Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Game Wrap 5/22/2018: Astros 11 Giants 2

The Giants took on arguably the best team in baseball.  It did not go well.  Key Lines:

Brandon Crawford SS- 2 for 3, HR(5).  BA= .309.  There might not be a hotter hitter in all of baseball right now, except for maybe Brandon Belt.  Crawford got some family bragging rights by taking his bro-in-law deep, but Gerrit Cole and the Astros got the last laugh in this one.

Andrew Suarez LHP- 4 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 2 BB, 2 K.  ERA= 5.68.  Let's see, what do George Springer, Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and Yuli Gurriel have in common?  They all are darn good RH batters and they are all in the Astros starting lineup.  Andrew Suarez is a lefty making his 6'th MLB start.  Gotta say, the results here were not unexpected.

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The D'Backs lost again, this time 1-0 to the BrewCrew and now trail the Rockies by 1 game in the NL West pending the outcome of the Rockies-Dodgers game which the Dodgers currently lead 5-3 in the 6'th inning.  The Giants trail the Rocks by 2.5 games.  The 4th place Dodgers trail the Rockies by 5.5 games and the Padres bring up the rear, 7 games back after losing to the Nationals 2-1.

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Jeff Samardzija will try to fare better tomorrow and gain a split in the 2-game series facing Justin Verlander which is almost comical.  Hey!  There's a reason why they play the game!

9 comments:

  1. giants might want to take a flyer on phil hughes for the league minimum once he clears waivers as a stopgap in the rotation

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    1. Is Scott Feldman still unsigned?

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    2. MLBTR so indicates he is not. Either Feldman or Hughes would fit into the Giants broken-down rotation just fine

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    3. I checked Baseball Reference and Wikipedia; still shows as free agent.

      Richard in Winnipeg

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    4. Timmy is eligible to come off the 60-day DL, Rangers have no use for him, maybe they would rent him cheap. And throw in Delino DeShields, can't hit but CAN play CF.
      And Brad Penny isn't playing -- tomorrow is his 40th birthday.

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    5. The Rangers have been crap this season, no thanks to Moore, either, so they should be willing to pass Timmy along to the Giants, if they were interested.

      Wouldn't mind DeShields, but he's already got 0.8 bWAR, playing great CF defense, so I don't think they will give him up willingly or cheaply.

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    6. Timmy is done and I think the Giants know it. He's not the answer to their pitching problems.

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  2. I know we lost, but we did win behind Zito against Verlander! Win when it counts!

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  3. FYI, Suarez has actually been pretty good, doing even more than I had hoped when I had him as the dark horse to make the Opening Day starting rotation, I wouldn't have been surprised if beat out Blach.

    However, he has been suffering from too many hits (high BABIP of .348; mean around .290-.300) and too many homers. He was right around 9 K/9 in his first six starts so far (8.5 K/9) and his xFIP (which tries to eliminate the effects of too many hits and homers) is 3.52 and his SIERA, another measure that tries to measure his talent in ERA terms, is 3.68. Average NL SP has 3.98 ERA in 2018, so he's actually been pitching really well but suffering from some possible bad luck with base hits and homers.

    But a great start so far, and if everyone was healthy and the Giants selected their starting 5, he should be one of the five, along with Stratton. Plus, of course, Bum, Cueto, Shark.

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