The Giants continued their hunt and peck offensive strategy, but Jake Peavy did not have his best stuff and the bullpen got a case of gopheritis, eventually losing on a walk off gopher ball by Kolton Wong. Key Lines:
Gregor Blanco- 2 for 5. BA= .200. Good to see Blanco get the bat going. He hit also hit a line drive during the 9'th inning rally that found Peralta's glove. That ball is hit anywhere else and we might still be watching or the Giants might have won!
Brandon Belt- 1 for 3, BB. BA= .500. I still think Belt is going to hit a big dinger or two before this is over.
Travis Ishikawa- 1 for 2, 2B. BA= .600. Travis facilitated the first Giants run with a double to move Belt to 3B from where he scored on an Arias groundout.
Michael Morse- 1 for 1. BA= 1.000. Gotta admit, it was exciting to see Morse come to the plate with a chance to do some damage. He did, but not a great as we would hope. He did look like he was ready to hit though. Those games in Instructional League must have gotten him up to speed.
Andrew Susac- 1 for 1. BA= 1.000. That was a solid big league hit Susac put on that ball as a which started the game-tying rally in the 9'th inning. With the way the pitchers are talking up Posey's ability to call games and frame pitches, I seriously doubt we are going to see Susac as the primary catcher anytime soon. It would therefore behoove him to come to spring training ready to make a run at another position. May I suggest 3B? Gotta find a way to get his bat in the lineup more often, or everyday!
Matt Duffy- 0 for 0. BA= .000. Duffy pinch ran for Susac and did quite the professional job of it. He avoided getting doubled up on Blanco's line drive at Peralta then scored all the way from 2B on a wild pitch by Trevor Rosenthal. Duffy is another guy who is going to be pushing for a bigger role next year.
Jake Peavy- 4 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 2 K. ERA= 4.50. Peavy did not have his best stuff or command, but the home plate ump had a very narrow K zone(for both starters). He managed to play rope-a-dope for 4 innings, but came out for a PH after 4. We'll have to hope for a better start next time, if it is needed.
Jeremy Affeldt- 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K. ERA= 0.00. Affeldt is magical in the postseason. His 2 innings kept the Giants in the game and gave them a chance to win.
Hunter Strickland- 1.1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 6.75. We are rapidly finding out an inconvenient truth about Hunter Strickland. Dude can't keep it in the park against LH batters!
Sergio Romo- 0.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 27.00. …and we've always known Romo has trouble with lefty hitters.
The Loss evened the 7 game series up at 1 game apiece. The series now moves to San Francisco where it will resume on Tuesday, October 14 with an afternoon game starting at 1:00 PM PDT. Tim Hudson will get the start facing Big Bad John Lackey.
The Cardinals suffered a significant loss which will most likely affect the rest of the series when Yadier Molina pulled up with what looked like a pretty bad oblique strain on a routine swing of the bat that resulted in a sharp one-hopper to 2B Joe Panik. Molina appeared to be in a significant amount of pain and left the game. Based on appearances, it would be surprising if he returns for this series or even the World Series if the Cardinals advance that far.
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unless strickland gets better command of his off speed stuff, he is simply a very hard throwing righty specialist....which is ok...but giants rolled the dice and instead of him being in the afl working on his stuff, he is in the post
ReplyDeletebochy lost this game of the chess match...no one thought the cards were ever gonna roll over and play dead
giants must do a better job hitting with runners in scoring position
flemming noted that with the excitement of both the league championships, there is no reason why the mlb should not be doing a better job at marketing itself nationally....and i agree
whoever thought that making the coaching staffs and players wear jackets with always ocftober on them, should be flogged
morse looked good at the plate, and while travis is doing a yeoman's job in lf, maybe morse should get the start in sf....but i dont know lackey's numbers against either of them
long way to go in this one and i still think it ends in st louis with game 7
one more thing and kudos to fox for replaying it, when pence almost beat out a throw for an infield single, it was a primer to ballplayers everywhere. that guy plays the game the right way
bacci
There were some great moves by both managers and some questionable ones. I don't see how you can say Bochy lost a chess match when 4 different pitchers gave up solo longballs. That comes down to players executing in my book.
DeleteThe one place where I definitely would have done something different than Bochy was bring in Lopez to face the LH hitting Tavares with two LH batters, Carpenter and Jay coming up right after that. Maybe Lopez wasn't warmed up yet, but if not, that's a mistake of poor anticipation.
Deletewhoever thought of airing these NLCS games on Fox Sports 1 should be flogged. unbelievable that you can't get pennant games on network TV. what's the world come to? nearing the end? okay. At least there's still baseball.
DeleteI don't know why Bochy didn't go to Lopez for Taveras. Makes no sense, and he was warm from the inning before. Machi made a horrible pitch.
DeleteThe announcers did their best for the jinx. Verducci in particular is hammering records when something happens. Joe Buck is miserable. I actually miss McCarver. I didn't think I'd ever say that.
