Average Derek Holland vs Average Aaron Nola is a mismatch. Nola wins that face-off hands down. Tonight we got Average Derek Holland and Nola at his best in a game that was not nearly as close as the score might lead you to believe. Key Lines:
Brandon Belt 1B- 2 for 4, SB(2). BA= .297. The Giants actually scored first in this one. Belt led off the 2'nd inning with a single. Evan Longoria doubled him to 3B from which he scored on a groundout by the other Brandon. Belt is having a good season and is on track to record more than 5 fWAR.
Pablo Sandoval PH- 1 for 1, HR(2). BA= .255. Pablo is becoming a nice bat off the bench.
Derek Holland LHP- 5 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 5.66. 5 IP, 3 R. That's right about what you can reasonably expect from Derek Holland. Giants have to plan on scoring more runs on days he pitches. Sometimes they will, but not against Aaron Nola on a good day for him.
Aaron Nola RHP(Phillies)- 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 12 K's. ERA= 2.05. Aaron Nola came into the game with the 11'th highest fWAR of all MLB pitchers. He undoubtedly improved on that considerably in totally dominant start. Nola is the poster child for drafting SEC college pitchers high in Round 1. Drafted #7 overall in 2014. MLB debut in 2015. Struggled a bit in 2016. Improved in 2017 and now appears to be an ace.
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The Loss dropped the Giants to 5 games behind the NL West leading D'Backs pending the outcome of their game with the 4'th place Dodgers who are 8 games off the pace. The Rockies topped the Angels and sit 3 games back for now while the Padres lose to the Nationals and are 11.5 games behind the leaders.
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Chris Stratton tries to get the Giants back no the winning track tomorrow evening facing RHP Nick Pivetta.
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Giants recalled Derek Law. 9.95 ERA. 10.12 in AAA.
ReplyDeleteI know he only gets tossed into lost causes, but still...
I'm with you Doc: Can we please get a peak at Ray Black?
I know it wasn't that close. What did he have, 10 or 11 strike outs by the 5th inning and a dozen over-all? One run allowed over 5 hits in 7 innings. It was a dominating start by Nola.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, Holland... We're lucky the damage wasn't greater. Fortunately the Phillies manager let Nola swing away with bases loaded, one-out and we wee saved by a double play. When Bumgarner and Cueto get back, he needs to be the first one gone, not Suarez or Blach.
I remember the narrative on Nola leading up to the draft was a really high floor guy, the most mob ready of all the pitching prospects, but maybe not dominating stuff being the only knock on him. Well, now he comfortably looks like a top 10 pitcher. I wonder if this template can be applied to most drafts, at least with pitchers: go for high floor guys, near-mlb ready guys, don't need to wow you with stuff necessarily, maybe even be wary of the tantalizing stuff guys.
ReplyDelete17 strikeouts on the night by Giants batters didn't help things much. Sure could use Mac back, any day now.
ReplyDeletePhillies had the best of the pitching matchups in games 1 & 2, Giants should have that in games 3 & 4.
ReplyDeleteOutcome will depend on SF hitters recovering from 2 dismal outputs against 2 formidable opposing performances which limited Giants to 0-9 RISP, 13 LOB.
It would help to bring some reinforcements for 3 OFers who are contributing nothing other than a little O from Gorkys.
Did we think the 2017 OF was bad?
Shaw, Slater, and Duggar anyone?
Mac / Slater / Gorkys in OF.
DeleteGames like these bring out frustrations -- here's some purposeless venting:
DeleteIn his short stay in 2018 Slater batted only .200 (2-10), but with 3 walks and a HBP his OBP was .429 -- VERY SSS --.
Sure, it means nothing but it got him a ticket back to Sacramento due to the Giants being locked into 3 not very good OFers, now they're just playing with 4 because they need an extra relief pitcher.
In 2 tough games against Philly, Giants were 12-61 .197 (excluding pitchers) and 10-47 .213 (excluding pitchers and Blanco, Hernandez, and Jackson), which only says the rest of the team is slightly better than the combination of OFers not named McCutchen, which everyone in the galaxy who follows MLB knows.
Giants are kinda in a box but could they be worse off with some of the River Cats getting major league at bats?
When the season started everyone understood that everything had to go right for the Giants to make the playoffs this year. As luck would have it, the Dodgers have struggled due to injuries opening the door a bit more for the Giants. Unfortunately for the Giants, injuries have hit us just as hard as the Dodgers making our playoff chances a small miracle at this point.
ReplyDeleteAnything can still happen but the season has gone far from perfect as we all knew it had to for them to have a chance. The bullpen has pitched better than expected and we have gotten some gutty performances from Blach, Stratton, and Suarez to make up for Madbum, Cueto, and Sharks absences. The rest of the offseason moves have been average at best.
At what point should the Giants change their philosophy of trying to compete with the current veteran core that we all love and start looking at a mini rebuild? I understand the Giants will never have a sell off like the Marlins or Pirates did this year but there has to be some middle ground. Was this a last ditch effort bringing in Cutch and Longo and trying to squeeze out one more year from the Belt, Panik, Posey, Pence, and Crawford core? If so, I think we can all agree that without our Aces healthy all year that strategy will fail.
Belt is finally hot enough to be a decent trade chip and his salary and position block much needed flexibility for the organization. It is a tired take but still makes the most sense with Posey eventually needing to take over 1B or Shaw being given a shot there. Crawford is another who's value could take a huge nose dive if he continues to slip on defense and hit inconsistently. If trading Belt is crazy talk then trading Posey would be lunacy but he does have the most value of anyone other than MadBum on this team.
Next year all of these guys will be older, slower, and have less trade value. They aren't the only players on this roster who have trade value either and if we aren't winning this year with the current cast, next year will be even more difficult. At what point does management start entertaining offers to clear payroll and plan for next year? The stadium isn't selling out and won't when they continue to nose dive so what will it take to get this team competitive again and put butts in seats? I vote for clearing payroll and getting back ANY prospects they can in return and in the offseason have a plan that starts with Machado and Harper and quickly shifts to Marwin Gonzalez/Moustakas/Dozier if they don't work out. Build the farm system and maybe it can be a 1-2 year turnaround.
Giants just need Mac W back in LF and Bumgarner and Cueto back on the mound. The next best three pitchers would be Stratton, Suarez and Blach wouldn't they? Samardjiza can go to long relief and Holland gone. And yes, Ray Black not Derek Law. Austin Slater not Austin Jackson. Steven Duggar not Gregor Blanco. Everything else is fine, eh?
ReplyDelete