Johnny Cueto battled through a balky back to hold off the Cardinals long enough for the offense to put the game away late. Key Lines;
Denard Span- 1 for 5. BA= .262. Span had a quiet night until the top of the 9'th inning when he singled through a drawn-in IF to drive in the first two of 3 insurance runs the Giants scored in the inning.
Joe Panik- 2 for 5. BA= .246. Panik started a string of 4 singles in the 4'th inning to help the Giants get a 2-1 lead they never gave up.
Jarrett Parker- 0 for 2, 2 BB. BA= .212. No firewords from Parker, but he had a great AB against Trevor Rosenthal in the 9'th to draw a walk and keep the line moving toward a 3-run inning. He also made a nice catch against the RF wall to rob someone of extra bases earlier in the game.
Brandon Crawford- 2 for 3, HBP. BA= .267. Kuip and Jon Miller were talking about a recent article in which Adam Wainwright said the Giants are an underrated team and pointed to Brandon Crawford as being the type of player that makes them much better than they get credit for because he does so many things well.
Johnny Cueto- 6 IP, 4 H 1 R, 0 ER, 5 BB, 1 K, GO/AO= 11/2. ERA= 2.16. Cueto battled a stiff back all night, which may have contributed to the 5 BB's. Maybe not being at full strength contributed to sink on the ball producing the 11/2 GO/AO? Cueto will now get a full week between starts due to the Giants 2 off days next week. Bochy will not skip Suarez in the rotation.
Cory Gearrin- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 2.66. Gearrin got the last 2 outs of the 7'th inning and the first out of the 8'th. Where would the Giants be without Gearrin? Very savvy pickup by the front office last year and even savvier to hang onto him for this year.
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The Win enabled the Giants to maintain their 5.5 game lead in the NL West over the Dodgers who beat the Braves 4-2. The Rockies trail the last place Padres 4-0 in the 9'th inning. A loss would push them to 10 games behind the Giants and effectively out of the division race, at least for the time being.
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Jeff Samardzija takes the mound for game 2 tomorrow facing Michael Wacha.
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The Giants announced that Hunter Pence had suffered a complete tear of one head of the hamstring tendon behind his knee. He will undergo surgery to remove the torn tendon, essentially the same surgery that Angel Pagan had in 2013. Pence is expected to miss 8-10 weeks of the season. Replacing him will be so tough in so many ways. He does so many different things to help the Giants win.
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Gearrin has certainly been a surprise. He's certainly not a fireballer lighting up the radar gun. He's pretty much a two-pitch guy who lives on a 91MPH sinker and am 84MPH change up. But if it's working, I'm glad for it because bullpen has been pretty rough so far this year.
ReplyDeleteNot the greatest of times to lose Pence, if there ever is a good time, with the scoring offense being deficient overall. The Giants have lost 11 games (half) when they scored 2 runs or less, games that are really hard to win. Nothing helps more like scoring a few runs in the 9th to take pressure off the guy closing the game. Giants are 12-6 in one-run games which suggests the bullpen is doing pretty good. The closeness of the games amplifies the mistakes of relief pitchers -- they just have little margin of error.
ReplyDeleteIf the Parker-Williamson experiment doesn't help the scoring or weakens the defense, Grant Green has played nearly 200 games (minor leagues) in the outfield and he's been hitting very well lately in Sacramento.