The Giants put up a heckuva fight for this one that lasted 16 innings. Alas, it finally ended on a error by Brandon Crawford that resulted in an unearned run charged to George Kontos. Another microcosm of the season so far. Key Lines:
Marco Scutaro- 3 for 7, BB. BA= .313. Scutaro looked like he felt better which is a very good thing. It showed up in the boxscore too.
Buster Posey- 5 for 8, 2 2B, HR(13). BA= .313. Stupendous game for Buster, but once again, he can't win the game all by himself. The 3, 5 and 6 hitters went a combined 2 for 21 with 1 BB.
Brandon Crawford- 3 for 6, 2B, BB. BA= .264. Too bad the error ruined a fine game for Crawford. He had been in a nasty slump. Before anybody gets all over Crawford about the error, I looked up his fielding stats. He is near the middle of the pack in Errors and still has a + Fangraphs UZR. His Fangraphs fielding ranking is 12 among shortstops, so he's still above average overall. These things happen, and he is certainly not the only reason why this game was lost.
Tim Lincecum- 7 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 11 K's. ERA= 4.61. Strong effort by Timmy who battled the fearsome Matt Harvey to a standstill. If nothing else, this game might have made him more interesting to a team like the Angels if the Giants are thinking about a firesale.
Bullpen- 9 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 8 K's. Stupendous effort by the bullpen.
Adam Hamari- I think this might have been the home plate umps first MLB game behind the plate. At least Kruk and Kuip had never seen him before. They went on about how huge his K zone was. I thought it was bigger vertically than horizontally. I actually thought he called the strike zone amazingly accurately, according to the rulebook. Most umps cut the top of the zone off at the belt but the rules put the top of it right about the bottom of the letters. Nice job, rookie ump! The league needs new blood in the umpiring crew.
With the Loss, the Giants remained in 4'th place in the NL West, 6.5 games behind the division leading D'Backs who lost to the Dodgers 6-1. The Dodgers are in 2'nd place 2.5 games out of the lead. The third place Rockies beat the Padres 4-2 and are 4.5 games out while the Pathetic Ones are 7.5 games out in last place.
Barry Zito goes against Dillon Gee in tonight's game.
And Shankbone called it! Giants sign Jeff Francoeur! It should be quite entertaining to read the reaction to that on certain other Giants oriented websites. LOL!
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craw saved the game earlier with an amazing stop and had a few very nice plays
ReplyDeletethe 6 hitter did have a triple...which sent the giants hype machine into overdrive...VOTE FOR PENCE FOR AS GAME....give me a break
the 3 and 5 hitters blow chunks....SAY THEIR NAMES
belt....0 for 8...5ks...worst tell in the game and no matter what the boys in the booth say...he didnt look good in any at bat
pablo....fat, fat, fat, fat, fat....no way to get around this...the fat has an impact on his game as the season wears on...just like in 2010
neither of them should be on the team come 2014...all its gonna cost the org is some money selling stupid hats
this team isnt focused or motivated. on paper, they shouldnt be this bad
if bochy didnt win 2 ws in 3 years, his butt would be on the hot seat
but fine work by timmy and the pen....they should send the hp ump a very nice present for that wonderful k-zone
bacci
What's Belt's tell Bac?
DeleteWell, Belt did crush one to the warning track in CF in his first AB that was knocked down by the wind. He also hit the ball hard in his second AB. I'm not sure if it as after the 4'th of 5'th K, he did have the slumpy shoulders on his way back to the dugout. Not sure he's the only MLB'er who would look like that after their 5'th K.
DeleteMy daughter follows some of the players on twitter. According to her, Pablo has been tweeting up a storm about a girlfriend to the point where there is some thought that she may be taking some serious focus away from baseball.
— Bochy on the confusion in the top of the 16th with all the mound visits: “The game was so long, so frustrating. I had forgotten Rags (Dave Righetti) had gone out there. We’re going to walk Wright anyway. It probably came out the same. We got the groundball and we couldn’t handle it. I just forgot Rags had gone out there.”
