The Giants stormed from behind to nip the Mariners in an away game while a team of Giants prospects battled a squad of mostly big leaguers to a standstill in Scottsdale. Key Lines:
Away Game:
Gregor Blanco(CF)- 2 for 3, 3B(3). BA= .326. Very impressive spring for Blanco. Stay hot!
Kelby Tomlinson(2B)- 1 for 1, 2B. BA= .167. Not all the prospects were in Scottsdale. Tomlinson's double drove in 2 of the Giants 9 runs in this game.
Justin Maxwell(RF)- 2 for 4, HR(2). BA= .302. The dinger drove in 3 runs. The Giants have a deadline of March 31 to put him on the 40 man roster or he can opt out of his contract. Gotta think this performance all but guarantees him a roster spot, not only for the 40 man but the Opening Day 25 man.
Jake Peavy(RHP)- 3.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 1 K. ERA= 8.22. Let's hope Peaves was just getting his work in. You'd sure like to see more by this time in spring training.
Sergio Romo, Santiago Casilla and Hunter Strickland all pitched scoreless frames. Romo and Strickland had 2 K's each and Strickland got the Save. I'm starting to wonder if Strickland just might ace out both Kontos and Machi for that final bullpen spot. I don't think the Giants would want to erode their bullpen depth that much as both Machi and Kontos are out of options while Strickland is not.
"Futures" game:
Austin Slater(2B)- 2 for 2, HR. Verrry interesting that Slater got the start at 2B here. As if the Giants don't already have a ton of 2B in the organization! Slater drove a Yusmeiro Petit cutter the opposite way for a HR over the RF fence down in the RF corner. Slater said he knew Petit threw a lot of cutters and was looking to take it the opposite way.
Kelvin Beltre played and got a hit in 2 AB's.
Yusmeiro Petit(RHP)- 5 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 5 K's. Petit gave up both of the runs the Futures scored. He as followed by scoreless frames from Chris Stratton, Keury Mella, Chase Johnson and Luis Ysla.
The Futures got scoreless innings from Ty Blach, Tyler Beede, Kyle Crick, Michael Santos, Sam Coonrod, Donald Snelton and Tyler Rogers. Matthew Gage and Rodolfo Martinez combined to give up both runs the Giants scored although Gage was charged with both runs and Martinez pitched 1.1 innings with 2 K's.
Tyler Beede made some noise by unveiling 2 new pitches: A 2-seam FB and a cutter/slider. He gave u up a loud out to Belt then a single to Crawford and a walk, then got out of it with 2 pop-ups.
Can't wait for the minor league seasons to start. I have a feeling that several prospects are going to make big moves this year!
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Is Slater a 2B or outfielder? Looks like he play OF in the minors last year.
ReplyDeleteI think this is the type of performances we are going to see from Peavy, Lincecum and to a degree Hudson this year. Either a passable start of 5 to 6 innings or an ugly line like this. I think Petit and Vogey are going to get some work when the season starts.
Giants have to decide by 31st to put Maxwell on the 40, I think he makes it although I am not sure his long term viability with the team especially when Pence returns. I'd rather keep Perez as I really think he can be a solid little ballplayer like a right handed Blanco.
Billy Baseball
Slater was drafted as an OF and played exclusively OF last year, thus the raised eyebrows when he shows up at 2B in this game.
DeleteThe SP beyond Bumgarner is very shaky. I don't expect Vogey to be a savior either. I do think Petit will likely be in the rotation before the season is over.
Perez is a good little player but he does not have Maxwell's power ceiling, not even close. Maxwell is a multi-tooled athlete to boot. The hit tool is what is suspect for Maxwell, but he has everything else.
Slater showing his versatility.Peavy is the one guy in the rotation i'm worried about.I agree with you on Strickland.He's looking more comfortable with each appearance.
ReplyDeleteNate Schierholtz opted out of his contract with Rangers.We should sign him.He can take Perez's spot on the 25 man.
I love Nate, but come on! I would much rather have Lil Juan P on the 25 man than Nate. Besides, Maxwell has that roster spot all but locked down.
DeleteThe spot that Nate would fill would would be LH pinch hitter -- he's a better-than-average pinch hitter -- and occasional defensive replacement -- he's a better-than-average OF. But Travis Ishikawa already has the LH pinch-hitting role -- and he's even better at that than Nate. Nate's only advantage is his fielding, but I don't think anyone takes Travis's job after he made history in the NLCS.
DeleteI haven't given up on Perez's bat yet, though I worry about it. But even with a weak bat his defense is amazing like that double he saved in the WS. No way most corner OF make that play from where he was starting.
DeleteI like that Beede has two new pitches he's working on. To be a starter you need more than a FB/Slider or FB/Curve (which he reportedly lost command of during college) repertoire.
ReplyDeleteI think Billy is right that Peavy and Hudson are going to be two-passes through the order pitchers. But Lincecum has been an odd duck for quite some time. Either he has it and he's pretty stable all game (with the caveat that pitching stats are always skewed from survivor biases) or he can't pitch at all and he's blasted for multiple runs in the first 15 pitches. Last year Lincecum's first 15 had him giving up a .285 BA and .937 OPS. If he made it through those first 15, his numbers were anywhere from not horrible to perfectly fine.
