Chris Stratton went from batting hero to pitching goat in less than 1 inning. Key Lines:
Nick Hundley C- 2 for 4. BA= .246. Hundley started the rallying the 2'nd inning with a single. He is hitting .391 over his last 7 games.
Brandon Crawford SS- 3 for 4. BA= .259. Crawford is 5 for 8 in his last 2 starts after a long severe slump.
Aramis Garcia 1B- 1 for 4, HR(3). BA= .333. Garcia has alway had toonder in this bat. He showed it in the 8'th inning when Craig Stammen was pounding the low-outside corner with hard sinkers. Instead of trying to pull them, like a lot of young hitters would do, Garcia drove the ball the other way for a rare dinger by a RH batter to RF in Petco Park. Man! Kruk and Kuip could not, would not, stop raving about that!
Chris Stratton RHP- 1 for 1, 2B. BA= .143. Stratton's double in the 2'nd inning came with 2 outs and drove in 3 runs to give the Giants a short-lived 3-0 lead.
Chris Stratton RHP- 3 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 4.88. Stratton may have been still thinking about that double when he took the mound on the bottom of the 2'nd inning and promptly face-planted, giving up a walk, single, single, single, SF, Sac, HR, Single before recording an unproductive out to end the inning. He came back out to pitch a scoreless 3'rd inning before ironically being lifted for a PH in the top of the 4'th.
Ty Blach LHP- 2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 4.28. This was a better outing than it looks from the line. Blach retired the first 6 batters he faced then gave up a leadoff single in the 8'th to Eric Hosmer who beat the shift with a ground ball past 3B. That brought in Ray Black to face the fearsome Franmil Reyes who drew a walk. Black got Cory Spangenberg to strike out, but then Freddy Galvis sat on a 99 MPH and turned it around for a 3 run dinger that put the game away and turned that single Blach gave up into an ER.
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The Giants remain in 12'th place in the Tank Derby.
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The Giants get a travel day to go to St Louis where Madison Bumgarner is scheduled to start Game 1 of the series Friday night against RHP John Gant. Remember Bummy left his last start early with tightness in his side.
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Garcia is shining! He has to be on the roster next year, likely taking Hundley's spot.. How is this 1B Defense?
ReplyDeleteRe-signing Hundley again for 1 year would be a great insurance policy.
DeleteRichard in Winnipeg
The Giants are on a downward slope which is difficult to see how, even if the Giants went all in for 2019, how they can become a World Series contender.
ReplyDeleteWe all know what happens with draft position after a period of success. Obviously the 1st Round becomes extremely hit-and-miss after the first 5-10 picks. And the Giants have pretty consistently missed in the 1st round picks that are later than 10th. (Brown, Beede, Stratton, Bickford. Maybe too soon: Arroyo. Even Panik is just kind of hanging in there.)
So, out of necessity, Giants have tried to restock high-end talent through FA and trades. Very little overall success there. Cueto had one great year. And...really not much else to help the Giants build a WS contender post 2014. (Acknowledging that Will Smith and Tony Watson have been great.)
Lack of offense though is just crushing this year. The highest slugging pct. for any Giant with more than 250 AB's is Alen Hanson. .422. Which is just...wow. He's not that valuable a bat, OPS+ at 92. He's just got the most pop.
Compare that to (3) Dodger Dumpster Dives over the past few years.
SLG OPS+
Justin Turner .526 155
Chris Taylor .444 107
Max Muncy .574 158
Turner and Muncy were waiver pickups. Taylor was picked up in a trade for Zach Lee, former late 1st Round pitcher who is 27 and has pitched 13 MLB innings. Not a ton of upside. Point is, all these guys were low-to-no risk guys who are having a bigger impact with the bat than any Giant.
And yes, Hanson was a low-risk FA. And while he is very useful, the slugging pct. is left-over from an unsustainable early season hot-streak that has long since ended.
We can go further with the Dodgers bats and include Puig. Say what you will about Puig but at, .509 slugging, 126 OPS+, he'd easily be the Giants best offensive player. Not to mention superior RF defense. And he was acquired, basically, free.
I see this as a lack of creativity on the Giants part. Coloring within the lines. It's extends to pitching where the Dodgers have also creatively filled needs:
Urias from Mexico.
Ryu from Korea.
Maeda from Japan (though here the creativity is the heavily incentive-laden contract)
I just don't see the Giants reaching outside the traditional box. They rely on the the draft, latin international signings, and trades.
This obviously worked really, really well. But I think that time is over. And it still seems like management does not see it. The McCutchen and Longoria trades (which I do not criticize) are evidence.
I'm not saying the Dodgers way is the way. I point them out because they are right in front of us, on their way to a 6th-straight division title. And they are not losing momentum. The Giants seem complacent in their past success in that their methodology has not changed.
If just 3 players, Johnny Cueto, Madison Bumgarner and Evan Longoria, were healthy all season, I honestly believe the Giants would be right in the thick of the division race right now. Once you get in the postseason, anything can happen.
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