The Giants dim playoff hopes were snuffed out in a familiar witches stew of subpar fielding and bullpen failure as a five spot for the D'Backs in the 7'th inning broke a close game open and late Giants rallies were too little, too late.
Scott Alexander RHP- 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 1.10. Alexander performed his Opener act as drawn up retiring 4 with the only baserunner reaching on and error.
Jakob Junis RHP- 4.2 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 4.42. If you allow enough baserunners, bad things are going to happen, but with a little luck, Junis' line might have looked a whole lot better. The last two runs in the D'Backs 3-run 4'th inning scored from first and second on a soft liner to left that tailed just out of the reach of a diving Jason Vosler and got past him. It was a tough play but my thought was a more experienced LF might have gotten a better jump or a LF wearing his glove on the right hand like, say Joc Pederson RF/LF, might have had a better angle. Then, the first batter of the 7'th inning reached on an IF single and scored after Jarlin Garcia LHP proceeded to give up 3 straight hits and a walk with Sergio Alcantara, who drove in those two runs in the 4'th inning, doubling in the final two runs.
Mike Yastrzemski CF/RF- 1 for 4, HR(17). BA= .214. YtY is 13 for 42(.310) with 5 HR's since Sept 18 the final game of the disastrous home sweep to the Dodgers. Too little, too late for this year but is it enough for a tendered contract for next season?
J.D. Davis DH- 2 for 4, HR(12). BA= .257. Davis' line since joining the Giants is .287/.379/.549 with 8 HR. That's better than his previous best season in 2019 with the Mets but not by that much. He has two arbitration years left and keeping him is a no-brainer. Is his best position DH, though?
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Churn Watch:
Jarlin Garcia was activated from the paternity list(gotta wonder if that had something to do with his rough appearance). Sean Hjelle RHP was optioned to AAA Sacramento. But wait! Immediately after the game, the Giants announced they were shutting Logan Webb RHP down for the season for precautionary reasons to make sure he is healthy next season which makes today's game another bullpen game. Will they bring Hjelle back to be the bulk innings guy? He last pitched 4 innings on 9/28 and the Giants should want to protect his arm too. More likely the innings will get picked up by Shelby Miller RHP who threw for 2 innings on the 28'th and Jharel Cotton RHP who the Giants probably want to get more of a read on before the end of the season.
Jarlin Garcia was a fireman in the Fahrenheit 451 style.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness to Garcia he hadn't been scored on in his last 6 appearances (9.2 innings).
DeleteIt does seem that when he is bad, he very very bad, with 3 appearances (now) with 5, 4, & 4 ERs, and four more with a deuce.
OTOH, he has 46 skunks.