Sunday, June 26, 2016

Game Wrap 6/26/2016: Giants 8 Phillies 7

The Giants played a rather non-Giantsy, ragged game against the Phillies, but managed to escape with a walk-off Win on B2B doubles by Ramiro Pena and Conor Gillaspie.  Key Lines:

Denard Span- 1 for 5.  BA= .250.  Span has been scuffling at the plate again, but his perfect bunt single in the 3'rd inning started a 4 run rally against Aaron Nola, who up to that point looked pretty good.

Angel Pagan- 4 for 5, 2 2B.  BA= .297.  Not to diminish the role Pagan played in winning this game, but one of those doubles might have been a triple had he not spent a few seconds thinking it might be a HR to Triples Alley, of all places.  The ball caromed off the wall directly to the the CF and Pagan was out by a foot or two at 3B.  He also might have held up at 2B when he saw the ball carom right to the CF, which he surely did because the play was in front of him up to that point and he was definitely watching it.  I'll say it again, though, Pagan is a dynamic player when he's healthy, which he finally appears to be.

Buster Posey- 2 for 4, 2B, HBP.  BA= .285.  The double was driven right down the RF line with no slice.  Bustey does that when his swing is right.  The HBP came in the first inning and was the first of several in the game.  More on that later.

Brandon Crawford- 2 for 5.  BA= .262.  I don't know if hitting with runners in scoring position is a skill or luck, but Crawford has been extraordinarily successful at it for a long time.

Ramiro Pena- 2 for 4, 2B, HBP.  BA= .400.  The HBP came in the 4 run 3'rd inning and was the first of two consecutive HBP's by Aaron Nola who had already plunked Buster Posey.  I will say, none of the Nola HBP's appeared to be intentional.  The double came in the 9'th inning and started the winning rally.  I probably should have been a triple because it had some hang time.  Pena golfed it right down the RF line and like Pagan a few innings earlier, he spent a few seconds thinking it might be a HR instead of bolting out of the box.  All turned out well in the end, as Gillaspie delivered a double to back it up in the next AB.

Conor Gillaspie- 2 for 4, 2B, HBP.  BA= .219.  Gillaspie delivered the second walk-off of his career right after Pena's double.  Gillaspie is apparently not the most extroverted person in the world and Bochy calls him Mr Happy.  He did manage to crack a smile or two as his teammates mobbed him after the walk-off hit.

Johnny Cueto- 6 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 2 BB, 2 K's, GO/AO= 11/2.  ERA= 2.42.  Cueto appeared to be doing his thing, but kept running into trouble with 2 outs.  He allowed a run in the first which was pretty much all do to BABIP luck with no solid contact.  He then seemed to settle down until 2 outs into the 4'th inning when he hit Maikel Franco on the arm and chest with what appeared to be a retaliation pitch for the 3 HBP's by Nola.  The Ump rightfully warned both benches and Cueto seemed to lose some focus and allowed 2 runs to score, cutting the Giants lead to 5-3.  Kruk and Kuip seemed to think the umps strike zone suddenly got a lot more tight for Cueto after the HBP which may have contributed to 3 more runs he allowed in his 6 innings of work.

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With the Win, the Giants avoided losing a series to a team headed in the opposite direction.  They also temporarily gained 0.5 games on the Dodgers in the NL West to extend their lead to 7.5 games.  The Dodgers are playing the Sunday Night ESPN game in Pittsburgh with Clayton Kershaw facing someone I've never heard of before, so you have to think it's likely the Giants lead will still be 7 games by the end of the day.

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The Giants start a 4 games series split between AT&T Park and Oakland's home ballpark, whatever it's called now.  Game 1 will be in SF with Jeff Samardzija trying to get back on track facing rookie Daniel Mengdon.

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Addendum:  Kershaw had an off night, at least by his standards and the Bucs topped Da Bums for the 3'rd game in a row.  Giants lead in the NL West is now 8 games.

5 comments:

  1. Nice to see Gillespie come thru and make the most of his opportunity to play.

    Maybe Bochy should make Gerrin the 8th inning setup pitcher.

    Not so fast, the Bucs leading so far. The Bucs pitcher Chad Kuhl is one of their top pitching prospects. He's throwing 97 MPH 2 seam fastballs tonight.

    LG

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    1. Yup. Kershaw had an off night, at least by his standards and the Bucs completed a sweep of Da Bums. Giants lead the NL West by 8 games!

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  2. Gotta give the Phils credit, they kept battling. Buccos beat LA! Just saw the called strike that Cutch got tossed for. It was around his socks. Good guys lead bad guys by 8!

    NWGiantsFan
    DtF!!!

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  3. Cueto independently, I think, confirmed K&K's perception that the ump, Eddings, took to squeezing him on outside pitches after the warning about hit batsmen made him, Cueto, leery about pitching inside. To me this adds fuel to a preference for having balls and strikes called accurately, by machine, rather than by highly fallible, often willful, and sometimes captious umps; though I know that many fans (lovers of tradition? Luddites?) prefer more arbitrariness, with the umpires' whims and failures acting to skew the game like weather conditions, odd angles and distances in different ballparks, injuries, and other sorts of randomness. This game apparently had Cueto dutifully plunking the Philly clean-up man to retaliate for Nola's plunking the Giants' clean-up man, and then Eddings righteously shrinking the zone to retaliate for Cueto's prior retaliation, all of it needless because Nola's lousy aim was unintentional. Silly.

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    1. I'm for machines. Waffling strikezones. Wandering strikezones. Non-uniformly applied strikezones. Drives me nuts.

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