Madison Bumgarner was dominant while the Brandons supplied the offense against a very talented opposing pitcher. Key Lines:
Brandon Belt- 3 for 4, 3B, HR(11). BA= .261. Mike Krukow and Bill Laskey, both former players, seemed quite convinced that Belt's performance tonight was not due to random chance, but rather a direct result of his sense that his job may be in jeopardy, although they did mention the work he did taking extra BP in the batting cages. Sabermetric dogma, on the other hand would hold that these kinds of games occur randomly. You can't be as bad as Belt has been forever and random chance dictates that he would eventually break out of the slump like this and it just happened to be tonight. What do you think?
Brandon Crawford- 1 for 4, HR(7). BA= .273. Second dinger in as many games for Crawford, whose hand must be starting to feel better. Prior to this game, Crawford was tied for 7'th in WAR points among MLB SS's.
Madison Bumgarner- 7 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 11 K's. ERA= 2.69. Early on, it looked like Chris Archer was putting away the Giants with a lot more ease than Bumgarner was doing with the Rays, but It was Archer who cracked first in the end. Archer is a good looking young pitcher, though.
Joe West- What a sorry excuse for an umpire! This guy thinks it's OK for him to make up the rules as he goes along and if you object, see ya later. I am so sick of him injecting his ugly face into the game just to draw attention to himself or just to be an ass. Whenever his crew is doing a game, you know it's going to be a badly umpired game. I've seen him have a strike zone that extended 6 inches on either side of the plate and and I've seen him have a strike zone that squeezed an inch on either side. I've seen him have strike zones that blatantly favored one team. Tonight he had clearly made up his mind he was going to call Brandon Belt for pulling his foot long before there was even a play at first base. Yeah, Belt leaves the bag quickly, but that's what a good first baseman is supposed to do. The foot was clearly on the bag when the ball hit his glove. West was so focused on his vendetta against Belt's quick release from the bag, he either misjudged the play and blew the call(Krukow) or he simply called the play the way he wanted to regardless of what actually happened at the bag(Dave Fleming). Either way, it was bad umpiring and unfortunately all too typical of what kind of ump Joe West is.
Tim Lincecum takes the mound tomorrow evening facing David Price.
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Baggs had a good post about Belt's mechanical adjustments primarily the grip.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.csncalifornia.com/blog/andrew-baggarly/brandon-belt-gets-new-grip-giants-seize-win-over-rays
Sure is a lot more fun when the Giants play Giants baseball and win
ReplyDeleteI think Bochy knows these players so much better than any of us can understand. Belt is obviously an emotional guy. I always think back to that ridiculous HBO series they made about the Giants during 2011. Remember Belt getting worked up when the skip told him he'd made the opening day squad? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but that's just the way he is. Bochy felt he needed a few days off to clear his head, and he comes out looking like a new player. I don't think it was coincidence. Either way, the Giants are suddenly getting great production from 1B, and I'm not complaining a bit!
ReplyDeleteThey have actually gotten good production from Belt for nearly four months when the frozen cold streak started. That seems to be the final straw for Belt as he agreed to fix his grip and moved back in the box to see the pitch longer, so let's see how long this new stretch of good hitting lasts. But 830 OPS production is still pretty good at first base, now let's see if he can raise even higher. That was what he was hitting over three and half months after early cold streak and before latest cold streak.
DeleteI agree that Belt's biggest problem has been getting out of long cold streaks. Everybody has cold streaks. But Belt's has been longer and colder, which points to a mental problem. We will see if he will be able to grow out of this.
DeleteI agree with Kruk that competition is a beautiful thing in any team sport. Thats why its important to have a good farm system. Its good that Belt was able to work on the side with the hitting coaches to hopefully correct his hitting flaws. I'm wondering why it took so long though.. It was nice to see Belt get 2 hits to left field. Maybe the Giants need to keep Pill on the roster in 2014 as a reminder to Belt that he needs to produce or else he'll lose his 1st base job.
ReplyDeleteLG
On that count, it did not help that the whole team was slumping or injured. The 5 players on the bench should always be pressing the 8 on the field, and that has not been the case.
DeleteThe grip is finally being addressed after all this time. Why it would take this long is beyond belief. He did try it, especially in the first AB. The change is going to be harder than I originally thought. Might be an off season project.
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