Monday, September 10, 2018

Game Wrap 9/10/2018: Braves 4 Giants 1

Sean Newcomb has not been very good for the last month or so.  I know because he's on my fantasy team.  The Giants managed just 3 hits off him in 6 innings and Young Dereck Rodriguez was saddled with a Loss in spite of his 10'th Quality Start out of his last 11.  Key Lines:

Dereck Rodriguez RHP- 6. 1 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 2.35.   It's tough to win when you get no run support.  Right now, the Giants are not capable of providing run support.  At Young Dereck and the bullpen kept it close until Hunter Strickland showed up with his gas can in the 9'th inning to put it out of reach.

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The Giants lost their 9'th game in a row.  Final standings for the night are not in, but I am pretty sure the Giants remain in 12'th place in the Tank Derby.

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Andrew Suarez tries to polish up his resume for next season tomorrow evening facing Mike Foltynewicz.

23 comments:

  1. It'll be nice when the season is over and we can start talking about who the Giants should trade/axe... D-Rod won't be on that list. But it won't take a rocket scientist to figure out which gas-can reliever will be...

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    1. Maybe Boch thought it would be less painful to lose 4-1 than 2-1 so he put Strickland in there? Seriously, I don't know why Strick keeps getting called on when the outcome of a game is still close to being in doubt.

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    2. ...or maybe Boch is seriously leading the tank charge?

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    3. Maybe they are tanking, but if they are tanking they should be trying to see what they're going to have next year. Slater played last night, he was the only young player to start despite the fact that it's obvious the Giants are going nowhere while starting Hernandez & Pence. I kind of see Hernandez because there's not really anyone else to play CF on the roster. But Pence? It's time to just sit him.

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    4. In the first half of the season Strickland had a .213 BAA and the OBP he yielded was pretty close to the SLG. In the second half the BAA is 50+ points higher and the gap between OBP and SLG is enormous. Isn’t the apt question why Bochy keeps using him when he plainly has not recovered fully from his hand injury in mid-June, since the season splits’ disparity can best be explained by that? My sense is that injured players typically come back too soon and become longer-term detriments, unable to heal fully and get their rhythm back while playing regularly, presumably because to accommodate the injury they make damaging adjustments.

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    5. True, but my guess is Shaw didn't play because the Braves had lefty Newcomb pitching. The only other OF they had on the bench was Blanco. This team is snakebit, even their rookies whom I wanted to see more of are hurt: Duggar, Mac, Ryder Jones.

      LG

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    6. you may be stuck with pence in left, shaw is not ready, blanco isn't an everyday outfielder. pence won't be back next year and this is an appropriate send off. i'd like to see miguel gomez called up at this point.

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  2. Before the season ends I think Giants can "catch" Twins and Blue Jay's in losses ... gotta have a goal!

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  3. Giants are tanking... right? There’s no way they won 4 in a row then magically became a 1-10 team.

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  4. As if 2-1 isn't out of reach!

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  5. Mets, Twins, and Jays only 3 games ahead, that could mean 9th pick.
    Rangers and Reds only 6 ahead -- the way it's going, how about 7th pick?
    The Dogs may need a sweep to finish the season -- will SF accommodate them?
    And they can get McCutchen back for a dime on the dollar -- he's continuing his not so robust season in NY.

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  6. It's pretty obvious it was McCutchen that kept the Giants at .500 where they were when he was traded but haven't won a game since!
    Oh-for-September?
    Wonder what the worst-ever record for a month is, this is a true-tank!
    Time for Dusty Baker?

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    1. I don't think I would want Dusty Baker in charge of a Giants pitching staff again.

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  7. A collection of good (not great) players supplementing a core of aging, formerly very-good-to-great players is NOT a recipe for success in the NL West. Layer on top of that the long term money commitments to those aging players and you have a roster problem. Bold action is required, or this is five year gully in the making, and an ugly fives at that.

    The Giants have some nice young pieces, like D-rod, Alan Hansen and Steven Duggar, and a few guys in the minors who look promising. But, there is NO WAY to build a championship run with the roster as it sits.

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    1. Compare this young, Cost-effective, controllable core from this team:

      Duggar, D-Rod, Panik, Hansen, Duggar, Mac, Stratton, Beede, Suarez

      With the 2010 young, cost-effective, controllable core:

      Posey, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Cain, Sandoval, Wison, Romo, Dirty Sanchez.

      The current core does not begin to measure up to the young quality players we had previously.

      Bridging this gap in FA has been both expensive and ineffective:

      Samardzija: $19,800,000
      Cueto: $21,800,000
      Melancon: 14,000,000

      It's not like signing expensive, ineffective FA's was unknown to the Giants, as their expensive FA's in 2010 were:

      Rowand: $13,600,000
      Renteria: $10,000,000
      Mark Derosa $6,000,000

      (All the solid FA pick ups in 2010 were of the "Dumpster Dive" vareiety: Casilla, Uribe, Huff, Burrell, Torres and an unexpected waiver grab of Cody Ross).

      So I'm not sure what the Giants have learned about FA.

      Unless the Giants overpay for extreme upper-tier FAs (Harper, Machado), their track record suggests staying out. And because there is so much money tied up in costly FA contracts and the big resigns (Belt, Crawford, Posey) and the inherited bad Longoria contact, I hope the Giants just stay away.

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  8. time to shut down strickland, velocity hasn't been the same since returning from injury and still looks hurt. i'm disappointed tyler rogers wasn't called up. strickland will likely be non-tendered this offseason at this rate.

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  9. 2019 - We gotta keep this core together !!! Posey / Craw / Belt / Pence - gotta keep these guys and now Longo is part of the core!

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    1. With all due respect, that "core" translates to a 70 win team..............on a good day.

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    2. Scott - I was being a facetious cheerleader - I would love to take a wrecking ball to the roster.

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  10. Giants fans need a forum like this to vent / ask questions / wonder where it all went wrong ... and to ponder the future.

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    1. Glad to provide it. I do draw a line at relentless attacks on individual players, the manager or management. It's OK to have your say, but if you post a comment every single day saying "Andrew McCutchen is a terrible player" or "Bochy hates kids and will only play vets, fire him!" or "The Giants don't care about winning", I'm eventually going to start hitting the button on you.

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    2. I think a strong argument can be made that the 2018 Giants have done a great job given the limitations of the roster and the many tough injuries they have suffered. You could argue that management made some miscalculations coming into the season, but look at how well guys from whom little was expected, like Derek Holland, Alan Hansen, Andrew Suarez, Derek Rodriguez, Todd Hundley have done.

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  11. I am curious - what is the all time record of futility given payroll - what is the highest amount of average salary for a year spread over the number of wins. This team has payroll close to $200M and only 68 wins so far. That would be $3 Million per win. This is the opposite of Money Ball - in fact is there a name for this type of expensive team?

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