The Giants scored on a pair of 2-run HR's by Brandon Belt and Nick Hundley, and that was all Chris Stratton and the bullpen needed to salvage a Win out of the weekend series with the Bad Guys. Key Lines:
Brandon Belt 1B- 1 for 3, HR(12), BB. BA= .302. The Big Guy needed 1 game to get warmed up and came out doing his thing: Taking walks and hitting dingers. Great to have him back in the lineup.
Nick Hundley C- 1 for 3, HR(8), BB. BA= .257. Seems to me Nick Hundley could be a starting catcher for several teams. Since his BA hit a nadir of .067 on April 12, he has hit .287 with 8 HR's and a SLG% of .602.
Chris Stratton RHP- 6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.22. Stratton seems to have found his groove again. This was his 3'rd QS out of 4 in June. He has a 2.35 ERA in that span.
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With the Win, the Giants pass the Rockies for 3'rd place in the NL West after the Rockies were outscored by the Rangers 13-12. The leading D'Backs lost to the Mets 5-3 so the Dodgers remain 1.5 games behind the D'Backs while the Giants are 4.5 games back. The Rockies trail by 5 games and the Padres lost to the Braves 4-1 to remain 6.5 games back in last place.
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The Giants now return home to begin a return series with the Marlins tomorrow night with Andrew Suarez facing lefty Caleb Smith.
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Brandon Crawford is expected to take a paternity leave for the birth of his 4'th child this week. Not sure which day that starts.
The Giants have signed Joey Bart with a signing bonus of slightly over $7 M. It's the largest bonus ever for a position player draft pick. Is that right? The Giants have reportedly signed their top 16 draft picks and 23 of their top 25. The highest unsigned pick is Ryan Olenek at #17. Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs seems to be under the impression he is not likely to sign. Overall, the Giants have signed 32 of their picks.
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4-6 wasn't what anyone wanted and the Giants lost 3 games to each of the teams ahead of them.
ReplyDeleteLook at the bright side -- it could have been worse.
If that's not satisfactory (how could it be?), the worst loss was by 2 runs, some timely hitting could have won some of those games, some the Giants were ahead and lost so they needed some timely pitching also, and with the exception of 3B (and temporarily SS) the team is intact and Bum is back -- almost where he needs to be.
Whether Longoria is a loss, we will see.
The Giants are also 10-7 for June (+ May 31) and all 7 losses were by 1 or 2 runs! No blow outs! Many of their 10 wins have been convincing.
As for injuries: "loss" of Longoria (.246/.278/.434, 10 HR, 0.3 WAR, -0.3 dWAR) for 6-8 weeks could be a mixed blessing depending on who replaces him and how well he does.
Ryder Jones is a year older and seems to have found his stroke in Sacramento (12-38, .316 last 10 games but without the pop) to spell Hanson and Sandoval.
Let's look forward to 10 games at home with teams behind the Giants and a resurgence of the Shark.
Hunter Greene signed with the Reds for $7.2M bonus, but is only a RHP (for now???) rather than a SS or two-way player. So, I guess $7M is the record signing bonus for a position player, but Harper got a $9.9M 5-year deal, but only $6.25M was a signing bonus. (And Mark Teixeira before him got a $9.5M contract including a a $4.5M bonus). Details from ESPN 2010: Harper's contract calls for a signing bonus of $6.25 million in five equal payments of $1.25 million: 30 days after approval and each July 1 from 2011 through 2014. He receives salaries of $500,000 each in 2011 and 2012, $750,000 in 2013, $900,000 in 2014 and $1 million in 2015.
ReplyDeleteWill Cueto be back in the rotation at the end of the homestand? Or after All-Star break.
ReplyDeleteHere's a little fantasy baseball (not the fantasy many of you play):
ReplyDeleteSF is 3 games behind LA.
Dodgers play 3 games on the road against the Cubs who are a half-game out of 1st. Stripling v Lester in the 3rd game.
Giants play at home against the hapless Marlins (forget about last week!) -- Giants featuring 2 rookies and a savvy vet.
Fantasy: 2 sweeps!
Go Giants! Go Cubs!