Great pitching and 3-run home runs is a longstanding formula for baseball success. Buster Posey supplied the 3-run dinger and Ty Blach the pitching as the Giants evened their series against the reigning WS champs. Key Lines;
Buster Posey 1B- 2 for 4, HR(12), SB(5). BA= .322. Buster also busted a move on the basepaths showing off his newfound 5'th tool. He's hitting .444 while playing 1B this year and did not sound totally opposed to the idea of playing there more in the future when talking to Amy G after the game.
Brandon Crawford SS- 2 for 4, SB(3). BA= .231. Crawford showed off his wheels too!
Miguel Gomez 2B- 0 for 1. BA= .242. Per Alex P, Gomez left the game with an undisclosed injury after not looking like he felt too good running to first. Seems like every time a young player has seemed to be gaining traction, something like this happens this season.
Ty Blach LHP- 7 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 3 K's, GO/AO= 11/3. ERA= 4.15. This was Blach's 13'th QS this season and 6'th in his last 7 Starts. His ERA is 2.25 over those 7 Starts. So, everybody wants to know if this is sustainable. Stats people look at his K rate and say he'll certainly regress. Well, his BABIP of .297 is right about league average. His FIP is actually better than his ERA. His biggest statistical outlier is the second best HR/FB in MLB among Qualified pitchers at 7.3, so his xFIP which normalizes HR/FB is much higher than his ERA. On the other hand, Blach's highest HR/FB in the minors was 9.9, his first season in the homer happy PCL. Otherwise his current rate is right where he has been his whole career.
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Madison Bumgarner has a chance to finish the Giants homestand with a series win today facing Kyle Hendricks.
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The Cubs looked like anything but champions last night. Their big July acquisition José Quintana was scuffling against the mighty Giants, defense suspect, power muffled, clutch hitting non-existent. Yes, it's just one game, but they are likely to lose this series (confidence in Bumgarner and the next .400 hitter in the Majors playing 1B!) and Milwaukee won't go away.
ReplyDeleteHard to believe Cubs gave up Eloy Jimenez for Quintana -- they could have gotten any Giant starter not named Bumgarner (Cueto, Moore, Shark?), a reliever (Strickland?), and maybe a b/u shortstop (Kelby) for Jimenez!
I may be under-rating Quintana, but he's been blown out in a bunch of starts this year.
Doc, last word I saw last night was that Gomez's issue was with a knee. Nothing serious they said. Day to day.
ReplyDeleteBlach: Unlike Heston, Blach has not crumbled down the stretch after starting hot. In fact, it was more the opposite as he struggled in quite a few games in May/June after taking over for Bumgarner. But since his May/June struggles he's looking like he's learned a lot of hard MLB lessons and seems to be getting better as a pitcher over time, not worse.
ReplyDeleteI also kind of wonder where he'd be ERA wise (seeing as he's pitch-to-contact) if the Giants DRS wasn't -32 but was more along the +50 of last year... If we get no worse in -DRS, that's a 82 run swing.... Or even 2015's +27 DRS...
Last, of all 13 QS pitchers, Blach has the fewest starts (at 19). Most of them have at least 21 with many having 23.
Posey: Three (four?) steals in a week! Two in one game a few days ago...! Is it the MLB Apocalypse?
Posey is faster on the bases than out of the batters box. I counted 5 seconds this week on a ground ball. 4.5 is slow.
DeleteHe slid very hard into 2nd last night, it was pretty ugly.
Yeah, while he's not as bad as some, he's no Billy Hamilton.
DeleteWith Suarez knocking the door in the minors, may be able to leverage Blach's season into something for a trade. He may not regress but he is probably about at his ceiling right now too (IMO Suarez's is higher) and that still would have value to a team looking for a young starter.
ReplyDeleteBilly Baseball
I doubt if worse Giants will have a 5th starter better than Blach.
ReplyDeleteThere is just not good contact against him -- he doesn't blow it by the batters, but they don't (often) square it up.
Sure he needs 4 or more runs a game, maybe, to win, but 4 runs a game is pretty piddling!