The Giants were 1 out away from losing the series to the D'Backs when Alen Hanson stepped up to the plate to PH for Austin Jackson and tied it on a 2 run HR into the RF arcade. They went on to win it on a walk-off single by Brandon Crawford. Key Lines:
Pablo Sandoval 1B- 2 for 5. BA= .282. Batting second in the order is a bit of an odd place to find Pabs, but. there wasn't anything wrong with the results in this game. He is hitting .360 over his last 7 games, .300 over his last 15 and .308 over his last 30.
Andrew McCutchen RF- 2 for 5, 2 2B. BA= .253. Cutch hit .230 in April, .283 in May and he's at .308 so far in June. He's hitting .323 over his last 7 games, 10 for 31 with 4 doubles, a triple and 2 HR's.
Brandon Crawford SS- 2 for 5. BA= .324. Is Brandon Crawford heading toward MVP contention? After hitting .190 in April, he hit .412 in May and is now at .476 in June. His walk-off single in the 10'th drove in Cutch from 2B after Cutch's 2 out double.
Alen Hanson PH- 1 for 1, HR(5). BA= .346. OK, Alen Hanson had 3 AB's this series, all PH's. He hit 2 doubles and this game-saving dinger. He scored 3 runs and drove in 4. How crazy is that? Where would the Giants be without Alen Hanson in the organization? He can play CF, right? Maybe with Joe Panik back at 2B and Gorky's Hernandez Magic Wandu gone missing, it's time to start Hanson in CF? Or maybe just keep letting him PH at the key point in every game?
Chris Stratton RHP- 4 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.63. I guess we're back to 4-inning starts. It looked like Stratton was settling down in the 4'th inning, but he went single, double, walk to start the 4'th and Boch had seen enough.
Will Smith LHP- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 1.29. Smith inherited Stratton's mess in the 5'th inning. Runners on 1'st and 2'nd, a run in and no outs. A long flyball out advanced the runners. Smith then got the key strikeout, intentionally walked Chris Owings and then struck out Alex Avila to get out of it without further damage. In the end, this was a big turning point in the game.
Ty Blach LHP- 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 4.73. Blach has always been best the first time through a lineup. If he's comfortable coming out of the bullpen, long relief where he is expected to go 2 or 3 innings tops may be a nice fit for him.
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The Win gave the Giants a series win dropping the NL West leading D'Backs into a tie for first place with the Rockies who topped the Reds 6-3. The Giants remain in 3'rd place but just 1.5 games behind the co-leaders. The Dodgers lost to the Pirates 11-9 to drop 2 games back in 4'th place. The Pesky Padres beat ATL 3-1 and are just 4.5 games off the pace in last place.
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The Giants have a travel day heading out to Washington DC to face the Nationals with Andrew Suarez taking on Stephen Strasburg in game 1 tomorrow evening.
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I'll say it again - #FreeHanson
ReplyDeleteCAN Alen Hansen play CF??
DeleteTHAT would be a development. Or, are we talking like "Eugenio Velez CF"?
Hanson played 52 innings in CF last year for the White Sox.
Deletewith a UZR/150 of 19.5. His broader record as an outfielder is less promising. But he could probably learn and maybe become a small-z Zobrist.
DeleteFacebook: I missed that rally because the Facebook stream was so obnoxiously laggy and out of sync I finally turned it off in top of the 9th and watched the Warriors take down the Cavs. **** you MLB & Facebook for wrecking baseball with your gimmick promotion.
ReplyDeleteHanson: He has earned more time and a permanent spot on the roster. No ifs, ands or buts about it. As for his position, start him in CF. He may be 'rougher' at the position, but he has elite speed and puts in max-effort which can make up for some of his inexperience and I doubt he could be worse than Jackson who needs a to be DFA'd.
