Marlon Byrd paid immediate dividends on his trade to the Giants with a 2-run HR in his first Giants AB in the first inning. Madison Bumgarner was uncharacteristically shaky on the mound, but helped his own cause with a 2-run dinger of his own to lead the Giants to a much needed win on the road. Key Lines:
Nori Aoki- 3 for 5, 2B. BA= .307. Aoki seems most comfortable leading off and he is the most reliable on-base guy among the potential leadoff guys on the team. He should be the leadoff hitter.
Brandon Belt- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .275. Belt's double was too much of a line drive to get over the porch in RF. Would have been out of most ballparks, but probably not AT&T for the same reason.
Marlon Byrd- 3 for 5, 2B, HR(20). BA= .242. Byrd kills LHP's, so Jeff Locke was a perfect opposing pitcher for his first game as a Giant. He did not disappoint as he launched a 2 run dinger in his very first AB and added a single and double later. Giants don't win this game without him.
Gregor Blanco- 2 for 3, 2B, BB. BA= .293. Blanco was 0 for 5 in game 1 of the series against Charlie Morton, but bounced back nicely in this game against a LHP.
Madison Bumgarner- 1 for 4, HR(5). BA= .254. Bummy is starting to set all kinds of records for his hitting. Moving way up the all-time pitcher hitting rankings. This blast surpasses his previous season high of 4. He was already the holder of the Giants single season record.
Madison Bumgarner- 6.1 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 3.02. Bummy threw 50 pitches in the first 2 innings but still got into the 7'th inning before running out of gas. The Giants offense including his own hitting picked him up.
The Dodgers got no-hit by Mike Fiers and the Astros in a 3-0 loss so the Giants are now 1.5 games behind them in the NL West. The Cubs won again over the Braves, this time by a score of 5-3, so the Giants remain 4 games behind in the race for the 2'nd Wild Card playoff spot.
Mike Leake comes off the DL tomorrow to face Gerrit Cole in a tough matchup tomorrow afternoon.
Chris Heston got sent down to Sacramento to make room on the 25 man roster for Byrd. There will be another move tomorrow to make room for Mike Leake. I'll guess Ryan Lollis.
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When the Giants traded for Byrd I was fine with the prospect they gave up. I didn't think much of Byrd who had been playing badly all season and had been worse and worse as the season went on. It's not that he was a career scrub, but (at 38) looked like he just fell off the performance cliff as it were. My only hope, and a slim one, would be that he turned into a Ross or Scutaro though, frankly, both had better numbers coming in so their trades were far less 'what's the point?' than this trade for Byrd who I felt would be, at best, a bench bat barely better than Maxwell's and a player without Maxwell's range and defensive skills.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, heck of a way to start your Giants career and, hopefully, he'll at least hit to career averages instead of at that .230 clip (in a .170 slump) when we got him.
It's called buying low, Moses.
DeleteI am pretty sure MadBum has the Silver Slugger about wrapped up. Next stop, Cy Young. I think Greinke or Cole would have to have the wheels fall off for that to happen but it might be close the way he is pitching.
ReplyDeleteThe Byrd acquisition was a move of weakness when it happened because of both Pence and Pagan sidelined but when Pence gets back we will have much a much better bench. Hopefully Pagan will take his time to get fully healthy (if that is even possible for him) and be there for October.
Panik can also take his time because Tomlinson has been a pretty decent replacement.
Go Beltran, uh I mean Leake. Glad to see he will start tonight.
Wow, Chris Heston getting sent down. As it is already August 22nd, maybe the best thing for Heston is to skip a couple starts, get brought back up in September and provide a very fresh arm if Cain continues to falter. Baseball is a crazy game, as you know - when was the last time a player threw a no hitter in the bigs then was sent down within a few months?
ReplyDeleteAndy
No longer in San Diego