The A's used the longball to ruin what started out as a promising start by Tim Lincecum. Key Lines:
Hunter Pence- 1 for 3, 2B, BB. BA= .364. Pence scalded a ball down the 3B line for a two-bagger that led to the Giants first run.
Brandon Belt- 1 for 4, 2B. Belt's double was pulled down the 1B line. Kruk explained that he seems to have successfully ditched the shoulder wrap that was causing him to get tied up on inside pitches. One more piece of evidence that just going out there and playing everyday was probably not what Belt needed to develop, but rather to work on his mechanical flaws then put it into practice.
Joaquin Arias- 2 for 4. BA= .266. Arias is a guy who I think could be a real revelation if he played every day, but he has no position to play if all the Giants starters are healthy.
Brandon Crawford- 2 for 4, 2B, 3B. BA= .373. Crawford is another guy who Kruk says has made some mechanical adjustments. To my eye, he is still holding his bat close to his shoulder but he's bringing it up into hitting position a lot sooner in the pitcher's delivery so he has time to react to the pitch. Brandon was also working his magic on the field including an amazing play to his left on a hot smash up the middle by Sogard with a 360 to throw him out. I'm not sure there are any other SS's in the game who make that play. It required elite level quickness, athleticism and arm strength to get it done.
Tim Lincecum- 4.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 10.57. Timmy looked sharp in the first 3 IP, but then Cespedes took him deep in the 4'th and he couldn't get out of the 5'th. Affeldt then gave up a 3 run dinger to Reddick that cashed in 2 runners Timmy allowed on. Kruk was raving about how great Timmy looked. To me, it was the same old Timmy as last year. Dominant for a few innings, but once things started going south, he couldn't stop the bleeding.
Kontos, Mijares, Proctor- 1 scoreless IP each. All 3 looked sharp. Mijares outing was particularly encouraging.
Pablo Sandoval reportedly will play on Saturday.
Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy get their contracts extended through 2016 with options for 2017. I think you all know what I believe about Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy, so I'm not going to belabor the point. If you want a more complete discussion of their merits, I wrote posts on both early in the postseason. Of course, I think this is a great move by the Giants and neither man seems to be close to running out of ideas.
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Is Mijares at the point where he's not just a specialist? If so, that would be the third lefty that they've expanded (Affeldt and Lopez being the first two, as I seem to recall they both started as specialists and then started getting more comfort on both sides of the plate). That would be great for long term.
ReplyDeletePiLamBear
gotta be a bit concerned about timmy being able to consistently get past the 5th
ReplyDeleteif craw can do what he does best for the majority of the season and doesnt get a gg, they should dump the award
i love reddick's mountain man look...dude looks insane...i wouldnt want to pitch to him either
a's look solid. cespedes is a beast.
until they choose to retire, looks like the giants will be led by sabey sabes and bochy, and baer's comments were right on the money
bacci
Belt needed and needs a certain level of emotional comfort and to improve his mechanics. No one is perfect, not even Bochy. To his credit, he corrected his mistakes more often than not. The same with Sabean. Congratulations to both and to Posey on their extensions and signing.
ReplyDeleteAs I have said many times, no baseball manager or GM is perfect.
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