ReplyDeleteHours ago, Brian Sabean told Tim Kawakami: “If we don’t start playing better — the team at hand especially the lineup itself — there’s not enough help in the world that’s going to turn us around from this.” (and then he signs francouer...why, i dont know, neither does he)
in the span of less than a season, both of these fine gentlemen have lost it and need to think seriously about retirement
bacci
I can see that the losing has been wearing on Boch, but I don't think he's lost it and neither has Sabes. In fact, I applaud Sabes for being realistic about this team and not wanting to throw good money after bad. No harm in taking a flyer on Frenchy free of charge.
DeleteNeither of them has lost it. Most teams offense's do not recover well from injuries to 4 of your top 5 hitters, with a couple of DL's and a couple who probably should have been DLed.
DeleteEasy to complain when things are going bad, but where were you when things were going good and we still had Sabean and Bochy? For no one can judge whether a GM or manager loses it within a season, nobody is that good, especially a GM, there are not enough moves in the world to judge a GM has "lost" it, within a season. They can only hold to what they truly believe.
And prior to this season, Bochy has been adding at least 4 wins per season on average to the teams he has managed, so you are therefore claiming that he has dropped a lot from that lofty perch at which no other NL manager is at, to one of the worse around. Balderdash.
I know I've been there, good or bad, for the past 7 years defending Sabean, Bochy for a number of years now too. I have looked at the big picture throughout, people like you haven't and continue to grouse - when the team is going bad. Don't take much to complain when things are already bad. I didn't see many complaints when their moves, which is all they have been doing this season, paid off in two World Championships.
I don't expect them to end when the Giants win their next one under Sabean/Bochy, nothing will ever please your lot, I'm sure of that.
Things are never as good or as bad as they look.
ReplyDeleteLosing does bring out the nasty side lurking beneath each of us.
Hopefully, the good side will re-emerge one day.
I'm ok with signing Francour. He can platoon with Torres in LF or give Pence a day off in RF. The Royals are paying his salary and I'm sure Francour will be motavated to turn his season around. Its a low risk move. Gillespie is an AAAA outfielder.
ReplyDeleteLG
The Giants had more than enough chances to win this game. In the final 8 innings, all you have to do is run into something (against a team with a worse record than us) and you win! We need anyone who has the potential to hit for some power. Francoeur gives us a better shot than Torres. It may not all be about the long ball, but for crying out loud... Honestly, I know that we fought to stay in that game last night, but I think a game like that shows just how cemented in last place we are now. 18 runners stranded, 1-15 with RISP. Timmy strikes out 11, but Belt goes 0-8 with 5k. Can it get much worse?
DeleteI think that's a very good point, that he can give Pence a day off. We have not had a lot of good enough hitters to give Pence a day off occassionally, and particularly with how bad he has been recently, I think he just needs a few days off to get his mind reset, the ASB should help with that.
DeleteBut Francouer has two seasons to turn around, he hasn't been good since 2011, but his numbers in 2012 suggested that he didn't lose much, it just looked like a bad BABIP season, but 2013 is just a continuation of his decline in 2012, even though he's only 29 YO. Worth a shot, better than Cole and Pegs, but I'm not as hopeful, his numbers have just been declining this season, and more so once he became a part-time player.
I think a key thing Francoeur hopefully gives us is an all RHB OF when there is a LHP, as Blanco just cannot hit LHP and our lineup suffers even more with Blanco in there. And down in the lineup, you want guys who can at least hit for power (Francoeur) and drive in runs than someone with no power and no average, really, batting down in the lineup.
I'm willing to give the hitters a break. One, it was Harvey going against us, we did well to get 3 runs on him, and while they were shut out by the relievers, balls just did not fall at opportune times, the relievers gave up 8 hits and 5 walks in 9 IP, that should have yielded at least one run, unless you believe in bad luck being permanent.
And it was a good sign, I think, to see Crawford get those hits, his injury to his fingers is hopefully fully recovered now.
Also, maybe Belt's performance will convince those who still believe that hitters can be moved around the lineup like we are playing Strat-o-matic or APBA that you can't just move players out of their comfort zone and expect them to perform as well as they were before. Pressure does get to people at some point, and we've seen that over and over again with Belt. Keep him in the 6th spot where he is comfortable, then at least he's productive somewhere, better than 0 for 8 with 5 K's in the middle of the lineup.
So we're trotting out Barry Zito. Stopper. to try and end this malaise. Or will it be a new low set tonight?
