The Giants broke open a close game with 6 runs in the last 2 frames to win going away in the ATL. Key Lines:
Nori Aoki- 1 for 5, HR(3). BA= .308. I'd probably rather have Aoki getting on base 3 times than hitting 1 solo HR, but we'll take this one that added on to the lead in the 9'th inning.
Gregor Blanco- 2 for 3, 2 BB. BA= .295. Blanco scored 4 runs and isn't he having himself a year? fWar projected to 600 PA's is 3.3 which is pretty much what he's produced ever since joining the Giants in 2012.
Matt Duffy- 4 for 5, 2B, SB(5). BA= .309. OK, going into this game, Duffy was sitting at 3.1 fWAR, #2 among all NL Rookie position players. He trails Kris Bryant by just 0.3 and is closing the gap. Joc Pederson has fallen off the pace at 2.7. Duffy for ROY is gaining momentum. Matt Duffy!
Buster Posey- 1 for 2, 2 BB, SF. BA= .328. Buster is #3 in the NL in RBI's with 75.
Hunter Pence- 1 for 5, HR(7). BA= .288. Unlike Nori Aoki at the top of the lineup, I am A-OK with a 3-run dinger being Pence's sole offensive output of the night.
Ehire Adrianza- 2 for 4, 2B. BA= .188. Adrianza has had 2 solid offensive games in a row. He did boot a grounder at 2B, though. If he keep hitting like this, Kelby may have a hard time taking PT away from him.
Jake Peavy- 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 8 K's. ERA= 3.77. Peavy has an ERA of 2.61 since his return from the DL All but one of his 6 starts in that time have been QS with the exception being 4 ER allowed in 6.1 IP.
Sergio Romo- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 3.79. Bochy said Romo would have started the 9'th inning if it had still been a Save situation. Not sure I trust Romo much more than Casilla, but it would have been a 3 run lead, which is a reasonable bet no matter who is out there.
The Win allows the Giants to gain a game on the Dodgers who lost to the Phillies on a grand slam HR by Maikel Franco. The Giants are now 2 games off the pace. They continue to trail the Cubs by 0.5 games for the final Wild Card playoff berth as the Cubs downed the Pirates 5-0.
Madison Bumgarner tries for a series win tomorrow facing Williams Perez who baffled the Giants hitters in a previous start this season.
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Not that we will ever know but you have to wonder what the Giants record would be with a healthy Pence all year. What are the odds he ends up with 20 HRs anyway?
ReplyDeleteKontos may be hitting the wall a bit, another reason why the Giants need to make some type of move in the bullpen if possible. They got a few guys running on fumes.
I am looking forward to seeing what Ehire can do with this little bit of steady playing time. Could serve the Giants well down the stretch as a weapon off the bench. I can see Arias back up after September 1 too now that he has cleared waivers.
Billy Baseball
Duffy is at 3.4 fWAR as of this morning (20th in MLB -- 2-way tie). Kris Bryant is at 3.5 (19th in MLB -- solo) Two weeks ago Bryant was at 3.4 while Duffy was at 2.9. I don't think it's unreasonable for Duffy to pass Bryant and be the ROY leader/favorite in positional players.
ReplyDeleteI think Bryant is going to have the edge if it's close in WAR points because of voter's impression that he has a higher long term ceiling, but I'd love it if Duffy won.
DeleteWho knows, of course, what kinds of numerical measures the voters will be looking at? At the moment, according to Baseball Reference rather than Fangraphs, Duffy leads Bryant 3.5 to 2.7, despite having ca. 50 fewer PAs, but Bryant is ahead by other criteria (increase in Win Probability).
DeleteDuffy is getting some national press now. ESPN wrote him up a week ago and called him the best rookie ahead of Bryant. I've seen him written up in other national places. And these places are generally favorable to him being a viable candidate.
DeleteTwo weeks ago, I wouldn't have thought he'd have a chance and he'd only get a few local votes. Probably come in 6th or 7th. Now... I really believe that if he doesn't fade, he's got a good shot.
Not saying he's going to win. Bryant has the manufactured/hyped 'star power' while Duffy was, literally, an afterthought in the Nation Press and you'd be lucky to find a mention of him besides Sickles calling him a C+ prospect. Plus he made a couple of Top-20 prospect lists with some minor blurbs and a 'utility infielder' ceiling.
There's also one other factor that plays in Duffy's favor. America loves a 'rags to riches'/'underdog makes good' story. Whether it's one of Horatio Alger's hundreds of formulaic 'poor boy becomes middle class' stories, or Rocky or Rudy or any of the hundreds of rags to riches stories you can read from the Huffington Post to Forbes. It's just part of our national psyche.
And for him to beat out the 'more talented' Bryant, Pederson, etc... I think that's to his advantage.
In the end though, it doesn't matter. He's my co-ROY with Heston unless he starts doing bad things to children and killing puppies.
Has anyone else read about the 9-year-old bat boy who died in Kansas after being struck by a bat while a player was taking a practice swing? It happened in the National Baseball Congress World Series being played in Wichita. It's a summer-collegiate national tournament.
ReplyDeleteWhat's really interesting is that the kid was the bat boy for the Liberal Bee Jays, and come to find out, both Hunter Pence and Kelby Tomlinson played there. Tomlinson actually dedicated his first major league hit to the bat boy, Kaiser Carlile and the Bee Jay organization. (Here's a link to a Fox Sports article via Twitter. http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/sf-giants-rookie-kelby-tomlinson-dedicates-first-hit-dead-batboy-080515)
This tragic story has made national news on just about every major news outlet. Maybe others of you already knew about it. If not, it's quite an incredible story about how it's brought the baseball community together.
From the Bee Jays Twitter feed it appears that the Texas Rangers have acknowledged the tragedy in some way, and that the KC Royals plan to do a tribute to young Kaiser at some point too.