Delete“At that time, I didn’t have another lefty and he has great stuff,” Bochy said. “This kid is going to be just fine. He has a power arm and he makes some mistakes, and he’ll learn from them.”
Deletethe lcs is not the best time for the kid to be learning from his mistakes.
bochy lost the chess game....not the match....that is tbd
bacci
I was just going to say, Machi's stuff works against LH batters and he has not had the same kinds of problems with them as Romo or Strickland, so leaving him in to face Tavares is defensible. He just hung a forkball and Tavares killed it. Again, the manager has no control over what the players does once he enters the game. It's a bit like DIPS in that regard.
DeleteBacci, we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. Boch, in fact, did not have another lefty and Romo has problems giving up dingers to lefty hitters too, in case you didn't notice. Some have called for Petit in that situation, but Petit has longball issues too and he's not the type you bring into a game in the middle of an inning. Maybe Timmy, but that's really rolling the dice and looking for lightning in a bottle!
DeleteOh, and in case you are going to bitch about why Bochy didn't have a LHP at that point, he'd already used them in situations where it was very defensible. In fact, my main criticism is that he did not use Lopez one batter sooner! Maybe he goes to Petit in the 5'th? That is a decent thought, but now you are really nitpicking!
DeleteNot sure if I put this on the kid Strickland, from what I've seen he definitely has good command.
DeleteIf you look at the replay for both Harpers and Adams HR... Posey was asking for high FB over the middle of the plate (change of sight-line approach) and Strickland pitched to his glove. At times I feel that Posey can be a little too predictable. I was yelling last night at the TV throw him a slider down to his back foot or in the dirt or a FB away on the black. Either one of those I don't think he would taken him out.
Does Strickland have poor control of his off speed stuff? That is news to me. The HR was off a fastball, but the two pitches before that were called strikes on curveballs, weren't they? Maybe what he needs is to show his fastball out of the zone and get strikes offspeed so that hitters can't simply wait for the fastball as they are now doing.
ReplyDeleteStrickland needs better location on the FB. He can't just throw it past MLB hitters. He can throw a breaking ball for a get-it-over strike, but I don't think he has enough command of it to be able to get MLB hitters to chase something that looks like it is going to be a strike then dives out of the zone. So yeah, he has things to work on. Maybe it's the pitch calling and positioning by the catcher, but if that's the case, why are all the other pitchers raving about how much better they are with Posey behind the plate.
DeletePosey might need to baby him a bit. I think he was calling for a ball much more inside and high than where it got pitched. On a 1-2 count, I think they would have been served better trying to snag the outside corner. But give all the Cards hitters credit, they went and got all these balls and deposited them in RF.
DeleteShould have read this post as I repeated what you said earlier...But I couldn't agree with you more. Tho I think Strickland was hitting the spot Posey had positioned with his glove.
DeleteThat was quite a ballgame.. Affeldt should be in those late inning setup situations not Strickland.. Kudos to Juan Perez with an excellent sacrifice bunt and a single in the 9th inning.. Too bad Panda didn't show more patience at the plate in the 9th inning with a 2-0 count, he had a chance to draw bases loaded walk there.. Will this guy ever develop into a productive 90-100 RBI bat?
ReplyDeleteKolten Wong - As a Hawaii baseball fan I am very happy to see him have success... As a long time Giants fan, his walk-off was a very frustrating ending to a great playoff game that the Giants could have won.. Its no surprise that this kid is showing that he has the flare for the dramatics, Kolten Wong is a winner... He once hit a 2 run walk off hr to win a game that clinched a WAC Championship and a regional birth for Hawaii.. Wong and Panik are both showing that they're up to shining on the national stage and will be starting 2nd baseman for their teams for years to come..
LG
Kolton Wong is looking like a future 20/20 guy, maybe as soon as next season.
DeleteWong answered the call big time. That was a huge home run.
DeleteI don't think Sandoval will develop into an RBI bat. I think he's too anxious to always be the hero. That 2-0 swing on a outside ball was classic Sandoval, and a huge blunder with the fires burning and the pitcher imploding. Bad situational awareness.
Joe Panik on the other hand has ice water in his veins. And Susac with the nice hit, and Matt Duffy with the amazing baserunning instincts. I think I'd take Duffy over Sandoval just for baserunning, that could be a major difference next year.
Great game, we knew it wouldn't be easy, and when the pen is pouring it inside to lefty pull hitters...
Krukow often talks about waiting for hitter's count like 2-0 or 3-1 then looking to kill the next pitch, so it's not like there are no other adherents to the strategy Sandoval was using there.
DeleteOf course you look to hit in a 2-0 count. That ball was... just a bit outside.
DeleteI have to agree that swinging for damage on a pitch you like and swinging with no regard for pitch location are, uh, just a tad different.
DeleteEr, wait... maybe he did like it.
As a doctor, what would you prescribe for "gopheritis".
ReplyDeleteAs a doctor, does pandemic come to mind when you think of ebola?
Gopheritis can be cured by better location on fastballs and by not hanging breaking stuff.
