The Giant offense staked Matt Cain to a 4-0 lead after 3 innings. For his part, Cainer retired 12 of the first 13 batters he faced, then the roof caved in. When the dust had settled in the top of the 5'th inning, the Pirates had posted a 6-spot. The Giants never caught up. Key Lines:
Angel Pagan- 3 for 4, 2B, BB. BA= .299. Pagan may be headed for another payday in a weak FA class. He's been the most consistent Giants hitter this season.
Buster Posey- 3 for 5. BA= .294. Unfortunately Buster's lone RBI came in the 9'th on a bases-loaded no-outs GIDP.
Brandon Crawford- 2 for 5, 2B, 3B. BA= .271. Crawford started out like he was aiming for a cycle, but then the hits stopped coming.
Matt Cain- 4.2 IP, 3 H, 6 R, 3 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 5.81. Cain took the mound in the top of the 5'th inning with a 4-0 lead having retired 12 of 13 batters. He proceeded to go HBP, BB, BB, BB to walk in the first run. He finished out his start with a 1B, SF, AO, HR. The dinger was a 2-run job by Andrew McCutchen that made it 6-4 and Cain's day was over. It sounds like the Giants will use an off day Monday to skip his next start on Tuesday in LA with lefties Bumgarner starting game 1 of that series and Matt Moore game 2. That is what they SHOULD do!
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The Dodgers topped the Phillies to move 1.5 games ahead of the Giants in the NL West. The Giants are 2 games up in the Wild Card race.
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The Giants immediately go into a 4 game set with the Mets with Madison Bumgarner facing Jake DeGrom in a battle of aces in game 1.
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At this point I guess all we can hope for is the starting pitching staff to somehow right the ship. It's been mostly bad since the All-Star break.
ReplyDeleteMoore is missing bats. But too many of those missed bats are walks, a problem that he'd corrected for a while but has come back to bite him. But Moore is a #4 guy and was there, IMO, just to give us a chance. And even with problems, he's still an upgrade from Peavy/Cain.
Where I see the big problem is Cueto and Samardzija. We need them to be rocking, not scuffling. Because of their scuffling, since the All-Star break the rotation has been Bumgarner and 5-dudes with 4+ ERA. Moore - 4.5. Cueto - 4.84. Samardzija - 5.35. Peavy - 6.00 (1.50 in relief) Cain - 6.84.
That just isn't going to get it done.
That wasn't helped by our bullpen woes with Casilla, Romo and Osich all scuffling, to one extent or another for significant stretches of the season. Though much of the bullpen has been good post-All Star. Lopez is back on track after a disastrous pre-All-Star start and Strickland, Law and Kontos are pitching well from the bullpen. And Peavy has been surprisingly good from the bullpen though it's just 6 innings so far. I think long-reliever may be his future and he's certainly a guy who can go through an order once or twice without much trouble (it being the 3rd that seems to be killing him).
So, hoping for the best even if it's kind of depressing to watch this collapse.