Madison Bumgarner fell behind by 2 runs in the first inning and it wasn't looking good. He settled down to pitch a darn good game and the Giants offense mounted a persistent attack that netted a much needed win to start the mini road trip to San Diego. Key Lines:
Gregor Blanco- 3 for 5, 2B. BA= .280. Blanco's slump was relatively short lived. His BA is back on the rise.
Buster Posey- 2 for 5. BA= .317. Another day at the office.
Pablo Sandoval- 1 for 4, HR(9), BB. BA= .259. Pablo seems to be slowly, ahem, rounding into form.
Kensuke Tanaka- 2 for 4, SB(1). BA= .333. Tanaka was a sparkplug tonight accounting for 2 of the Giants 4 runs. He just comes across on TV as a real gentleman and love that smile on his face. I'll say it again. If he sticks, he's going to be very popular in SF!
Madison Bumgarner- 7 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 3.02. Bumgarner gave up 3 of the 4 hits in the first inning but then really settled down. Giants need to find a way to not fall behind early though. IMO, that has been a big part of their problem stemming from almost the beginning of the season. You can only win by comeback so often before it catches up to you.
The Giants remained in 4'th place 6.5 games behind the NL West leading D'Backs who beat the BrewCrew 5-3. The Dodgers remained in 2'nd place, 1.5 games behind the leaders with a 6-1 win over the Rockies who slipped to 4.5 games back in 3'rd place. The Padres sit 7.5 games behind in last place.
Tomorrow evening, Chad Gaudin takes the mound against Sean O'Sullivan.
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Good point about falling behind early being a theme of this season. The starting pitching has really been struggling this season, and only Bumgarner has been pitching to expectations. Cain has been below his standards since his Perfect Game, and the two consecutive disaster starts are a bit frightening to me, hopefully this 10+ days rest they are giving him gets his body and arm into a better state of competitiveness. Lincecum has actually had good stuff overall, but then kills his games in key situations. Vogie looked ready to return to his normal goodness when injured, and seem to be rounding into shape nicely, but it will still be a while. And Zito has been Zito, up then down, so hopefully an up is going to be coming soon.
ReplyDeleteAs I've noted here and other places, Sandoval seems to get really out of hitting shape (if not physical shape) when on the DL, it takes him like 2-4 weeks before he hits his first homer after coming off the DL, but then he usually reverts back to Panda mode afterward. Hopefully this is a sign of his bat awakening big time, that would help a lot I think for everyone, particularly Pence and Belt.
Blanco's slump was short but, wow, he threw up an oh-fer-22 with 7 strikeouts, though 5 walks, resulting in the horrid batting line of .000/.185/.000/.185. His contact was coming up snake-eyes a lot! But after his slump breaker against LA, and even including that 1 for 8, since that slump, he's hitting .375/.400/.500/.900 with 3 doubles, only 3 K's.
Tanaka has been a steadying force for us, not hitting that great, but .333/.385/.333/.718 is decent and more importantly, much better than Torres hitting RHP. And he has a 3 game hitting streak so far, and only 1 K in 12 AB, so he's putting the ball in play a lot. Does anybody have any idea if he was a basestealer in Japan or not? Not that that translate, there was that 30/30 SS who came over to big headlines then did nothing for power or speed, I think for the Mets.
Shinjo was popular too, SF still has their Japantown, and lots of Japanese heritage people in the Bay Area, as well as Asians, so I agree that Tanaka could build up quite a following with SF. Tanaka could be our boost for this season, from our lows, too.
I don't know about his Japan stats, but Tanaka had 20 SB vs 7 CS in 260 AB's for Fresno. He also has a reversed K/BB of 25/29. I think he could be another Norichika Aoki with a little less power.
DeleteOh yeah, forgot about that. 20 SB is pretty good, only being around the mid-point of the season, but 7 CS means a pretty low success rate, suggesting that he should be careful stealing but take advantage when the opposition gives you one.
Delete7X3=21, so his success rate is right about 3-to-1 which is 75% which is actually pretty good, ogc.
DeleteI have a question (which I hope isn't dumb) about the stolen base article/gary browns value. Do you think stolen bases are more valuable for a team that hits like the giants do (with a higher than average batting average, and lower than average # of HRs)?
DeleteMy standard, and I will admit not saber, but one of the great base stealers, and I cannot remember who, said in an interview that 80% was his minimum for good base stealing. Most studies I have seen put the break even point some where around 70-75%, so I still like 80% as the bar for valuable base stealing.
DeleteYes, I believe SB's are of inverse value to the number of HR's a team produces.
DeleteFirst, the value of a successful SB is less for the HR hitting team because a HR drives in the runner just as well from 1B as from 2B.
The penalty for an CS is greater for a HR hitting team because now you've taken away that opportunity to drive in the runner from 1B with a dinger.
The value of a successful SB is greater for a low HR hitting team because the runner is more likely to score from 2B on a basehit.
The negative value of a CS less for a low HR team because it is less likely that the runner at 1B is going to score from there.
So yes. The positive value of a SB is greater and the negative value of a CS are both greater for a team like the Giants.