The Giants finally had a batter other than Joe Panik drive in a run, but Ty Blach's second start did not go as well as his first as the Giants dropped their Home Opener to an interleague opponent. Key Lines:
Joe Panik 2B- 2 for 4, HR(3). BA= .421. Breakout season for Panik?
Evan Longoria 3B- 1 for 4, HR(1). BA= .053. Hopefully this gets the monkey off Longoria's back and gets him going.
Ty Blach LHP- 4.1 IP, 10 H, 6 R, 2 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 5.79. Blach gave up 4 runs in the top of the first inning: IF hit, bunt hit, walk, LD, GB single, GB single, force out, force out. Yeah, I'd say there was some bad BABIP luck involved there. That is going to happen when you pitch to as much contact as Blach.
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The Loss left the Giants with a 2-3 record, tied for 2'nd place with the Rockies 1.5 games behind the 4-1 D'Backs who beat the Dodgers for the second straight game. The Dodgers are at 2-4, 2 games behind the leaders while the Padres got into the Win column topping the Rockies 8-4 leaving them 2.5 games off the pace.
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Johnny Cueto tries to salvage a split of this 2 game series tomorrow facing Felix Hernandez.
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Cutch took an interesting route to that ball that he made the diving catch on today. He's been a bit of a defensive adventure so far.
ReplyDeleteAdventure... Yes. That's a nice way to put it...
DeleteThis is the unwelcome stink in the (punch) bowl, but Posey is suposed to be the stick that stirs and he's done nothing, nada, nil to make much of anything happen. He always has better numbers when no one is on base but his clutch is not engaged when the ducks are ready to fly.
ReplyDeleteEither Buster steps up and leads or the Giants will fail.
What are you, some kind of troll or something? Buster Posey is not the reason why the Giants lost 90-whatever games last year and are 2-3 this year!
DeleteThis team is going to fall flat because of the pitching, not Posey. Get a clue.
DeleteNo, I am not a troll.
DeleteI've probably followed the Giants longer than most of those on this board. I "listened" live -- no TV in the rural South -- to the shot heard 'round the world.
Posey is not the "cause" of bad things that happen, and he obviously makes the team better than they would be without him. Overall, with Posey the Giants are very slightly a winning team, a few points above .500
My point was simply he has to make good things happen. That's what leaders do. That's not what he has done much of lately.
Sure, the others need to step up, but He left another 3 runners on base yesterday and the Giants lost by 2. He has -- 0 -- RBIs for the season.
And, their record would proably be the same with or without him so far this year!
There are a very few players in the history of MLB who are truly "clutch" or "unclutch", but the vast majority regress to their career mean in all situations. Buster Posey was part of 3 championship teams. He continues to post solid WAR scores every year. You just cannot bury him on a 4 game sample size. He is most definitely not the cause of the the Giants offensive struggles over the first 5 games anymore than any player not named Joe Panik.
DeleteThis is crazy sauce! Posey leads our most important part of the team: the pitching staff! He's also probably our best hitter on the team, and probably will lead the team in OBP again. He's still one of the better framers in the league.
DeleteAnd Posey can't drive in what isn't on base ahead of him. Both the leadoff and #3 hitter have not been getting on base, and Panik has been driving himself in mostly.
PLus, as DrB aptly noted, it's only 5 games!!! You might have seen Mays catch, but given the way you threw Posey under the bus, you would have thrown Mays under the bus when he had his bad start to his career: 1 for 26 in his first seven games.
Posey is hitting .300/.391/.400/.791 right now, so, no, he is not the reason the offense has been limping along, I think we will find that we were limping along was because it was small samples that happens at the beginning of the year, when you have no experience on how good/bad the lineup is. I think this offense (assuming everyone is healthy enough and productive to expectations) will be above average this season and be a large factor in making this team competitive.
If Blach falters maybe Pierce Johnson will get some starts??
ReplyDeleteWe'll hope that isn't necessary.
DeleteOnce Samardzija comes back and do what he can do, Blach is a capable 5th starter who will become the long reliever he was going to be until both Samardzija and Bumgarner went down. Historically, even during the prime early years of the dynasty, the Giants won even though their 5th starter was not consistently one person. Once Blach is returned to his long relief role, we'll have a good rotation with Bumgarner, Cueto, Samardzija, Stratton, and Holland.
DeleteHolland is also a capable 5th starter, and hopefully better. We'll have a better view into that with more starts, but although he gave up many runs in his first start, that was due more to errors in the OF, than bad pitching on his part. I'm still hopeful that he can be solid as a starter again.
My main worry for him is whether he can stay effective all season long, and with Blach around, maybe the Giants can do a hybrid starting rotation, where Holland and Blach can swap roles every other 5th start, given both 10+ days between starts, with one relief appearance as the first reliever for the other's start, piggy-backing each other.
I don't see Pierce Johnson getting starts. We got good SP prospects in Beede and Suarez in the minors, as well as vets like Heston and Kelly, and Johnson has been effective as a reliever.
DeleteBut he has been a starter not that long ago (though not that great in AAA), and presumably there is a reason the Cubs just converted him to relieving from starting in 2017.