The Giants unleashed to relentless 18 hit attack that wore down Gerrit Cole and the Pirates to pick up a struggling Johnny Cueto and extend their winning streak to 4 games. Key Lines:
Denard Span CF- 4 for 5, HR(5), BB, SB(4). BA= .298. Span led off the game with a 411 ft HR off Gerrit Cole who was hitting 97-99 MPH with his FB. Span has had a tremendous June finishing the month with a .374 BA.
Joe Panik 2B- 3 for 5, BB. BA= .279. Panik also had a great June finishing with a .341 BA.
Hunter Pence RF- 3 for 4, BB, HBP. BA= .269. At the end of the day, the first 3 batters in the Giants lineup reached base 14 times. Pence hit .289 for the month of June.
Buster Posey C- 1 for 5, 2B. BA= .341. A bit of a frustrating game for Buster but the double was scorched down the LF line and drove in 2 runs.
Brandon Belt 1B- 2 for 4, 2B, HR(15), BB, SF. BA= .232. A great game for Belt who hit just .221 for the month of June but has hit .295 since June 17. He ended an 11 game hit streak on Thursday against the Rockies with an 0 for 4, but came right back with one of his best games of the season tonight.
Austin Slater LF- 2 for 5. BA= .338. Right now, Slater seems to be exclusively going to RF, which he is having success with. Reminds me a bit of the pro debut of a Giant from the distant past, Dirty Al Gallagher. Somehow managed to hit a ball almost to the warning track with a broken bat. The kangaroo court, it the Giants have one, should have fun with that one.
Ryder Jones PH/3B- 1 for 3. BA= .053. Jones broke the hex and got his first MLB hit and scored his first MLB run. Got lots of high 5's and gave back a lot of smiles in the dugout.
Johnny Cueto RHP- 5 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 4 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.20. Cueto gave up 3 runs in the first inning, then sweated through 4 more with runners on base every inning on a muggy night in Pittsburgh. He somehow managed to pitch his way out of every jam in innings 2-5. He threw 114 pitches in the 5 inning effort.
Dan Slania RHP- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 0.00. Big Dan Slania makes his MLB debut a success with a scoreless frame in mop up time. He featured a FB that ran 92-93 MPH and a very slurvy breaking ball that might have been just a bit too easy for hitters to pick up early.
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Matt Moore hopes to fool the Pirates hitters a bit more than he did the Mets in his last start. He'll be facing Chad Kuhl tomorrow evening.
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80 games left, 20 under 500.
ReplyDeleteStill would trade Span and Pence if anyone was interested. Turn over the entire outfield with the exception of Slater. Have nothing to lose this year and may get some useful pieces for next and beyond
ReplyDeleteAs always, it depends on what you can get in return, what you have to replace the traded players with and what you can do with the money saved. I absolutely would not trade Span or Pence unless the receiving team took on the rest of their salary commitment which means the return would not be a lot. The Giants could use the $28 M saved in this offseason's FA market which has quite a few interesting players in it.
DeleteThere is 0 chance I'd trade Pence. Far too loved by fans. The markets my is worth his contract for the next year and a half.
DeletePeople might actually have to start liking Brandon Belt soon...
ReplyDeleteBelt's homer probably would have been an out at AT&T. Denser air at AT&T (cold + sea level) would have knocked it down to the wall, possibly the warning track. This is the physics of it:
ReplyDelete1000 feet of increase in altitude -- +7 Feet
10 increase in degrees of air temp -- +4 Feet
1 inch drop in Barometer -- +6 Feet
Standard flight model of the baseball is computed at a 29.92 barometric with 70F temperature and 50% relative humidity (LA in April). (Dry matters too. Damp balls have a slightly lower coefficient of rebound that dry ones. That's why the Rockies now keep the game balls in a humidifier set at 50%. But that doesn't effect the launched model.)
A standard angle/velocity HR ball (the model, not an actual average) that will travel 400 feet (sea level, 70F) will only travel 395 at AT&T in July (which is a decent month). However, it will travel, on average, 410 feet for the Rangers. It would go 417 feet for the Diamondbacks in Arizona. It would go, on average, 406 in Pittsburgh.
Those differences made a difference last night.
In fact, the best month at AT&T to hit HRs is September where the model hit will travel 397 feet. Or, in short, there is never a favorable time of the year at AT&T. Unless there's a freak heat wave...
This is from the book "The Physics of Baseball" by Robert K Adair.
And yet it WAS a homerun...Geez, some just want to look at the negative in everything...
DeleteI think Moses was just trying to point out how many more HR's Belt and the Giants would hit if they played anywhere else but AT&T Park.
DeleteIt's not a negative. Slater just hit one that barely cleared the fence in Pittsburgh to tie it up. That's have been an out and we would have just lost that game.
DeleteInstead its' extra-innings.
My POINT is that AT&T is a right ******* to hit the long ball. So when people complain, they have to realize that at no time, unless there's a rare heat wave, will the local conditions favor the long-ball. So all the constant harping on power, especially Belt who is LH power and has it worse than equal RH power, is fruitless.
And that home run, was a good example. The home run Slater hit to tie the game is even better. Cleared the wall by inches. Would have died before the warning track at AT&T.
Good points but the park suppresses HR's for all teams and it helps to hit as many or more than the other team. Otherwise you have to make it up on BIPs and then you are at the mercy of the BABIP gods. Living on BIPs works in a low scoring/low HR environment but when runs and dingers are up all around the league it becomes harder. Maybe not impossible, but harder.
DeleteWhat's the point of Ryder Jones struggling?
ReplyDeleteIs it good for him? Does being overmatched help self esteem?
He got his ABs, he got his hit, he may be the future, but wouldn't it be better to see if there's some there for Hwang?
When did Chad Kuhl from Bear, Delaware become the latest incarnation of Cy Young? How could Belt, Pence, and Crawford go 0-14?
1-8 RISP beats 1-11 if you get a good wild pitch! Not too bad when you can score 2 of 7 or 8 baserunners.
And what was the LAME interpretation that gor Belt doubled up? Is that what replay is for?
1. Just to my eye, Ryder Jones is far superior to Hwang defensively, so that may have something to do with it. 2. Jones has had some hard hit balls go right at defenders. 3. Chad Kuhl has good stuff. He was sitting mid-90's on the FB. 4. Bad call on Belt by replay officials, IMO. May have been the letter of the law but not the spirit.
Delete