The Giants couldn't get anything going against the Yankees on getaway day, which did not come a day too soon! Key Lines:
Angel Pagan- 3 for 5, 3B. BA= .292. Pagan set the table, but the rest of the lineup couldn't get the food served and alas, the triple came with 2 outs.
Buster Posey- 2 for 4. BA= .287. Buster drove in both runs on an emergency check swing that send a grounder down the RF line.
Mac Williamson- 2 for 4. BA= .259. Williamson missed a big RBI opportunity when he came to the plate with the bases loaded and 1 out in the 4'th inning. I'll defend that AB though. He laid off some very close, very nasty cutters to get the count to 3-1. He fouled off the next pitch and the 3-2 pitch was a backup slider which would fool most good hitters and he hit a jam-shot pop-up to the first baseman. Again, the result was not there, but the process was. Once again, if Mac continues to work the count like that, good things are going to happen.
Jeff Samardzija- 5.2 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.22. In any other ballpark, Samardzija would have gotten to the 6'th inning with just 1 run allowed as Carlos Beltran hit a pop up HR into the RF Yankee Stadium porch. Then in the 6'th he ran into some bad BABIP luck, or his slider flattened out.
Speaking of……….I don't have spray charts of Babe Ruth's HR's but am I the only one who considers his HR record tainted by that damn porch? Ruth had that porch. Aaron had Fulton County Stadium. Barry Bonds and ARod had…. something. Willie Mays had….Candlestick Park? Mays missed his first 2 full MLB seasons that likely cost him a minimum of 60 HR's, probably closer to 70 or even 80. He also had Candlestick Park. He's my all-time HR champion!
George Kontos- 2.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 2.64. It was basically mop-up time, but still an impressive outing for Kontos as the Giants approach the trading deadline with relief pitching in their sites.
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The Loss cut the Giants lead over the Dodgers in the NL West to 3 games as the Bad Guys outscored the Cardinals 9-6.
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It will not be a happy flight home for the Giants, but at least they are finally coming home. First series starts tomorrow against Cincinnati with Jake Peavy facing a red hot Anthony De Sclafini. Hopefully we won't have the annual Cincinnati Heat Wave in SF this week.
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Mac still strikes out too much, at 24%, but he's drawing over 9% walks, producing an OPS of .850 and a very good wRC+, and running up a fine defensive fWAR to boot. In under 100 PAs he has contributed 1.1 fWAR: were he able to keep that up for a season, he would be easily the team's best outfielder, an improvement on Hunter Pence and about twice as useful as the highly useful Blanco. In giving him time to play, and to be expertly brought along by Bochy, Pence's injury may have been partly serendipitous.
ReplyDeleteOn Ruth, did the Yankee Stadium he played in have the same convenient porch as the current one?,
24% is not a bad strikeout rate for a power hitter.
DeleteYes, the current Yankee Stadium was built to the same dimensions as the old one.
The old one was slightly larger. At the foul lines they're the same in RF, but the new stadium goes straight to CF while the old one was more rounded and 9' deeper in R-CF. Also the wall was 2' higher in the old stadium.
DeleteThis is from an article on it:
"In right field, the newfound homer haven, the wall structure is slightly different than the old park. The main difference involves curvature. The gentle curve from right field to center field seen in the original Yankee Stadium has largely been eliminated at the new stadium. This is due in large part to the presence of a manual scoreboard embedded within the wall. Losing this curvature has resulted in a right field that is shorter by 4 to 5 feet on average, but up to 9 feet in spots.
Not only is the famed short porch even shorter in the new stadium, but the walls themselves are not as tall. In the old ballpark, the walls in right field stood at a height of approximately 10 feet. At this height, it was difficult for outfielders to scale the wall and attempt to rob a home run over the fence. Fast forward to 2009, and the outfielders have been scaling the wall without any trouble. The result? The new outfield fences only rise to a height of 8 feet, adding to the ease hitting a home run to right."
http://blog.nj.com/prosports/2009/06/yankee_stadium_outfield_part_1.html
chapman to cubbies. they are going all in. giants will not get any help for the pen unless its off the waiver wire
ReplyDeleteterrible road trip. whatever could go wrong...did
bacci
The Giants front office is looking like they are not being aggressive enough adding help for this team and the Bums might end up over taking them because of it.
DeleteLG
Well, right now, Aroldis Chapman would not help the Giants much because they are not taking many leads into the 9'th inning.
DeleteTrue, the main thing is they get meaningful upgrades before the deadline. I just like seeing teams like the Red Sox being aggressive adding Zeigler and Pomeranz before the deadline.
DeleteLG
Thank you, DrB and Moses, for your info about fences at Yankee Stadium Sr and Jr. As to K-rate, Mac is among the worst in MLB in the group of players, those leading in fWAR, with whom one would hope to rank him as he accumulates more playing time. Five of the top sixty--Story, Trumbo, Freeman, Lamb, and Desmond--have a higher K-rate; the other fifty-five, lower. To some extent this stat is misleading, a matter of small deviations and of my stopping at sixty because the Fangraphs leader board goes by increments of thirty names; and it's unfair to make too much of a rookie's K-rate while he accommodates himself to MLB pitching and to sporadic playing time. Nonetheless, I would say that on a team where high contact seems to be a (justified) priority, and where the two men with an OPS similar to Mac's--Posey and the often egregious Belt-- have explicitly worked to cut down on strikeouts, Mac needs to do the same. Giants baseball at AT&T is premised on keeping the line moving, as Bochy ad infinitum reminds the world, and strikeouts keep only the breezes moving and the baserunners anchored.
ReplyDeleteKeeping the line moving is good, but at some point, you need the big bopper who can get you a quick 3 runs with one swing. I don't think Mac's K rate is a worry. If it was 30% or more, yes, it would be a problem but not in the mid-20's.
Delete