Angel Pagan ended an exciting, frustrating see-saw game with a "walk-off" inside-the-park 2 run HR in what might be the most unusual finish to a game I can remember. Key Lines:
Angel Pagan- 2 for 6, 2B, HR(3). BA= .262. The Giants have some really fast guys on this team, but I'm not sure any are faster than Pagan. Yes, the ball bounced away from Cuddyer off the base of the wall, but it caromed right to Fowler, yet Pagan was already rounding 3B when he got it and the throw home from the relay man never had a chance. The Giants need Pagan to get going and maybe this is the game to get that started.
Buster Posey- 3 for 4, 2B. BA= .312. A multihit game from Buster who is hitting .312 despite seeming like he has never really gotten going yet this year.
Brandon Crawford- 2 for 3, 2B, BB, SF. BA= .290. Crawford continues his solid hitting out of the 8 hole. Once again, the bottom of the order produces runs for the Giants.
Barry Zito- 6 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.13. A near QS for Zito, but can someone send a memo to the starters that the games starts in the top of the first inning? That's not a warmup inning!
Chad Gaudin- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K'. ERA= 2.00. I think this still leaves the door open for Gaudin to start next Tuesday. More than one inning and I would say no.
Angel Marquez- The home plate umpire had a very bad game with a very wishy washy strike zone and 2 completly blown calls, one on a play at the plate that Brandon Belt should have scored on and another at 3B that effectively took the Giants out of a winning rally. Thankfully those calls did not cost the Giants the game, but they could well have.
The Win puts the Giants into a tie with the Rockies. Whether that will be for second place or a 3 way tie for the NL West divison lead depends on the outcome of the D'Backs game against the Padres tonight. The Dodgers-Cards game is in progress as I am writing this.
Matt Cain faces Jon Garland tomorrow afternoon for the series win.
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Every time I start to get a little nervous about my Angel Pagan support... He goes and does something like this.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised the announcers weren't a little more lenient with the call at home. Clearly he got his foot in there before the tag but at regular speed that is a tough call to make and I don't think I have ever seen a similar play at home like that go the runners way. The unwritten rule that I have always seen enforced at close plays at home is that if the catcher is blocking the plate and the ball gets there before the runner it doesn't matter if he slides in under the tag, the runner is always out. I don't disagree with this call as it is extremely difficult to judge in regular speed and it is one call the umpires are all consistent on. Come to think of it, that could be one of the reasons runners prefer to blow up the catcher in those situations as opposed to sliding in since they know that close plays will always go to the catcher.
ReplyDeleteThey talked about it on the telecast but it would be interesting what the consensus is here about replay. I think baseball is ready for it and I would like a similar system to how they do it in the little league world series. You get a couple of challenges a game and everything but balls and strikes is challengable.
I don't really buy the unwritten rule thing. The rule is the rule. I can't remember when I've seen it, but I've seen similar plays where the runner was called safe. Kruk is pretty darn aware of the "unwritten" rules of the game and generally honors them, or at least mentions them in his analysis, so I think if that came into play here, Kruk would have almost certainly at least made mention of it.
DeleteSimple: rule it interference for blocking the plate and the runner is safe. Instead of always getting the call wrong when the runner beats the block/tag.
DeletePagan has actually been hitting better in the last two weeks, so he has been heating up already, though not super hot like this. Our offense will be unstoppable, much like the end of last season if we get Pagan going hot along with Scutaro ahead of Pablo and Posey, two hitters who do not have many bad days.
ReplyDeleteThis team has been incredably entertaining, a walk off 2 run inside the park homerun, wow! It was so exciting listening to Flemings call! Scutaro's bases loaded walk to force in the 3rd run was huge too. He took a pretty good slider that many hiters would chase..I hope Casilla is not out too long. That might hurt their bullpen depth.
DeleteLG
"The unwritten rule"
ReplyDeleteUmps don't get to make the rules - their job is to enforce the written rules. No interpretations allowed or tolerated.
The one in question is pretty damn clear. If the runner touches the base before being tagged, he's safe.
Any ump who wants to make his job easier by calling a runner out because the ball beat him to the bag is subject to the unwritten rule that he worked that game for no pay.
Right thats why umps all call the letter high strike! There are plenty of rules the umpires enforce how they see fit and this is one of those at least since I can remember. My point is that it is too difficult a call to make because if you are looking at the foot touch the plate then you aren't as focused on the tag and vice versa. Therefore Umpires will consistently error on the side of the catcher if the ball arrives first and all umps lean towards this on close plays so I'm not sure why this is such a difficult concept to accept.
DeleteIn this case, the ball did not arrive first!
DeleteWatch the play again. The ball was caught by the catcher before Belt slid across the plate. The tag was applied as Belt was crossing the plate making it an extremely difficult play to call because of what I just said above. In these cases umpires favor the catchers. If Belt had been crossing the plate while the catcher was catching the ball then he would have been called safe but that wasn't what happened.
DeleteDamn that was one fine ending - who cares about the umps - grab a cold one.
ReplyDeleteWould like to share that cold one with Flannery...and Tulo too (just to rub it in)
Unlike Conor's or Huff's, this ITPHR was earned and classy - all the way 'round
If I had one play to call as an announcer that would be right up there
The Giants are just handing out these once-in-a-lifetime moments the last three years - 2 WS, perfect game, walk-off ITPHR, Been going to Giants games for 49 years now and this is as good as it gets.
Couldn't agree more. This is the Golden Age of Giants baseball. We're livin' it right now, folks!
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