Early in the season, there is no way the Giants win a game like this, but with a lineup bristling with hot hitters, they beat the Reds at their own game in their ballpark for the 3'rd time in a row. Key Lines:
Norichika Aoki- 3 for 6, SB(10). Aoki got the start in LF with Blanco moving to CF to give Pagan 's aching back a rest. Aoki played like he does not want to come out of the lineup again. Bochy has a good problem in the OF with 5 guys deserving of starting gigs.
Joe Panik- 1 for 4, BB, HBP. BA= .279. It doesn't look like much, but Panik was on base 3 times in 6 PA's.
Brandon Belt- 3 for 4, 2B, HR(3), BB. BA= .321. Brandon Belt was a major force in the middle of the lineup for the last 3 games after stinking it up for the first 3 games of the road trip.
Hunter Pence- 2 for 5, HR(1). BA= .500. Man, Pence sure hit the ground running! Let's hope he can keep it going against the Dodgers this week.
Brandon Crawford- 2 for 4, 2B, BB. BA= .285. Crawford stays hot. I hope the error he was charged with does not knock him down too many WAR points as it was a weird play and he was really just trying to bail out Aoki's misplay on a bloop by Jay Bruce.
Gregor Blanco- 1 for 4, 2B, BB. BA= .266. Blanco played CF to give Pagan's back a rest. He continued his hot hitting, this time from the 7-hole.
Matt Duffy- 2 for 5. BA= .304. Duffy drove in a key run later in the game. He continues to produce in whatever situation he is put in. For his part, Casey McGehee came in on a double switch and singled in 1 AB. Bochy has another good problem at 3B, but it seems to me that Duffy would do what Casey can do without as many DP's.
Chris Heston- 2 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 2 BB, 2 K. ERA= 3.72. The old ERA took a hit here as Heston did not have his usual great command.
Yusmeiro Petit- 3 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 3.27. In a game like this, 3 IP of long relief with just 1 run allowed is a terrific effort. He kept the lead intact and helped spare the rest of the pen from long outings.
Santiago Casilla- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K's, Save(9). ERA= 1.76. I got distracted by a phone call as the bottom of the 9'th was starting. When I looked up, it was over. 9 pitches 3 K's! Talk about slamming the door! Fantasy baseball players who drafted or picked up Casilla have gotten huge value so far!
The Win enabled the second place Giants to keep pace with the NL West leading Dodgers at a 4.5 game deficit who blanked the Rockies 1-0.
The Giants fly home tonight, get a day off in Monday and then face the Dodgers in a 3 game home series starting Tuesday, May 19. Tim Hudson will take the mound facing TBD. With the way their lineup is producing, the Giants have to feel good about their chances of gaining ground on the Dodgers, but the Bad Guys will be looking for revenge of the Giants sweep in the last series at AT&T Park.
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McGehee and Aoki did well against the 102mph heat of Aroldis Chapman in the 9th as well. Duffster held his own for a worth AB. Sergio and Santiago closed the door on the Reds. 3 outta 4 in Cincy...gotta love it!
ReplyDeleteBring on the Fodgers!
NWGiantsFan
DtF!!!
The Reds announcers today were pretty annoying. They kept talking about how bad our offense was prior to this series and acted surprised with what we were doing. True we hadn't been performing as well as we could but the team has always had potential and now with Pence back our line up is actually pretty good.
ReplyDeleteWe do have some streaky hitters on this team but when they all fire on the same cylinders it is capable of scoring some runs.
Billy Baseball
Guess this all depends on your perception. I got it as justified amazement and praise that our boys seemed to have turned the corner with a vengeance. Even the tone of their voices was very positive as they said we crushed it throughout the series.
DeletePence is playing like a man on a mission. It's GREAT to see him back on the field. I'm going to say it now... I wouldn't be surprised if he goes crazy over the next couple months and makes the all-star team. He has to be one of the most focused players in the entire league.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update...ginia couldn't tell me what happened after I ran out. It was great to see Hunter Pence swingin' for the fences!
ReplyDeleteHeston was just way out of it. There was a point in time I don't think he could have bought a strike. It was painful watching him, especially after the prior start where he was amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the game was enjoyable, though a bit never racking as the Reds just kept grinding. Fortunately, so did the Giants.
Ha, that's a great point, we lost to them in one of the Giants type of games, close and low scoring, then beat them three times playing GABy baseball.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Pence sure did! Maybe that's why he wanted to come back now, in a hitter's homepark, especially against a pitcher he has a good history against, Leake.
The thing is, McGehee would probably not be as versatile coming off the bench as Duffy would, particularly in a PR situation. So it's hard for me to take that away by starting Duffy unless he's producing significantly more than McGehee (which he has recently been doing, to his credit).
Heston finally regressed, but it's GAB...
Go Giants!
Well, Heston finally had a bad game. Actually it was not his first bad game but it was his worst one. To me, regression is when you do exactly the same things with all the same ratios, but have a different result due to the randomness of what happens to balls in play. To my eye, that was not the case here with Heston. He was just off and his stuff was not as good for whatever reason. Now, everybody has bad games and some have more than others, so I guess you could say that is a form of regression, but it's not regression due to the laws of BABIP probability. I do think that is an important distinction. It's the difference between bad stuff and bad luck. Heston had bad stuff in this game. He had fantastic stuff in his last game.
Deletedidnt help that they sent him back on the bump after an almost 1 hr rain delay
Deletebacci
I'm sure that did not help, but other pitchers have done it and pitched well. Maybe reason to be optimistic it was a one game hiccup and he's pitch great next time.
DeleteDr. B there is talk about a Mike Leake trade...how do you feel about that?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure the Giants need to trade for pitching right now. They have 5 pretty solid starters with Petit in the bullpen who can start if needed. They also have Peavy and Cain on the DL and possibly coming back at some point.
DeleteLeake is also a FA at the end of this season. I think he would make an interesting target who might be a bit cheaper than the David Price's and Johny Cuetos of the world. On the other hand, I'm guessing there is more than one team thinking the same thing about Leake.