The Giants battled the Braves until the bitter end, but it all ended badly with a walkoff hit by Freddy Freeman in the bottom of the 9'th inning. Key Lines:
Andres Torres- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .266. Torres is hitting just .237 over his last 10 games, but he can still put a charge into it with that big bat at times.
Tony Abreu- 3 for 5, 2 2B. BA= .368. I'm tellin' ya. Abreu has the talent if he can stay healthy. He looked like he was about to collapse and kind of grabbed at his left hammy a couple of times rounding first, but he managed to stay in the game and continue to contribute.
Chad Gaudin- 5 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 0 K's. ERA= 2.83. You could tell Gaudin was living dangerously. No K's and a whole lot of flyballs to the warning track. It seemed like a matter of time and it was. Beej Upton took him deep twice to account for 3 of the 4 runs he gave up. The only luck involved with that was that Gaudin was lucky he didn't give up a lot more!
Jean Machi- 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K. Another nice hold by Machi.
Sergio Romo- 0.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K. ERA= 2.84. 1. Romo is not the same pitcher against LH batters. Opposing managers will find a way to make him face LH batters until he proves he can consistently get htem out. 2. He appeared to be afraid to pitch to Evan Gattis, not without good reason, but the closer has to be able to take on the best the opposing team has to offer. 3. The walk to Justin Upton was a very questionable call by the ump, who seemed to have a, shall we say, dynamic strike zone today? You knew how the game was going to end with the LH hitting Freeman and McCann coming up. Of course, even if he had gotten the call on Upton, he still would have had to get Freeman out and you knew THAT wasn't happening.
The loss puts the Giants 2 games behind the division leading D'Backs who are playing the Pesky Padres tonight. and leading 6-3 after 7 innings. The Rockies pounded the Phillies 10-5 to put them at 2 games back also. The Pesky Ones are 4 games out pending the outcome of their game. The Dodgers topped the Pirates 5-3 and sit 8 games back as of this writing.
Tim Lincecum takes on Julio Teheran tomorrow evening in the ESPN Sunday Night game.
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Romo has a BAA of just over .180 against righties and just over .220 against lefties--I would have said that holding left-handed batters to a .222 average, and an OBP virtually identical to that vs right-handed batters is pretty good. Whenever I see Romo come in, in a save situation, I expect the Giants to win, regardless of the opposing team's batters' handedness. Do others feel otherwise?
ReplyDeleteYes, I do feel otherwise and and difference of .042 is actually pretty big.
DeleteWhen Romo has everything going, 2 seamer, change, and slider, yes he can get LH batters out pretty good, but when he is a bit off like he was today, he's in a lot of trouble. Watching this one, I knew that if he got to Freeman, the ballgame was over. Saw it from a mile away.
Just to clarify on Romo. Romo gets in trouble if he has to throw a strike. At his peak, Wilson could walk the bases full and got to 3-2 on the next batter and you were still confident he could reach back and blow it past him. Romo depends on getting batters to swing at pitches outside the zone. He loses the freedom to work outside the zone and you get an outcome like this game. It's not as bad against RH batters because he can start the slider over the middle of the plate and end it up 6 inches outside and the batter does not anticipate the break due to the different spin. He doesn't have that against LH batters.
DeleteIf there could be a Big Time Timmy Jim sighting tonight, on national tv, that would be quite nice. I suspect it will be big pitch count Tim, followed by mistake pitch Tim, followed by walking the pitcher Tim, and... I'd love to be proven wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe Giants have to be getting a little antsy on this issue. Timmy to the pen solves a couple things if they can get another guy to take the bump. At this point Timmy and his agents have to realize its the best way to build any market for him for the FA run. The Braintrust? They are in just win, baby! mode. At some point Tim's feelings about the club and the re-signing issue need to take 2nd fiddle.