'm thinking something around 3/45 could be his market. Need another starter anyhow - who knows what value Lincecum will have in 2015, probably more of same.
DeletePeavy is the #3 SP on the market this year. As much as I don't want to give him 3 years, we may have to.
DeleteI am so impressed with Hunter Strickland. His 99MPH fastball looks so easy for him. I definitely can picture him as the closer for 2016 and possibly 2015 if Casilla goes down. 7th Machi, 8th Strickland and 9th Casilla sounds good to me with obviously Affeldt and Lopez in the fold. Our bullpen for next year looks pretty damn good. With the kind of money Romo will want to not have a closer job I can see him going to another team. With Cordier, Hall, Law, Okert and Strickland in the queue I think we will be okay without Sergio.
ReplyDeleteWe really need Peavy. Peavy has looked great and we need some insurance in case Cain doesn't come back to form. Lincecum is a lost cause at this point and depending on how our AAA pitchers perform by mid season he could lose a roster spot. It would be nice if a lightbulb went off in Spring Training next year and he had a rebirth but I think it is not likely. I just wish we could get something for him instead of eating his $17MM salary. Maybe if someone would pay $7MM and a decent prospect in High A or AA. Vogey would be nice on a low risk one year deal. However, I really want Petit to get some starts. I think he has something special. Minus a few starts in PIT and COL and some bad defense in his last 2 starts he has looked excellent. I would completely comfortable if he was our 5th if for some reason Voegy got a better deal elsewhere.
Yes, you have to hedge with Cain's injury.
DeleteAnd, so, playing conservatively, we bring back Peavy with the upside that Cain comes back healthy - if that happens, then we are looking at the possibility of 4 front line pitchers of Madison, Peavy, Hudson and Cain, with Petit the fifth guy. In paper, we can compete with the Dodgers with that rotation, depending on what they do this offseason. That rotation also looks to be better than of 2014 season opening rotation of Madison, Lincecum, Hudson, Cain (nursing a hidden injury at the time) and Vogelsong (who started out tentatively).
Glad for the fan excitement about next year. I'm sort of glass half empty since we haven't had anyone other than Bumgarner have a consistent full season. Petit is promising but do we have that many SP that can potentially give us 200 quality innings over a full season?
DeleteAny chance we make the NLCS this year? I would love to play the Dodgers there if possible.
There is always a chance, but I think the Giants would have to play the Nationals in the NLDS if they get past the WC game.
DeleteNo, I would not say the doctors who consult for the Giants are incompetent. You always want to try to avoid back surgery of any kind if at all possible. Without knowing the details of his case, if he's gone the epidural injection/rehab route and it's recurred this quickly, surgery is probably a reasonable option at this point.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking in generalities, my experience with patients who have undergone back surgery is that they usually get good initial results, but there is a high rate of recurrent symptoms down the road and surgery redo's have notoriously bad results. I will say that surgical techniques have improved a lot in the past decade and even in the past 5 years, so he may do OK. Never like to hear that someone is getting back surgery, though.
I think the FO needs to assume Pagan is out of the picture and account now for 2 OF positions. Maybe Carbonell counts as one, and maybe Tomas counts as the other??
ReplyDeleteI'd agree CalSnow. At this point after dealing with Scoots and Pagan being gone instead of competing, they need to start from scratch. Any return is gravy.
ReplyDelete