As for Slater, he was drafted by the Dodgers as a short-stop. At Stanford he went became an outfielder. His one year with the Giants was in the OF.
MLB had this to say about him pre-draft:
"Although some may consider Slater a 'tweener' due to his lack of range to play center and lack of power to profile at a corner, Slater has an interesting mix of tools that could make him a valuable player. At the plate, he makes consistent hard contact and has good power to the gaps, though he sometimes gets himself into trouble by selling out for power. In the outfield, he gets good jumps and has a solid arm. He could be adequate in center as a last resort or be above-average in a corner. Slater's lack of a position may make him fly under the radar a bit, even if his ceiling is that of a productive fourth outfielder."
And Inside the San Jose Giants says this about Slater and the chances of him moving to San Jose for 2015:
"Slater has experience of playing high-level college baseball in the Pac-12 Conference and given his success in Salem last year, would be a logical candidate to skip past Augusta and join San Jose this spring. Slater can play both corner outfield positions and also made six starts in center field last season with the Volcanoes. He was originally a middle infielder at the start of his collegiate career. In his last season at Stanford, Slater earned All-Pac-12 honors after batting a team-best .341 with two home runs and 40 RBI’s.
So, if I had to guess, I'd guess the Giants are going to experiment with him to see how much value they can get out of him.
The Hector wins the backup catcher job and Maxwell makes the team. Susac and Lil Juan P sent down.
ReplyDeleteAfter what he did last year, if he pounds the ball in Sac, Susac ought to be a huge trade chip -- for someone really good, like a top of the line AAA outfielder. I'd like to see him at 3rd base, ala Joe Torre. Hope they don't give him away, although he's not forgotten just 90 miles away. Heck, I'd drive him down anytime he wants!
DeleteWell, looks like we're down to two camp battles -- back-up infielder (Duffy & Adrianza) and 7th spot in the bullpen (Kontos & Machi). Kudos to Sanchez for fighting like hell to keep his old job and condolences to Susac who was hamstrung by injuries.
ReplyDeleteAs for the rest... Keep working hard. injuries happen and the positional log-jams can break unexpectedly.
This team reminds me of the teams near the end of the Bonds era but reversed. Then, the Giants were trying to squeeze the last drop out of several older position players while the young pitchers where coming up. Now they have several young position players in place as they squeeze what they can out of some aging pitchers. Hopefully they do a better job of syncing things up this time and don't hang on to some of the older pitcher too long like they did some of the position players in the past.
DeleteBilly Baseball
Not saying this is what you are doing here, but I have to laugh at some Giants fans who act like the immediate post-Bonds era was the worst period in franchise history. The post-Bonds slump lasted 4 years. They barely missed the playoffs in 2004 and won 88 games in 2009. 2005-2008 were the really down years. You are talking to someone here who lived through the drought that lasted from 1972-1986. That is 14 years, buddy! And it doesn't even count all those years of finishing in second place and out of postseason play when they had 4-5 HOF'ers on the team at the same time. Not saying it is going to happen, but the Giants are not going to win every other year forever. A downswing for 3-5 years would be the expected transition from one "dynasty" to another and would not be the worst period in franchise history by a longshot.
Delete@Billy. I've been a Warriors, Giants and 49ers fan since the mid '60s. I've lived through a lot of brutal losses and disappointing seasons as well as, at times, historically bad franchise and player management that have lasted, at times, for over a decade at a time. So compared to the life-time of disappointment I've had as a sports fan.... What happened during the post-Bonds era was, at worst, a minor inconvenience compared to the suffering I've gone through in other eras.
DeleteFor example, the highlight of my Giants rooting was in 1982 with the Giants knocking the Dodgers out of the playoff race the game after the Dodgers knocked them out of the playoff race. And that's a pretty pathetic (albeit still sweet) highlight.
So, now that we're 3 championships in 5 years to the good... Yeah, I want the Giants to win. But it's hard to get too upset seeing that they've done a pretty good job and gotten to places that, frankly, I never thought they'd go...
I was mostly talking about the make up of the team during those years. We had Visquel, Durham, Klesko, Finley, Snow, and of course Bonds, etc. a bunch of position players on the back end of their career while we we starting to bring up some of the younger pitchers. Now, we have Hudson, Vogey, Peavy and some guys in the pen that are all on the back end while we have some young position players on the team and coming up. Just making an observation.
DeleteBilly Baseball
Wow! More on this in the next game wrap, but Duffy has another huge day. I am starting to think, based on recent playing time, that Arias just might end up being the odd man out between him, Adrianza and Duffy.
ReplyDeleteYeah. Duffy really hit well today, like he pretty much has all spring training. Panik went 3-for-3 and seems to be coming out of his slump. And Maxwell went 2-for-4, raising his average to .316.
DeleteOver-all, it was a nice day for the bats. The pitching... Well, with 9 runs surrendered, I'll go with "not so much..." And I'll just leave it at that.