Well, then! Jae-Gyun Hwang followed up his rough spring opener with a 3-run dinger to lead the Giants to a come-from-behind win over the World Series Champion Cubs. Key Lines:
Orlando Calixte SS- 1 for 2. BA= .500. Calixte played 2B and SS yesterday and drew a walk. Look for him to play some OF too, but this may come down to whether the Giants think he can cover SS better than Tomlinson.
Austin Slater PR-RF- 1 for 2. BA= .250. Slater won't be on the Opening Day roster, but will get plenty of looks what with the long spring and all. He went 0 for 2 but with a SB yesterday.
Jae-Gyun Hwang 3B- 1 for 3, HR(1). BA= .333. Dingers will get you noticed! Hwang's 6'th inning opposite field blast broke open a game in which the Giants has just taken a 4-3 lead. Nice recovery from a rough first game!
Ryder Jones 3B- 1 for 1. BA= 1.000. I always make not of any good things the prospects in camp do. IMO, Jones has a very underrated hit tool.
Justin Ruggiano RF- 1 for 2, 2B. BA= .500. Ruggy's double fueled a 3-run rally to tie the score in the 5'th inning. He hit it off a RHP.
Kelby Tomlinson 2B- 1 for 2, SB(1). BA= .500. Kelby is kind of like the Energizer Bunny. Don't count him out!
Matt Cain RHP- 2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, ERA= 4.50. Cain is not going to lose the #5 starter job in his first appearance of the spring, but at some point I would think he needs to prove he can get hitters out.
Mark Melancon RHP- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K, GO/AO= 2/1. ERA= 0.00. Melancon is boring and that is a good thing.
Ty Blach LHP- 2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 4.50. Cain and Blach went H2H in this one and I will call it a draw which is a win for Cainer. Blach got hit around a bit which is bad, but he pitched out of jams in both innings, which is good.
Josh Osich LHP- 1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 18.00. Ouch! It's a long spring and this does not decide anything but not a good look for Osich.
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Giants travel to Goodyear, AZ to take on the Reds with lefty Matt Moore getting the start and Tyler Beede scheduled to appear later in the game.
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It's confusing to have so many vets on minor league contract with an spring invite. But it does increase the giants' chances for winning preseason games for what it is worth... maybe some young players can learn something from the vets while they are there.
ReplyDeleteSpring Training is long for the same reason the season is long: it takes a lot of games to know anything about the real value of players.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, are 36 games necessary after nearly 2 weeks of conditioning?
That's half an entire college baseball season!
After 2 games, about all we know is the Giants want to see a lot of guys compete for the last few spots, and had a good plan to get through 6-7 weeks of this without boring us. Too much.
BUT, whodda thunk the G-men would start with TWO come-from-behind ugly wins just for starters!
Even as long as it is, spring training is too small a sample size to make any judgements about in-season performance. I suppose a trained scout's eye can pick up subtle things that don't show up in the stat lines which tell you whether aging players still have the tools to play or whether a young player is "ready", but other than that, spring training is basically a crapshoot and a terrible forum for making roster decisions.
DeleteMost players these days come to camp in excellent physical condition. IMO, spring training could be shortened to 3 weeks. 1 week for pitchers and catchers and 2 weeks of exhibition games. I would point to college ball where they go directly from workouts to playing games that count with starting pitchers going 6-7 innings the first weekend and CG's by the second weekend. I believe minor league spring training is much shorter too, 3-4 weeks?
So I'm reading at the Giants official site this AM. Cain is like "I'm looking for my mechanics..." I'm like... We've been hearing this for years now. In 2013... 2014... 2015... 2016...
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to say that it's likely that you're not ever going to find them. And at this point in time, all I see on the mound is an extreme FB pitcher who used used to baffle hitters, miss the barrel of the bat while inducing weak-contact and pop-ups and is now giving up HRs because he leaves too many fat ones in the middle of the plate. And that's been getting worse for four years now, not better or stabilizing.
At this point I'm just hoping Beede or Blach or somebody can step and take the #5 spot. Because I so don't any reason to hope Matt Cain will ever find his mechanics.
Cain had it going pretty good last year before he pulled the hammy. I think the mechanics will come if he can stay on the mound, but staying healthy has been and will continue to be his big challenge.
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