They way baseball is a game of inches. It's also a game of numbers. It's also a game of luck and of injuries. Just when you thought the Giants luck couldn't get any worse, a freak injury popped up to wreak havoc in the 6'th inning of a game they were leading. By the time the inning was over they trailed 4-1 and the game was practically over. Key Lines:
Michael Conforto RF(.191) continued his resurgence with 2 hits including a 2B.
Casey Schmitt SS(.550) stayed hot with 2 more hits.
Anthony DeSclafani RHP- 5 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 3.06. Tony D took a 1-0 shutout into the 6'th inning but trouble was brewing. Seems he suffered a contusion of his toe a few weeks ago as he was helping his 2-year old son off a piano bench at home. The bench fell over and "squared up" his toe. Ouch! I did that twice when I was a kid. Once when a rock shifted as I was playing barefoot in Mill Creek up by Forest Falls, CA and once when a horse stepped on it. Pain scale hit at least a 9 both times and both times the nail turned black and eventually fell off. Well, the falling off part is what happened to Tony D in the 6'th inning and it was too painful to continue. The good news is it should be easy to just grab that sucker and yank it clean off and he should be good as new in a few days. Yikes! So does Anthony DeSclafani have a hidden talent he's been hiding all this time? Nope! The piano came with a rented house. He wanted to learn to play it but now he doesn't.( all this is per Maria Guardado in sfgiants.com).
Logan Webb RHP tries to salvage a series split today facing Brandon Pfaadt RHP.
Joc Pederson is DTD after taking a pitch off the back of his right hand in Friday's game. X-rays were negative for a fracture.
It's also a game of mistakes. Wade misjudged the Davis sac fly and got doubled off in the first inning. I'm not surprised, as it's part of a chronic problem the Giants have had getting runners home this year. Whether it's slow on the basepath guys or mistakes (like Wade last night) or poor-average hitters following them, too many of the Giants end up scoring well below the MLB average of 31%.
ReplyDeleteAt this point in time, there are only two teams worse at getting runners home - Oakland and Miami.
And that's despite having the 4th best ISO in the majors. Imagine how bad it would be if we were an average HR team.
A game of mistake, on the defensive side as well (to add to the earlier comment) - we have made the most mistakes or errors (28) at this point of the season (I did not check if we have played the most number of games. Perhaps it should be adjusted to errors per game).
DeleteThe 28 (fielding and throwing) errors are quantifiable ones. I don't know if we would also lead if we include defensive mental errors that have not been counted.
How does a team cope after an error or errors? We may try to look at a team's RA (runs allowed) vs its ER (earned runs of its pitching staff). We are at 198 and 174 (as of today, per ESPN), which is quite high compared with other teams (I think Tampa Bay's difference is only 5 - they may have made fielding or throwing errors, like all humans, but they have limited the consequential damage).
Our team's ER of 174 is more or less average in the MLB; however, there are only 5 teams (in both NL and AL together) with RA over 200 (ours is 198), with Oakland towering over everyone else at 305 (their EA is 288 and they have made 26 errors...their 26 errors led to 17 additional runs, while our 28 errors led to 24 additional runs).
(I believe a key offseason goal was to improve our D. How are we doing in that respect? Is our total of 28 errors, while leading the MLB, on a slower pace or faster pace compared to the 2022 Giants?)
Lastly, there are also pitching errors. I have no idea how to measure, quantify or conceptualize those. (We don't know if a pitching sequence is designed mistakenly or poorly, for example, fastball, fastball, fastball instead of fastball, change up, etc).
This is Conforto's 2nd streak – let's hope it lasts at least as long as the first which ended with the 5-game winning streak April 26th at .215 (it actually had been higher but he went dry in the last game with St Louis, a loss).
ReplyDeleteHe does have 4 hits in the last 2 games, both losses.
Be nice if he would continue this but he's still a lousy outfielder. Perhaps he can be the DH next year when Pederson is gone – they are pretty much equally bad.
Will the Giants ever have a good home grown OFer again?
Or better yet, who was their last good homegrown OFer? Nate Schierholtz? Fred Lewis? Marvin Benard? Must have been Chili Davis or Jack Clark!
Anxiously awaiting what went right today. Aside for pitching. Whoever got tagged for that loss can thank the offense. Uh, offense? What offense.
ReplyDeleteConforto homered with no one on, left Estrada in scoring position twice.