The Giants were down to their last strike in another dismal hitting performance when Matt Chapman swung at a hanging curveball from former Giant Pierce Johnson and took it over the LF wall for a 2-out, 2-run, walk-off home run, the Giants second walk-off win in a row and 8'th of the season which leads MLB. Key Lines:
Wilmer Flores DH- 1 for 4, HR(11), R, RBI. BA= .254. Wilmer went deep in the fourth inning to give Logan Webb a short-lived 1-0 lead.
Matt Chapman 3B- 1 for 4, HR(12), R, 2 RBI. BA= .241. Heliot Ramos LF set it up with a one-out groundball single. Wilmer Flores popped out. Chapman got a pitch to hit and that was the ballgame.
Logan Webb RHP- 6 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 10 K's, 5/1 GO/AO. ERA= 2.58. Webb had 9 K's through 4 innings when he seemed to lose a little life on his pitches. Michael Harris II who Kruk reported had ownage on Webb homered in the fourth. BTW, I've learned to pay attention when Krukow says an opposing hitter has ownage. Three ground ball singles and a force out, plated another run for the Braves in the 6'th inning which looked like the winning run until Chapman's blast.
Erik Miller LHP, Sean Hjelle RHP and Tyler Rogers RHP worked a scoreless inning each to give Chapman his chance.
Landen Roupp RHP goes for the sweeeeep tomorrow afternoon against Spencer Strider RHP.
Another abysmal hitting day. But the pitching allowed them the opportunity to win it in the end.
ReplyDeleteStrider hasn't recovered yet from surgery last year but he has thrown well in a couple games this year but got banged up by AZ in his last start.
ReplyDeleteYou never know: the Giants made Bryce Elder look like Greg Maddox for 8 innings today...
Bryce Elder was pitching really, really well today. He had pretty savage control of at least 3 different pitches.
DeleteLet me start with this > Willy Adames appears to be a wonderful team mate and cheer leader > His defense so far average > however watching him at the plate brings back painful memories of Aaron Rowand > Please Buster have him move into Barry Bonds home for a week or two > Elst this contract will become Troture on the Zito level.
ReplyDeleteKudos to Heliot Ramos for his diligence and patience on his road to the kajors..
Fun to watch.
Richard in Winnipeg
Maybe I will write a Thoughts post about Willy Adames. As I've said before, I am no hitting coach but it looks like his front shoulder flies open way too soon on every swing. I remember a Giants hitting coach named Bobby Bonds helped Matt Williams fix that problem by having him tuck his shoulder to his chin. Bonds would make the tucking motion from first base before every pitch. Williams went from being a good hitter to hitting 40 HR's and his challenge for 60 was cut short by the strike in '94.
DeleteBack to the winning recipe..good SP and RP (all year for both), playing baseball the right way and just enough offense which included Chapman being his best...Really tough matchup today..It's painful to watch ADAAMES' approach at the plate..He needs help big time....How do you work through this with a guy you just signed to be a face of the franchise?
ReplyDeleteSteveVA
See my response to Richard in Winnepeg above.
DeleteJust a bit of perspective: the Giants are 19th in MLB in average number of runs per game. You would have thought it would have been rock bottom but this might mean scoring is down across MLB, not just with the Giants. It's a little bit below the rate they were scoring last season (4.28 but that difference is probably not significant. They are scoring slightly more than 4 runs per game (4.11) and I realize that the media and particularly KNBR was harping on the streak of games with 4 or less runs scored. With the pitching, the Giants are 7th in MLB in run differential.
ReplyDeleteThe last time the Giants had a streak of games scoring less than 4 runs of this magnitude was in 1965, and that was with a lineup that had Mays (MVP year), McCovey, Cepeda, Hart, etc so its baseball. The 1965 team had six players on the roster who would eventually make the HOF.
I am pretty sure their 30-day rolling run scoring average is way less than 4.
Delete3.4 runs per game scored, 3.1 runs given up, record 15-15 against mostly good teams.
DeleteCubs (they were good), Twins (they were hot), D-backs (1 game over .500), A's (.500), Royals (they were good), Tigers (very good), Pads (they were good), Nats (not so good), and Marlins (bad).
I don't have the 30 day but May was about 3.7 and June is 3.2. Rolling average is low but the players involved are somewhat the same.
DeleteFrom a Braves website (https://housethathankbuilt.com/bryce-elder-pitches-game-of-lifetime-only-for-braves-offense-to-blow-it):
ReplyDelete"Bryce Elder pitches game of a lifetime, only for the Braves' offense to blow it"
..."However, the Braves starter put together the performance of a lifetime yesterday afternoon and out-dueled one of the best pitchers in baseball.
The final line was the best we've seen from Elder in what was his 60th start at the major league level. The Texas native tossed eight innings of one-run ball, and struck out a career high 12 batters on Saturday afternoon.
"Unfortunately, it was all for nothing as the Braves bullpen had their latest late inning meltdown"
Really does say it all...
And what's with them bringing in Craig Kimbrel for one game, he pitches a scoreless inning and they dump him the next day? Man, that's FZ on steroids stuff there.
DeleteI feel bad for Snitker, I feel that we could possibly be the team that gets him fired with a sweep today.
DeleteTrue is: Kimbrel pitched a scoreless inning, but Ramos out stealing and Lee getting picked off helped a lot. But he did strike out Flores on 7 pitches.
DeleteIt was good to see Craig Kimbrel again, but it appears that the days of his 97 mph stuff are way behind him and he can't get people to whiff on his breaking stuff. Some are likening it to Tom Glavine back in the day.
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty amazing to see the Giants' record with how bad they are hitting. I am wondering-- does Matt Williams coach hitting as well or is his role strictly defined to be a 3B coach? And what is Barry Bonds' role with the team?
I'm concerned about Adames too, and we'll see when he picks it up. Its not uncommon for star players who sign big free agent contracts due to some reasons that I've heard as putting too much pressure on themselves to live up to contract, new surroundings to get used too (home park, hitting coaches, teammates). Who knows maybe Adames will get on a hot streak in the summer. I wish I thought of that when I drafted Juan Soto and Christian Walker for my fantasy team, lol. Soto batting at 234 and Walker 210, I dropped Walker. Buster has said be patient with Adames.
ReplyDeleteLaMonte Wade Jr.gets a new home in Anaheim mostly as a LHB outfielder and/or DH.
ReplyDeleteGiants send cash and get PTBNL
Let's hope Forever Giant LMWJ finds his stroke there.
Good luck!