Tim Lincecum- 3.2 IP, 9 H, 8 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 4.73. Choo's leadoff double was pure BABIP luck and it looked like Timmy was about to pitch his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning, but then Todd Frazier crushed one over the head of Andres Torres off the CF wall and the route was on. Timmy was basically throwing batting practice up there.
Bronson Arroyo(Reds)- 9 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 3.19. Arroyo seems to always give the Giants fits. He's a classic late bloomer whose career has seemed to get generally better with age. He started out at age 18 in the Pirates organization, but did not pitch his first full MBL season until age 27 with Boston. He is durable as heck as he has never had less than 32 starts since 2004. He beats you by keeping his walk rates low and keeping hitters' timing off with a funky leg kick and a 4 pitch mix which he releases from a variety of angles. I have him on my fantasy team and he really helps by adding to the counting stats while maintaining a low WHIP.
With the Loss, the Giants remain in 4'th place now 6 games behind the new NL West division leaders, the Dodgers who crushed the Blue Jays 14-5. The D'Backs lost to the Cubs 4-2 to slip 0.5 games behind the Hated Ones. The 3'rd place Rockies lost to the Marlins 3-1 and are 4 games behind while the Padres topped the BrewCrew 5-3 and remain in last place, 8 games behind the Dodgers.
The Giants are now staring down a double barrel with Barry Zito and Eric Surkamp expected to start the twinbill. Neither of these pitchers inspires much confidence right now in what could be the backbreaker of the season for the Giants.
Speaking of the BrewCrew, Ryan Braun threw in the towel on the PED issue and decided to take his medicine this year with the Brewers in last place. It will be interesting to see what other dominoes fall. The Brewers are already out of it, but there are other players in the hot seat who could impact the outcome of division and wild card races in major ways.
Hopefully this game, plus the foreseeable outcome of the doubleheader, will convince the FO that the Giants should not be buyers at the trade deadline.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Matt Duffy!
I'm not sure the FO needs convincing. If Sabes says something, you can usually take it to the bank and he's been pretty clear that fans should not expect any big moves. Going into all-out sell mode might be a little more than he's ready to do too, though.
DeleteExcited to see Matt Duffy promoted. Let's hope he continues to rake at SJ and moves up to AA next year. His college numbers were unimpressive, but Long Beach State might have the toughest home field for hitters in all of college baseball. They play in a pitcher's conference too. The think about Duffy is he has that reversed K/BB that the Giants seem to have honed in on as a indicator of future hitting success. It will be interesting to see how that develops as these kids rise in the system.
The Giants might have to be buyers in some sort of way to re-tool. The big question is what their long-term plans are with Sandoval, Pence and Lincecum. Pablo's trade value is a questionmark, but at least Sabean publicly addressed the fact they will be putting down qualifying offers for Pence and Lincecum. The grey murky future on Pablo? That year of control and if he does well a possible qualifying offer? Magic 8ball says not sure, check back later.
DeleteDuffy had a very nice Cape Cod, hitting with the wooden bats. That's why I pegged him as a sleeper worth mentioning in the SS crop that year. Great value drafting. Ryan Jones is another who fits this profile - hardest to strike out in the Big-10. Worth taking a flyer on, interesting sleeper profiles.
DeleteDuffy, yes!
DeleteAs for Pablo, I've been in the "use any value he has to help re-stock the farm" camp for a few weeks now. Sure, when he's on, he can easily be our best offensive weapon. What's killed us, and his career, is his inability to stay healthy. He's perpetually having to regain his footing due to stints on the DL or fluke injuries. And I get that they may be flukes, but at what point are they not. In theory, he and Posey create the offensive foundation. In reality, we can't count on Pablo for a whole season. And if he could net us a top prospect and a couple second-tier prospects, it has to be considered. And if Belt gets more consistent, Crawford continues to develop his offensive game, and we can land a corner OF bat, it becomes that much easier to trade Pablo.
The only problem is that this year's FA class isn't that strong. So if we were to trade him in the offseason, I don't know if we can compensate with a corresponding FA addition.
Lucky
season is over. the sp isnt there and neither is the offense.
ReplyDeletequestion is,can obsessive deal with the reality...or will he bash me once again
im very bothered by how the media is dealing with the biogenesis scandal
an nfl player just got his second strike and is getting a whole 4 game suspension....and no one is talking about it....
so its ok if the nfl gives its players a slap on the wrist...but the mlb is a joke because it wont hand out lifetime suspensions
the real crime is that both the nfl and nba bring in billions of dollars of revenue, yet they have hard salary caps and non guaranteed contracts, making sure that players do not get their fair share of the gate....and no one cares
no sport is clean. no sport has ever been clean. why adults feel the need to think like children when it comes to pro sports is beyond me.
bacci
Those are fair points. It seems to me that fan reaction to PED's is different for baseball than football. Could it be that baseball fans have a basically different philosophy? In some ways, I feel the media is just projecting how the fans are reacting.
DeleteThe reality is that the offense is coming around and the pitching, while not up to par of past seasons, was good enough to win with earlier this season, and now we replaced a bad Volgie with a good Gaudin, so arguably improved.
DeleteMeanwhile, the D-backs are only over .500 because they are 17-2 behind Corbin. They are not going to continue that all season, they will be around .500 at the end of the season unless somebody steps up and do more.
The Dodgers are playing above their heads right now, and maybe they will continue to (mainly Hanley is playing at a high rate right now, Kemp too; but will they continue given their recent past?), but I think that it will be clearer in a couple of weeks whether it is their year or whether they start to fall back to the rest of the NL West. So the season is not over.
I agree it is ridiculous how the media is handling the two circumstances (see, I can agree with you when I think you make sense). The difference between the two, and I'll admit I'm not up on NFL as much, is that baseball has had two rallying calls or iconic idenfication, Balco and now Biogenesis.
I agree that no sport is clean. That is why I refer people often to Malcolm Gladwell's article on drug cheating in sports.
I would also add that while steroids has a clear connection to success in the NFL, where brute strength is important, Eric Walker has researched the heck out of the topic and has presented what I think is a strong case for this position: that steroids and most PEDs associated with today's news (like HGH) does NOT make baseball players better, that the source of the recent offensive era of homerun baseball was due to juiced balls and not juiced humans.
Personally, I have no problem with hard salary caps. Without the structure and brand value that the professional leagues provide, none of these players would be making a living playing a game. So what is fair to owners and players is debatable.
The NBA does have guaranteed contracts for probably 95% of their players, and there are plenty of NFL players who are guaranateed tens of millions of dollars in their contracts. I like the NFL structure better, I find that most free agents in baseball do not provide the value of their contracts during the life of their contracts. I would love to be able to cut players who are not living up to their contracts.
As a fan, I do not like seeing players like Rowand get paid to do nothing because he sucks. I feel like that they are stealing from the game like that. If I had my druthers, I would prefer to cut out the arbitration years but in exchange, teams can cut contracts for players who do produce what their contracts call for, but maybe limit teams to one such cut per year. Or implement what Charlie O. suggested, make every player a free agent every year.
I keep coming back to Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. Neither man was particularly big and I'm pretty sure neither of them lifted a weight in their life. Yet, they were somehow able to hit over 1400 HR's between them.
DeleteAt the same time, the world is full of big strong guys who couldn't make contact with a pitched baseball to save their life.