The Giants finished June 2018 like they started it, with a shutout. They also scored early and often and cruised to an easy win. Key Lines:
Buster Posey C- 3 for 5. BA= .290. Buster stroked opposite field hits in his first two AB's, then pulled one through the hole in the left side for his 3'rd hit. His second hit with 1 out in the 3'rd inning ignited a 4-run rally to effectively put the game away.
Andrew McCutchen RF- 3 for 5, 2B, HR(9). BA= .266. The D'Backs gave away the right side of their IF with an extreme shift and McCutchen played pepper with the RF. After the single through the right side hole, you could see Cutch mouth the words, "every time!" as he rounded 1B. The HR went to RF too, but of course he shift did not matter. Still, it was good to see Cutch driving the ball the other way. All 3 hits had exit velocities over 100 MPH.
Brandon Crawford SS- 1 for 3, HR(10), 2 BB. BA= .313. Crawford got the Giants on the board in the 2'nd inning with his 10'th dinger of the season, a long drive into the swimming pool area. He then drove in another run in the 3'rd with a bases-loaded walk and later came around to score a second run also.
Pablo Sandoval 3B- 1 for 5. BA= .262. Pablo made his 1 hit count with a bases-loaded single to drive in 2 in the 4-run rally.
Joe Panik 2B, 1 for 3, HR(4), SF. BA= .250. Joe capped off the Giants scoring with a HR to RF that skipped off the top of the yellow padding on the fence and straight off the wall a few feet behind the fence and back onto the field which created temporary confusion about whether it was a HR. It was! Joe barely missed a 3-run dinger in the 3'rd inning when he drove one to the base of the wall in CF but had to settle for a SF when it was caught by Jarrod Dyson.
Gorkys Hernandez CF- 2 for 4, BA= .287. Gorkys did not figure into the scoring but had another nice night at the plate. The pair of 2-out singles kept P Dereck Rodriguez from leading off the next inning. Gorkys also made a nice play in the second inning hustling after a hit into L-CF by Ketel Marte and throwing him out at 2B trying to stretch it into a double. Bruce Bochy thinks Gorkys should be an All-Star, according to Kruk and Kuip.
Dereck Rodriguez RHP- 6.1 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 3.16. Young Dereck got some help from a bad baserunning by Jake Lamb who put on the brakes too late rounding 3B after a double by David Peralta. He also got help in the 2'nd inning from Gorkys on the assist at 2B. Other than that, DRod was terrific with his FB command and a nice mix of secondary pitches to keep the D'Backs off balance. It was his 4'th QS out of 6.
Ty Blach LHP- 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 4.06. Blach retired all 5 batters he faced to shake off his last subpar outing.
Cory Gearrin RHP- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 4.55. Gearrin ends June on an up note. It was a remarkable month for the pitching staff as they finished with the second best Team ERA in MLB with 2.70 bested only by the Yankees at 2.62. The one big blemish on their June pitching record is 7 Blown Saves, second worst in baseball behind only the Twins and Blue Jays who had 8 each. This was the Giants 6'th team shutout of the month and 19'th game allowing 3 runs or fewer.
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The Dodgers lost to the Rockies 3-1 for the second game in a row, so the Giants(44-40) now trail the 2n'd place Dodgers(43-39) only by percentage points, 3.5 games behind the NL West leading D'Backs. The Rockies are in 4'th place, 6 games behind. The Padres bring up the rear with an 11 game deficit.
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Derek Holland goes for a series sweep today facing Zack Godley.
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Maybe Buster has been watching Slater and his inside out swing rack up those hits to RF ?
ReplyDeleteFun point, but I would say Buster has been doing it a lot longer than Austin Slater.
DeleteRF approach has always been Buster's ticket out of a slump.
DeleteI'm sold on young Dereck, and think he could be a very effective starter for years to come. He seems to know how to pitch 'smart', mixing his pitches well. I'm sure having a HOF catcher for a father helps, but he shows savvy that few young pitchers have.
ReplyDeletePosey: Breaking out of his mini-slump and is 5-for-10 in his last three games (which includes an 0-for-1 pinch at bat) after going 2-for-14 in his prior 4. Krukow pointed out that when he's in a slump he tends to go inside-out with his swing which leads to a lot of opposite-field hits. And sure enough two of his three hits were opposite field.
ReplyDeleteD-Rod: Had all four pitches working and changed his pitching selection as the game progressed to keep the hitters off balance. He started out with a heavy FB/CH mix. But then added the cutter and curve in heavier doses as the game progressed.
Defense: Despite the throwing error by Crawford and a bit of a muff by Hanson, there was a lot of nice defense last night. The run-down of Lamb after Hanson recovered. Hernandez gunning down Marte at 2B. Belt's diving grab that probably saved a run.
Honestly, last night was an all-around good game. The pitching was solid. The defense made some excellent plays. And the hitters hit, worked counts and did both the big and little things necessary to win.
This is the month of reckoning!
ReplyDeleteThe Giants with their rotation consisting of 3 rookies (Beede had a couple starts) and 2 2nd-year guys managed to stay in contention and the big guns maybe are coming back! At least one is.
Suarez and Rodriguez have more starts (19) than Bumgarner, Cueto, and Samardzija combined (18). The 2 rookies combined 6-5 record is better than the Big 3 at 5-6.
Like the kids a whole lot more than Holland.
I hear I made an appearance on TV after a few cocktails at this game. I should go back to watch it.
ReplyDelete