The Giants tied a San Francisco Giants franchise record with 4 triples to pace a 19 hit attack to back a QS by Christ Heston and survive an 8'th inning bullpen meltdown to take the rubber game of a 3 game midweek set against the Pesky Padres. Key Lines(this is going to be pretty much every body in the lineup plus the pitchers, but why not?):
Angel Pagan- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .271. Pagan has clearly been struggling. Bochy said he moved him to leadoff hoping to get him going. It seemed to work, at least for this game.
Joe Panik- 3 for 4, BB, SB(3). BA= .310. Panik did not get one of the 8 XBH's for the Giants, but he got the only SB and had the most times on base.
Matt Duffy- 2 for 5, 3B. BA= .288. Look who's batting 3'rd in the order! Oh, and I take back any doubts about whether Duffman has the arm to make the throw from behind the bag at 3B. He's done it enough to convince me. He's in the top 15 of MLB 3B in defensive metrics and in overall fWAR despite playing about 10 less games at the position than most starting 3B. And where does Pablo Sandoval rank, you ask? That would be outside the top 50. I did think a better defensive RF than Matt Kemp probably would have caught the triple, though.
Buster Posey- 3 for 5, 2 2B. BA= .293. 7 big Ribeyes in his last 2 games.
Brandon Belt- 3 for 5, 2 3B. BA= .269. As Baggs said, Both of the triples would have been HR's in at least 25 of the MLB ballparks. Duane Kuiper said Belt was playing pepper with the wall in triples alley! Both drives never got that far off the ground as they were absolutely crushed but on a line. Fun times for the big guy!
Brandon Crawford- 2 for 4, 2B, 3B. BA= .274. Crawford had been slumping a bit, but this was a game to break out of slumps.
Gregor Blanco- 2 for 4, SF. BA= .301. And look who is probably the Giants best active OF right now!
Chris Heston- 7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 6 K's, GO/AO= 8/2. ERA= 3.73. Hesto Presto made a statement protecting his spot in the starting rotation with a QS. He took a shutout into the 7'th inning and left the game with a 9-2 lead which the bullpen came 1 run away from squandering.
Jeremy Affeldt- 0.0 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 5.96. Affledt did not retire anyone, but the pitch Matt Kemp hit for a HR was a good pitch by all accounts.
Javier Lopez- 0.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 1.27. Lopez has been terrific this year, but brought his gas can to the mound in this one.
Sergio Romo- 1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 4.18. Romo finally got out of the inning, but looked like his knee was hurting. He insisted afterward that the knee is OK, though.
Hunter Strickland- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 2.76. The Giants answered the Padres 6 run uprising in the 8'th with 4 runs of their own in the bottom of the inning, making it easier on Strickland.
The Win allowed the Giants to keep pace with the NL West leading Dodgers who they trail by 1 game. The also gained a game on the Cubs, who the Dodgers beat, and trail them by 0.5 games for the 2'nd Wild Card playoff spot.
The Giants now host the Rockies for a 3 game weekend set with Tim Hudson facing Chad Bettis, who gave the Giants all kinds of fits in Coors Field the last time they faced him, in Game 1 tonight.
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Romo limped off the field.
ReplyDeleteHis performance was even worse than his line: he allowed one of Affeldt's runners and Lopez only runner to score.
He did get 3 outs though and didn't "let" the tying run score, but that was no sure thing!
He looked hurt leaving the field.