Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Game Wrap 8/30/2016: D'Backs 4 Giants 3

Johnny Cueto breezed through 4 innings, then inexplicably fell apart in the 5'th, giving up a 4-spot.  Meanwhile, the Giants offense could not take advantage of early opportunities against a subpar Zack Greinke and ultimately came up short.  Key Lines:

Angel Pagan- 3 for 5, 2B.  BA= .294.  Another nice line for Pagan who was clearly hobbled by a hammy as he jogged to 2B on what should have been an easy triple at full speed.

Hunter Pence- 3 for 3, 2B, BB.  BA= .281.  Pence was back in the lineup and seemed OK, but Denard Span left the game early with more neck stiffness in addition to Pagan's hammy problem.

Johnny Cueto- 4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 5 K's.  ERA= 2.98.  Through the first 4 innings, Cueto showed no signs of the collapse to come in the 5'th.  After watching the 5'th while listening to Kruk and Kuip describe the action, I am still not sure what happened.  Cueto's velocity was good, up to 94 MPH on one pitch.  He was down in the zone which would indicate he was not fatigued.  He did seem to be nibbling a lot and the ump seemed to squeeze him on a few key pitches, but mostly he just lost his command, ran up a bunch of 3-2 counts and then got hit when he threw a get-it-over.  Cueto gave up 3 of  his 4 walks and 3 of his 5 hits in the inning which he was not able to complete.

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The Giants came into the game trailing the Dodgers in the NL West by 1.5 games after LA got pounded by the Rockies 8-1 on 8/29.  The Dodger-Rockie game was postponed so the Giants end up trailing by 2 games.  They are 1 game ahead of the Cardinals for the first Wild Card Playoff spot and 3.5 games ahead of the Mets and Pirates for the second WC spot.

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Matt Moore tries to end the homestand on a positive note today facing Shelby Miller.

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Interesting interview with Steve Decker in Giants Extra, linked to the left, about hitter development.  He's a bit of a motormouth, to say the least but gave some interesting insights into the Giants thinking.

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