DeleteI do not think ebola will become a pandemic. It causes an acute illness that kills it's host quickly and is not transmitted through the air. It is a serious concern for certain occupations in the healthcare field.
BTW, if you are looking for a doomsday virus, good old influenza is about as scary as they come. One big mutation, which does not seem that far off, and we are all in a lot of trouble.
DeleteThank you Doc. Yeah, that Spanish Flu was wreaking some havoc on Downton Abbey ;-) In the real world, didn't it actually kill a percentage of the global population great than 1?
DeleteThat's the thing I understand about ebola : it kills too quickly to be effectively transmitted. But do they really know much about how readily it is transmitted? The information seems sketchy here. But when they start talking about exponential growth, that's scarey. Some models predicting greater than 100,000 cases in not too distant future.
Buster needs to setup on the outside part of plate a few times.
I could believe 100,000 cases of Ebola worldwide, but that is a tiny fraction of how many deaths we would get from a major genetic shift in the influenza virus. Heck, we get 20-40 K deaths that can be attributed to influenza in a normal flu season in this country alone!
DeleteTalkin' epidemiology with you is almost as much fun as talking Giants baseball :-)
DeleteHow about cholera?
How about limiting this site to baseball before it turns into a sports bar, like McCovey Chronicles with their disputes about the best burger joints and video games?
DeleteThe best way to leave McCovey Chronicles is to not talk about it.
DeleteIt's sort of ironic.
20 million dead worldwide 1918-1920 with the Spanish influenza pandemic. Saw Robert Pelton describe ebola as " self-extinguishing". Perhaps a bit too clinical, but it probably is correct. Kudos to Kolten Wong. The good guys need to figure out how to capitalize on the bases loaded. I agree with Shank's assessment about Matt Duffy! Let's win another ring in the interim. Might as well while we are here.
ReplyDeleteGuess we'll have to sweep in AT&T!
NWGiantsFan DtF!!!
Spanish flu killed Viennese painter Egon Schile, under age 30 - his paintings now sell for up to $100 Million. Huge loss.
DeleteOn a personal note, it killed my grandmother's brother, Timothy Murphy, SJ, who was president of Santa Clara, and in his 40's ...
Ironically, what kills the most people in an influenza pandemic caused by a major antigenic shift is not the virus itself but the intense immune response it provokes which is why the majority of deaths in the 1918 pandemic were young adults between the ages of 20 and 40 because they had the strongest immune systems.
DeleteCytokinens, right?
DeleteDoc, keep up these informative off topic respites. Keep the local masses informed. The info might come in handy someday :-)
I'm not an immunologist, so don't ask me for the exact mechanism.
DeleteWe'll try to keep it to baseball, but this is an important current events topic that is non-political, or at least should be non-political, that I do know enough about to offer more than an opinion. Hope it was helpful to someone.
Losing the battle, but winning the war...
ReplyDeleteMolina is done. Big blow.
Rosenthal is proven beatable, can't hold a lead.
Long ball, ain't a winning game at ATT.
Jay can't play shallow center at ATT. Gurichek can't play RF at ATT.
Giants head home 1-1, having shown they can come back and silence the Cards home crowd.
We gotsta head home to John Lackey. That's a tough nut to crack. And with Molina done, there's a better chance that AJ Doubleplay gets one more crack at us before he hangs up his spikes. Some bad juju to run here...
DeleteI thought Rosenthal was definitely beatable, and it was too bad the Panda didn't deliver the punch. The best fans in baseball are proving two nights in a row that they're not all that.
Giants definitely need to take advantage of the defensive configurations, especially with Yadier out.
The Cards chances now largely hang on their starting pitching. I don't think they can throw three dominate starters and starts against the Giants. If they do, hats off to them.
DeleteLackey - tough mother and could be a loss. Got to work him over.
Not having Molina will hurt their starters, their offense and their defense. Big time.
The Giants can and will throw three dominate starters and starts against the Cards. Huddy and Voggie will be tough at home, and MadBum again.
The odds of the Giants coughing up four gopher balls again is nil. Not having it.
If there is any upside to the Cards' power display, hopefully they will be now be swinging for the fences and seeing their hopes die in the Giants outfielders' gloves.
DeleteThis is still a close series. One team is going to have to gut out the small pitcher/hitter battles. I am still amazed / disappointed by the numbers of guys LOB. And the Giants haven't been really doing that well at hitting with RISP.
ReplyDeleteOn Strickland-- I think he needs more seasoning. As mentioned, he can't expect to just throw the fastball by major league guys without a convincing 2nd pitch (sort of like Brian Wilson's slider). Bruce Bochy sure does like him though
He does have a fine secondary pitch. I do not think I am naive in having a great deal of trust on Bochy, Righetti, Gardner, and the rest of the Giants staff who are on the spot, who have seen a tremendous amount of pitching, and who have scouted the players on the other team. If they keep sending Strickland out there, based on what they have seen, I am going to believe that they know what they are doing.
Delete