Chris Heston pitched the first no-hitter by a Giants rookie since 1912 to dominate a much more heralded rookie, the fireballing Noah Syndergaard. Key Lines:
Norichika Aoki- 2 for 5. BA= .323. Another night at the office for Aoki.
Joe Panik- 2 for 5, HR(5). BA= .318. Well, I gave my rant about Panik a couple of day ago. Not much to add to that. Consider the skeptics proven wrong.
Buster Posey- 3 for 5, 2B. BA= .289. In addition to the 3 hits, Buster calls his 3'rd no-hitter, and I'm thinking it's more than just luck that he has called 3 of them.
Matt Duffy- 2 for 3, HR(5), BB. BA= .289. In addition to the obvious offensive output, Duffy made several sparkling defensive plays and made them look easy. This kid obviously has a death grip on the starting 3B position and it was by no means handed to him. He got a brief window of opportunity and never let it shut.
Chris Heston- 2 for 4. BA= .208. Hesto Presto is obviously a good athlete and swings a nice looking bat in addition to his pitching exploits.
Chris Heston- 9 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 11 K's, 3 HBP's, GO/AO= 13/2. ERA= 3.77. The man Giants prospect watchers came to know as Hesto Presto dominated this game with a biting, diving whipsaw 2-seam fastball with vicious tail and sink that left Mets batters staring in disbelief all night. He got a few generous calls from the ump, especially later in the game when he had established control of the strike zone, but mostly the severe movement of the ball turned what looked like sure balls into strikes when they moved over the corner of the plate. His curveball had pretty insane movement on it too, very reminiscent of Sergio Romo except with more vertical depth. It's not just this game either. Obviously tonight's numbers improved his season pitching line, but it was already pretty good. Here's where we stand after tonight: 6-4, 3.77, 74 IP, 2.2 BB/9, 8.0 K/9, GO/AO= 2.13.
The Giants became only the second team in MLB history to throw no-hitters in 4 consecutive seasons(Sandy Koufax did it all by himself for the Dodgers in the 1960's). He was just the 17'th pitcher in Giants history to throw one an 12'th in SF Giants history.
Chris Heston was drafted in the 12'th round in 2009 and worked his way up through the minor league system 1 level at a time. He was DFA'd off the 40 man roster at one point only to come back and earn his way back on. The point here is a pitcher who starts out with ordinary stuff can refine his game with years of hard work and honing his skills in the minors and turn himself into a MLB pitcher. It's not just the fireballers like Syndergaard or the first round draft picks.
Oh, and how great is this? Heston's little league and high school coach was able to fly up from Florida to attend the game. He had tears in his eyes by the time it was over.
The Win allowed the Giants to keep pace with the Dodgers who topped the D'Backs 3-1. The Giants remain 0.5 games behind the NL West leaders. The Giant also now have a 1.5 game lead in the race for the first Wild Card playoff spot over the Cubs and Pirates.
Tim Hudson faces another fireballing RHP in Matt Harvey tomorrow in game 2.
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Good point Drb about players like Heston who battled back from the adversity of being DFA, he deserves a lot of credit for not giving up and continuing to work hard to chase his dream..You never know what will happen sometimes until the player gets an opportunity in MLB.. That's why I still hold out some hope for someone like Chris Stratton..
ReplyDeleteLG
What a day for Chris Heston! Would have been even better if the Warriors won, but I guess you can't win them all. Wonder who ends up with more homers this year, Duffy or Panik.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Espn fantasy baseball forecaster predicted Heston's game score would be 50. It was 98.
ReplyDeleteI should have mentioned the fantastic defensive play of the Giants young homegrown IF. All 4 of them were vacuuming up balls and making steady plays. I know the Giants are middle of the pack in UZR defensive metrics, but I challenge folks to find a better all around defensive team than what the Giants are running out there right now.
ReplyDeleteWe are witnessing a really special time in Giants history here, folks. You have to go all the way back to the 60's to find a time when the Giants had this many homegrown players on the field. Don't care what the naysayers think, there are more from where these kids came from. The Giants have dramatically upped their drafting game since John Barr became scouting director, especially with position players, but I think they have upped their game in finding pitchers too. Tidrow seems to be concentrating more on the development side of pitching and with Bert Bradley as the minor league pitching coordinator and Rags in the majors they seem to have a cohesive pitching development philosophy for the first time. Same goes for the hitters with Bam Bam, Decker and Lefebvre all seeming to be on the same page with hitting approach i.e. looking for hittable pitches, staying out of 2-strike counts, line drive/gap power.