Stratton/McCutchen: I'm not putting it all on Stratton. There were some misplayed balls, one of which where McCutchen not only got a piss-poor jump, but he didn't put in much effort to track it down and make the play. That two runs in. Now we can argue that Stratton shouldn't have had runners on, but McCutchen didn't make a play (or really put in max-effort) on a ball that was not exactly a difficult catch at the MLB level. And it's not the first time I've seen that out of him that day. He didn't put much effort into his double which he could have possibly stretched into a triple. When he leaves in FA, I won't shed a tear. I just don't think he bat offsets his negatives. And while his defense had been trending up for a while, it's trending down yet again.
Sandoval: Krukow had an interesting take on Sandoval. First, both of his shoulders have been hurt since early-on in Boston so he'd lost his bat speed. His shoulders are now healthy and his bat-speed is back. Second, the Boston experience massively humbled him with a gigantic ego-blow. Consequently, he's a different Pablo in some positive respects (of which I don't remember the exact words) and that's helped him as a player and as a team-mate.
I sent an email this morning to MLB Tv and the Giants requesting they cease and desisted with Facebook.
DeleteIt was horrible trying to view
Richard in Winnipeg
Here is the response I got back from the Giants re Facebook
DeleteCustomer Service
Reply |
Today, 3:59 PM
You
Good morning Richard,
Thank you for contacting the San Francisco Giants. We sincerely appreciate hearing from our fans and value their opinions. As MLB conducts this social-first broadcast experiment, they welcome any feedback. Questions, comments and concerns can be directed to csresponse@mlb.com.
Please be aware that this was the last game of our season that will be broadcasted exclusively on Facebook.
We will say that the intention of moving the game to a Facebook, is to provide free access to fans across a wide geographical range. With the current broadcast schedule being a paid service available within certain territories, there are a large subset of fans who are unable to get the game. That being said, we respect that not everyone has or wants a Facebook account.
Again, we appreciate your feedback as MLB and their teams experiment with broadcast platforms.
Please reach out if you have further questions or concerns.
Best regards,
Courtney Tyler
Giants Customer Service
Richard in Winnipeg
Unsung heroes of 2018: Hansen, Pablo, Maronta, Hundley, Watson. We really need to take note of some cheap pickups that are paying major dividends. If you had told me that we would have no Bumgarner along with limited Cueto and Shark for the first 60 games, I'd say we'd be hovering around 20-40 record and looking at a firesale.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that we're in the NL West, which is scuffling and despite our run differential being .500 is a miracle that some of those guys listed deserve a lot of credit for. I also think we should take note of some of these young pitchers getting experience at this level, even if they haven't been phenomenal... Always a teeter totter wanting to give guys experience without tanking, but to have so many innings pitched by young guys and still be .500 is unbelievable. We will reap that for years to come IMO.
Cheers from OC,
Andy
"Always a teeter totter wanting to give guys experience without tanking, but to have so many innings pitched by young guys and still be .500 is unbelievable. We will reap that for years to come IMO."
DeleteCheers to that, Andy! Sanchez & Moronta, along with Blach & Slatter and RODRIGUEZ all getting serious exposure has been critical. Rodriguez and Sanchez are looking like keepers around the #3/#4 slots, while Slatter may improve and is likely a #5 starter at minimum, which Blach is a great guy to have around in the "Pettit-role".
A good year thus far, way more life in this team than expected. These guys can and may compete in the playoffs with some additions from the minors + strong returns from Cueto + Bumgarner. Looking forward to the 2nd half.
weren't Hanson and Dereck Rodriguez each 7 year FA's? When was last time any team had two impact players on the 25 man roster who were picked up this way? Whoever scoured the news wires and signed this pair to the home team deserves some recognition.
ReplyDeleteGiants minor league free agent scouting has been tremendously important contributions to each one of the WS titles. Aka the Giants are really good at dumpster diving.
ReplyDeleteJuan Uribe, Pat Burrell, Santiago Casilla, Andres Torres and of course Cody Ross for 2010.
Ryan Vogelsong, Gregor Blanco for 2012
Hunter Strickland, Yusimero Petit and Travis Ishikawa for 2014
Even though they lost to Cubs, Connor Gilispe was a good pick up.
2018 - Pablo Sandavol, Alan Hanson, Gorky Hernandez and Dereck Roderiguez??? Hopefully it works out.