Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Preseason Game Wrap: Giants 4 Athletics 2


I guess the Giants and A's have played the Bay Bridge Series fairly even over the years.  Coming into 2020, the A's led 64-60.  Maybe I just remember the losses for the Giants, but it sure doesn't feel that even.  This may be the high point for the Giants 2020 season, but it sure feels nice to beat the A's twice in a home-and-home series.  The Giants got another big game from their leadoff hitter, this time Mike Yastrzemski, and from Alex Dickerson, and they again used 9 pitchers to squelch the A's potent lineup.  Key Lines:

Mike Yastrzemski CF- 2 for 2, HR, BB.  YtY led off the bottom of the first inning with HR into the bleachers above Triples Alley to get the Giants off to a great start.  He followed up with a walk and bloop single to CF and looks ready to start the season.  Will he be the starting CF or RF?

Alex Dickerson RF/LF- 3 for 4, HR.  Dick led off the second inning with a HR to left-CF and later added a couple more hits.  Imagine what might have been last season if Dickerson had stayed healthy all season.

Pablo Sandoval DH- 1 for 2, 2B, BB.  Panda looked like a Panda out there, but looked surprisingly agile on the basepaths while taking 3B on a single to RF by Tyler Heineman and scoring on a relatively shallow SF but Donovan Solano.  He did kind of roll across home plate.

Tyler Rogers was the 1-inning Opener and struck out 2 batters.  Conner Menez followed with a rough second inning allowing both the A's runs.  The 7 Giants pitchers who followed all pitched shutout innings with impressive velocity from Sam Coonrod and Sam Wolff.  I missed Dany Jimenez' inning.

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The Giants have some roster decisions to make on a day off before heading to LA to take on the Dodgers in a 4-game opening series.  Johnny Cueto gets the call on Opening Night facing Clayton Kershaw.  It looks like we're going to actually have a season!

5 comments:

  1. Dr.,
    Thanks for doing what you do. Starving for info during COVID times. I am excited about Alex Dickerson playing and hoping he stays healthy. Looking at Fangraphs' positional rankings, not much to crow about. Highest ranked position was 1B, but now Belt not playing. Hopefully, Giants have created some within the team competition that will fire up the Giants. How do you think the catcher situation will play out?

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Derald. I think some of those position rankings may be a bit low, but yeah, it's tough to have higher expectations for the Giants than that they will add 1 or 2 long term pieces through The Churn.

      As for catcher, I think it will be Brantly and Heineman out of the gate. Hard to believe Joey Bart won't get called up at some point.

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  2. 2 games
    18 innings
    18 different pitchers
    None named Cueto or Samardzija
    How many will go to LA - will they be from that 20?
    Who else? Cyr, Webb, Rodríguez, Franco, Cahill, Ross, Oaks

    Kevin Gausman Y
    Tyler Anderson Y
    Drew Smyly Y
    Caleb Baragar
    Rico Garcia
    Tony Watson Y
    Shaun Anderson Y
    Trevor Gott Y
    Carlos Navas
    Tyler Rogers Y
    Conner Menez
    Dany Jiménez Y
    Wandy Peralta Y
    Andrew Suárez ?
    Sam Coonrod ?
    Andrew Triggs ?
    Sam Selman N
    Sam Wolff

    Johnny Cueto Y
    Jeff Samardzija Y

    Cyr, Webb, Rodríguez Y?

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  3. MLBTR:
    LA announced this afternoon that Betts has signed a 12-year extension through the 2032 season. It’ll reportedly guarantee him $365MM in new money on top of this year’s $27MM salary (prorated down).
    The contract represents the largest amount of new money ever promised to a Major League player on an extension or free-agent signing.
    The extension, somewhat remarkably, marks the first time that the Dodgers have guaranteed in excess of $100MM to a player under president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman.

    Wow! Will the Giants "grow their own" superstar OF?

    ReplyDelete