The middle of the Giants batting order made a game of it, but was not enough to overcome an awful performance by SP Chris Heston as the Giants dropped the rubber game of the series against the team with the best record in baseball. Key Lines:
Brandon Belt- 4 for 4, SB(9). BA= .283. Belt served as a quasi leadoff hitter for Buster Posey and Marlon Byrd and scored 3 of the Giants 5 runs. Belt scored 5 runs in the series, 7 over his last 4 games, 15 over his last 8. He is slashing .314/.402/.569 for the month of August with 21 runs and 17 RBI's.
Buster Posey- 3 for 4. BA= .317. Buster is hitting just .211 over his last 15 games, but has picked it up for a .296 pace over his last 7.
Marlon Byrd- 3 for 4, 2B, 3B. BA= .241. Byrd had a huge game with 2 XBH's down the RF line. One hit the foul pole and the other came within inches. Not sure he was trying to do that. He is 10 for 39 in 9 games since joining the Giants with 14 RBI's.
Chris Heston- 3.2 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 3.56. The narrative coming in was that Heston had figured out that he had dropped his arm slot and had rested his shoulder so he could keep it up and get that whipsaw 2-seamer back to work. It didn't work out that way. The reason why sinker ball pitchers don't necessarily give up fewer HR's than 4 seam pitchers is that sinkers that don't sink get hammered. Heston had a lot of sinkers not sink today and the results speak for themselves. The Giants now have a problem going forward with just 3 SP's they can count on for QS's. I think that carries over into next year where I don't think they can go into the season counting on Peavy, Cain and Heston for 3/5's of their rotation and it's long past time to cut ties with Timmy and Vogey, sad as that is.
The Loss drops the Giants to 4 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West pending the outcome of the Dodgers game against the Cubs who lead the Giants by 5 games for the Wild Card also pending the outcome of the Dodgers-Cubs game.
The Giants now start a 10 game road trip with 3 games against the the Dodgers in a series that could go a long way towards determining the winner of the NL West. Jake Peavy starts game 1 tomorrow evening facing Brett Anderson who has a mixed record against the Giants.
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Dodgers get no-hit by Jake Arrieta so they lead the Giants by 3.5 games and the Cubs lead by 5.5 games for the WC spot.
ReplyDeleteTough to feel good about our chances even if we get to the playoffs with this rotation. Not sure we could count on Madbum to do the same two years in a row. Very disappointed that Cain and Heston don't appear to be able to be counted on, although both are probably going to be key pieces next year. Huddy, Vogey and Timmy, not sure there is even one pitcher left in there between the three of them. All have been good Giants just nothing left. I'd almost be tempted to throw Petit in there at this point. He's been pitching better as of late and I think we now have some other guys in the pen that can go multiple innings now if need be.
ReplyDeleteDon't need to say it but I will any way, big series here with the Dodgers. Hopefully at least 2 out of 3 although a sweep would be sweet.
Billy Baseball
BTW, just saw where the Bosox named Machi and his 5+ ERA as their closer because he is "battle tested". Wow, and I though putting Petit in the rotation might be desperate.
ReplyDeleteBilly Baseball
How much do we still owe Cain?
ReplyDeleteIs that sunk cost?
Cainer is signed for 2 more years after this, through 2017 then has an option for 2018 with a $7.5 M buyout. Too early to consider it a sunk cost. On the other hand, you can't just write him into the rotation and assume he's going to be healthy and effective.
DeleteHeston's flagging success does signal, I agree, that the Giants will need to re-sign Leake and also to get a new SP, Zimmermann being the one most rumored to be their target. When Heston was going strong, he seemed to take the slot left by assigning the other four to Leake and the trio of pitchers under contract, Bumgarner, Peavy, and Cain. Everyone now knows that that arrangement won't do. We're lucky, maybe, to be discovering the problem now. Our team has been able in the near past to profit from failures--the loss of Scutaro, of Sandoval, and at least in the short run of Panik and Pence--to strengthen itself in the success of Panik and Duffy, and perhaps in discovering the strength of Tomlinson and the utility of Byrd.
ReplyDeleteFive of our position players--Posey, Crawford, Panik, Duffy, and Belt--are currently among the top 30 position players in all of MLB in terms of fWAR; and based on past performance, Pence would be in the same general class if not for his injuries this year. (Carmot, in his great blog, has presented his own, different statistical measures to confirm this extraordinary excellence.) With this roster in place, the Giants can focus fully, I hope and believe, on their rotation for 2016, whatever may happen in the rest of the current plague year.
Hey, its an odd-numbered year. Besides, this just may be the Cubbies' year...Let's knock off the Dodgers and see what else the Good Guys can do down the stretch. Like your take on finding out about our potential 2016 rotation now than next spring.
ReplyDeleteNWGiantsFan
DtF!!!
I like the idea of getting an ace such as Zimmermann but we will have to overpay him for sure. It is getting harder for big contracts to come to California due to our tax laws. That was one thing Lester was looking at. He has also said that he prefers the Midwest and East Coast. There will also be big money teams such as the Yankees, Dodgers and Nationals in the hunt so that will push him towards Lester and Scherzer money.
ReplyDeleteLeake would be a good signing but we definitely need more. Maybe also make a run at Cueto. I say we bid up Greinke so the Dodgers pay him Kershaw money. They will not want to lose him to their arch rivals so money will be no object for them. However, it would be funny to get them to pay millions more than they were planning on.
I don't think it's likely the Giants will sign 2 big ticket pitchers, but if they can get either Zimm or Leake, there are a number of 3'rd tier dudes who could be signed for less than 9 digits: Doug Fister, Rick Porcello, Mat Latos, Ian Kennedy, Dan Haren, Yovani Gallardo.
Delete