ReplyDeleteI'm not much for criticizing Melonhead, but in the past few weeks he really has been out to lunch. The lineup out of order thing isn't really his fault, 2 trips to the mound last night apparently (night off for me don't know details), messing up a double switch... He just seems asleep at the wheel this year.
Frenchie! Hey, its low risk medium reward. If he hits home runs, the Giants win. Will Bochy overplay him? If he gets hot, sure. That's a good thing! If he doesn't, and he most likely won't, its no big deal with the way the Giants have been playing anyways. I'm hoping for some good rage from the saber community, but I think word got out that the Royals are paying the freight so it might be muted.
If the Giants can't beat up on the Pads, Sabean needs to call it. Post-all-star break might get some interesting things to discuss. Harvard-Westlake has a kid who can mash named Jack Flaherty. If the Giants could get to the 10th pick so they're protected, they could milk FA and the draft!
Wow, didn't know we were that down! Well, 10th pick has been great for us so far under Sabean!
DeleteI'm not throwing in the towel until the Giants get the ASB to mentally decompress and get out of their negative thinking. This is the same team scoring over 5 runs per game with essentially the same lineup, and Blanco has been doing OK job of duplicating Pagan's OBP leading off. We just need to keep close enough to still get into contention with a short hot streak, within 5-6 games of first.
But if we don't get going soon after returning from the ASB, I think the call to dump the season is the correct call, I would trade at least Pence (but I would still pursue him as free agent after the season) and Blanco, because we should get some decent pieces for them, probably Lopez and maybe Affeldt, but I wouldn't trade Romo unless we are planning on make Lincecum the new closer.
Speaking of which, that's what I would do, he's useless to us if he can't be a full-time starter but also can't be a full-time closer. I know that's not ideal given that getting runners on is when he implodes, but maybe being a closer and not having to think but just react, is all he needs to get over his issues on the mound. Again, only if we are throwing in the towel on this season and we get some great prospect for Romo, as much as I love him, I'm afraid his arm is going to go at some point given all the sliders.
Aside from whatever you can get from Francoeur in a platoon, he can also grab the majority of Pence's AB should he be dealt later this year. Not that anyone would expect Pence like numbers from Francouer, but he at least has shown he can deal with failure at this level without cratering mentally. Not sure we can say that with Kieschnick, Peguero, and Perez, who we I think we can agree are marginal prospects - a class of player the Giants have typically protected from everyday play.
ReplyDeletePeter
frenchie is a dumpster dive who isnt the bat...you people are hallucinating
ReplyDeletegillespie dfa....moron shouldve gone 0 for 8 with 5ks
today is the first day of the tanaka era
kikham is back and is going to the pen
these are pretty close to wave the white flag moves
and as for belts tell
no, it isnt the slumped shoulders
its between each at bat...but only after he swings and misses or takes a k...never after a ball....watch
almost as good as tipping pitches...which ive heard tell, is what wheeler has been doing
which is why he will no hit the giants on wednesday
bacci
What strategic information is conveyed in Belt's 'tell', and how does the pitcher use it to his advantage?
DeleteNever heard of a hitter with a tell before so I would love to hear an explanation. The Francouer deal really has no downside so not quite sure why anyone is making a big deal either way. He could do what Pat the bat did or he could be Ryan Garko but either way is it really going to affect this team if he doesn't pan out? If he gets hot he could kick start this lineup and if he doesn't we will go on sucking just like we have been.
ReplyDeleteI believe one of the frustrations this fanbase has had for years despite winning 2 WS is that we don't have enough homegrown offensive talent. Take away Posey and you have an inconsistent Panda and Brandon "don't make me take off my" Belt. Craw is a nice story but who are we kidding. I think that is the list of offensive players over the last 10 years to come out of our farm system.
I'm actually hoping we do go into sell mode so that we can build up our farm just like Beane has by acquiring other teams young players for proven talent. It is the one element we haven't had in the last 15 years or so. I'm ok with sacraficing a season for future talent especially when the alternative is watching guys like Timmy and Pence walk for nothing after this year. If you love them so much then sign them as free agents but lets see what we can get in trades and put a fork in this season if things don't turn around quick within 2-3 weeks of trade deadline.
OK, Bacci. You started it. Show us you can finish it. What's Belt's "tell"?
ReplyDelete