The Oakland A's love to take it to the Giants in spring training games and last night's game was no exception. The Giants ended up feeling lucky to escape serious injury! Key Lines:
Matt Duffy 3B- 1 for 3, HR(1). BA= .211. Duffy's bat is starting to heat up.
Gorkys Hernandez CF- 1 for 3, 3B. BA= .345. Hernandez continues to impress with the bat and he's a true CF. That is a strong argument for a roster spot right there.
Ehire Adrianza SS- 1 for 3, 2B. BA= .296. Adrianza keeps sticking his and up from the back of the room and saying "don't forget about me!"
Johnny Cueto RHP- 3 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 16.61. OK team, listen up! I've said it before. I'll say it again. It is not a matter of IF a pitcher is going to die on the mound from a batted ball, but WHEN. Cueto was unbelievably lucky here. First batter, Billy Burns hits a line drive right back at Cueto. When you see something coming at your face, the instinct is to turn your head. The problem here is turning your head exposes the temporal bone, the thinnest bone in the skull, which sits right over the middle meningeal artery. Cueto turned his head away, but fortunately for him, it was too late and the ball hit his forehead where the skull is much thicker. It also appeared to be more of a glancing blow which may have deflected some of the energy. Cueto passed all the concussion tests and stayed in the game. He looked sharp after a rough first inning which included some bad BABIP luck.
Look, if MLB can make batters wear helmets with ear flaps, and make the base coaches wear helmets and change contact rules at home plate and 2B, they can insist that pitchers get better protection on the mound. It is way past time for a rule forcing pitchers to wear helmets. They need to be more than the plastic lined cap we've seen from a couple of pitchers so far. It needs to be a helmet with ear flaps and possibly one with a faceguard of some sort. I know the pitchers will fight it for whatever macho reasons they can think of, but come on! Nobody wants to see someone die in a ballgame! Get it done, MLB!
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The Giants have their only day off of the spring today. Jeff Samardzija gets the start on Wednesday, 3/16/2016 facing the Mariners in Peoria with Hisashi Iwakuma on the mound for the Mariners.
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Has Blanks gone missing? Injured? Or is he a settled issue: he's won a spot or lost his bid?
ReplyDeleteCan't imagine that he's won the spot. I think Gorkys is probably going to AAA, if only because we have Blanco and I don't see us cutting the latter. Gorkys seemed willing to go to AAA in some comments I saw, so for purposes of depth, it avoids an issue.
ReplyDeleteGotta believe there is still a lot going on as to (a) do we go with 13 pitchers and (b) the composition of the rest of the reserves. We can definitely afford to do 12 pitchers early on, so that favors having two IF and two OF. I have to believe Green may be in the lead on the IF because he can play all positions, as opposed to EA who is in the middle and Gillaspie who is in the corners. Assuming that, we have two OF one of which is Blanco. I can see Parker, who gives a bit more versatility and who has had a nice spring. Yeah, we lose 1B but with Green we're covered. Plus Susac is learning there too.
I was wondering the same thing. I liked the signing and had hoped to see more of him this Spring.
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