Madison Bumgarner woke up the echoes with a dominating 8 shutout inning performance to lead the Giants to a Win over Tyson Ross and the Pesky Padres in AT&T Park. Key Lines:
Alen Hanson LF- 1 for 4, 3B. BA= .311. Was Hanson just protecting Mac Williamson and Hunter Pence a very tough RHP or is he the Giants new LF? His leadoff triple in the 8'th led to a couple of insurance runs for Mark Melancon.
Buster Posey C- 1 for 3, BB. BA= .290. Buster singled up the middle to drive in Hanson in the top of the 9'th. He also made an athletic play at the plate to tag Jose Pirela trying to score from 1B on a double. More on that later.
Pablo Sandoval 3B- 1 for 4. BA= .281. Pablo scored the first run of the game in the 5'th inning after leading off with a single up the middle. He also fielded a bunch of hot shots at 3B and made it look easy.
Joe Panik 2B- 2 for 3, 2 2B. BA= .247. The Boxscore doesn't show that Panik scored or drove in a run nor does it credit him with an assist, but he had as much to do with winning this game as anyone. His double sent Pablo Sandoval to 3B with no outs to set up Bummy's sac fly for the first run of the game, he then made an almost perfect relay throw to nail Jose Pirela at home. More on that later.
Madison Bumgarner LHP- 0 for 1, SF. BA= .000. For awhile it looked like Bummy might drive in the only run of the game with a SF at the end of a great PA in the 5'th inning.
Madison Bumgarner LHP- 8 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 8 K's. ERA= 3.20. Vintage game from Bummy who was throwing darts out there and mixing in all of his pitches including an increasingly lethal changeup. Gotta say I was a little surprised he did not come out to start the 9'th inning after throwing 100 pitches.
Bummy was helped by a terrific piece of team defense in the 5'th inning. With the score still tied at 0 and Jose Pirela, a fast runner at 1B, Manuel Margot lined one up against the RF wall. Andrew McCutchen got himself in a great position, barehanded the ball and threw a seed to the cutoff man, Joe Panik who turned and in one motion threw a strike to Buster. Pirela ran through his 3B coach's stop sign and was out by 10 ft, but Buster had to make an athletic, diving tag to prevent the run from scoring.
Mark Melancon RHP- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, Save(1). ERA= 2.35. Melancon gave up a leadoff single on a hanging curveball but settled down to easily retire the next 3 batters. I saw at least a couple more hanging curves in the process, though. Gotta think if Melancon is finally fully healthy, it's only a matter of time until he takes over the sole Closer role, sooner than later.
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The Win allowed the 3'rd place Giants to keep pace with the NL West leading D'Backs who beat the Pirates 9-3. The Giants trail the Snakes by 4 games. The 2nd place Dodgers were idle to slip to 2 games behind the D'Backs. The Rockies topped the Mets 6-4 to remain 4.5 games behind the leaders. The fading Padres fell to 8.5 games off the pace in last place. The Giants also again reached the .500 mark at 38-38
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Chris Stratton tries to extent the Giants win streak to 4 games tonight facing another Giants nemesis in lefty Clayton Richard.
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Bumgarner: Read this somewhere -- Bumgarner is only one three pitchers to pitch 7 innings (or more) of a shut-out AND drive in the winning run. Fernando Valenzuela and Stephen Strasburg are the other two in the past FORTY YEARS.
ReplyDeleteHanson: I guessing they're just going to move him around to get him on the field. Sort of a Zobrist thing. BTW, watching that triple last night, he has some impressive wheels. I watch him run the basepaths and there's just nobody else on the roster that really comes close. His best speed this year (Statcast -- Feet per Second) has been 28.5 peak. Last year it was 29.3 peak. League average is 27.0. But he also gets to top-speed faster than anyone else. So even though some have a slightly better top-speed, he still covers the 90' faster.
Belt: Speaking of Statcast. Along with hitting .305 Belt is #7 in all of MLB in xwOBA at .432 and 13th at .400 OBA He's also 21st in SLG and 5th in xSLG. I just wish they had a neutral park slugging metric where they build a composite, neutral park and overlaid his hits so we could compare him that way. Add in GG defense and he's arguably one of the two best 1B in the NL.
Kruk said Hanson went from home to 3B in 11 secs flat on the triple.
DeleteWho was the last Giant 1Bman to bat cleanup regularly?
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is testimony to the state of the Giant OF.
June 21, 2018, Bumgarner gets his first win of the season.
Well, they call them "Boys of Summer"
The Shark's second Sacramento outing yesterday was a mixed bag but he struck out 7 in 4 innings with -- 0 -- walks.
Giants @ 38-38: CBS Sportsline odds are ~11-1 and "538" ~5-1 against an SF post season.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think?
It's sort of the probability of 12-13 players (half the active roster) approaching good expectations: Bumgarner, Cueto, and SP-3, 4 RP (a new "Core Four"), Posey, Belt, Crawford, McCutchen, plus 1 (preferably 2) from the rest of the position players.
Likelihood? May well be 10-1 against that!
90 wins would likely do it. That's 52-34 .604 W% the rest of the way.
In 2016, the Giants were 57-33 @ the ASG break with Bumgarner, Cueto, and Samardzija, a Core Four of sorts, Posey, Belt, Crawford, Pence but no one else approaching good expectations, possibly Pagan.
Panik and Duffy/Núñez were scuffling then like Panik and Longoria now.
Can 2 of Sandoval, Williamson, Panik, and Hanson rise to the occasion?
The new Core Four could be OK, or even better than 2016.
So, where is Cueto and who is SP-3?
Cueto may be a week away but more likely 2 weeks at best and how good will he be?
Holland and Stratton have been pretty much the same pitcher but the Giants have scored more runs for Stratton. Is one of them SP-3?
Suarez and Rodriguez are wild cards, but, of the Giants who have started games this year, Suarez has the 3rd lowest WHIP (behind Cueto & Bumgarner) and the best K/W ratio.
8 games left in June. Believe it or not, in June, the Giants are 12-8 (the magic .600!) Winning 5 of the 8 is possible (a loss each to SD, Col, and AZ) and the June swoon is 17-11, .607 and everyone is healthy (or almost)!
For July, up to the ASG break, 11 games: 3 road games (1 AZ, 3 Col), then 7 @ home (4 StL, 3 Cubs).
That last 7, may determine whether the Giants are buyers are sellers. Win 4 and SF is a player!