An old Giants nemesis came back to haunt them as Clint Barmes dug out a very good back-foot slider from Madison Bumgarner in the top of the 7'th inning and hit a 2-iron shot down the LF line that barely cleared the wall for a 3 run HR and erased the Giants 1-0 lead to finis the scoring in this game. Key Lines:
Madison Bumgarner- 8 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 4 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 2.84. 3 of the 7 hits came in the pivotal 7'th inning. Ironically, while the 4 BB's are the worse part of the line, none of them figured in the scoring. The dinger by Barnes was not off a "mistake" pitch. Bummy threw a very good back-foot slider that appeared to be well placed. Whether Barmes was looking for it or whether he just got lucky, we'll probably never know for sure. He went down and dug it out and hit a golf shot that never got very far off the ground and just barely cleared the LF wall. Probably wouldn't have mattered as the two singles to open the inning were sacrificed to 2'nd and 3'rd so they both would have scored even if the ball had stayed in the park.
Charlie Morton(RHP)- 7.2 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 3 K's, GO/AO= 11/2. ERA= 3.42. It can be difficult to tell the difference between good pitching and bad hitting. I suspect this game was a bit of both for Giants hitters, but Morton's stuff looked very good. He is now 2 full years removed from TJ surgery and appears to be fully recovered. He's also the dude who decided to scrap his entire delivery and rebuild it as a carbon copy of Doc Halliday's. Early on in this game, he featured a 93 MPH FB that he was able to command on the corners, a 91 MPH cutter that came in like a FB but had a late downward hook that dived just under bats and a sharp, late-breaking slider that he could throw at the back foot of LH batters or down and away to RH batters. When I saw him K Blanco with the slider for his first out of the game, I said "uh-oh! This could be a shutout."
This Loss puts the Giants in 6'th place in the race for the #1 overall draft pick in 2014.
Tim Lincecum faces Francisco Liriano today. If that does not go well, I'm sure we will have some Giants fans dredging up a certain trade that took place almost 10 years and 2 WS Championships ago and calling for Sabes to be fired.
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If the Giants had not traded Liriano, no 2 WS and most likely we would not be enjoying Bumgarner, Posey and even Lincecum today, as with Liriano the Giants probably would have gotten a better record and not drafted that high.
ReplyDeleteMost fans dont want the Giants to keep losing but lets be honest, would you rather see the Giants finish with 2-5 extra useless wins and draft #12 or 14 something like that or with a top 5-7 pick and have a chance to get a Posey or Bumgarner if there is one??
That's an easy one for me. I'll take the higher draft pick in a second. IMO, it would be disastrous for the Giants to fall out of the top 10 draft picks for 2014. Well, maybe no disastrous, but very bad!
DeleteLiriano really only had 1 great half season with the Twins then had TJ and was never the same again. He's finally showing some serious improvement with a new team this year, but how many years later is that?
BTW, the 2014 draft is shaping up to be unusually strong at the top. A top 10 pick will almost certainly yield an impact player. I'd prefer top 5 though.
DeleteIn a way, the Giants will have the same outcome as the Loria strategy without losing the core, and without totally alienating the fanbase. Not necessary a bad outcome.
DeleteI agree with all the comments here. I have stated most at one time or another, but once was attacked for not being a Giants fan for wanting losses. Play younger players more, if they succeed, great, if they do not, then we get a better pick, win win now that we are so far behind.
DeleteLiriano would not have necessarily costed us the draft position, he has mostly been down than up, he cost the Twins the prime of Mauers career. Nathan is who would have enabled us to have better teams and cost us all those top picks.
Injuries blew up the season, but if we can get a top 5-10 pick out of it, then that would make the season worth the losing and poor play.
Speaking of being attacked, I will risk it, though it has not happened here yet (as people are fairly civilized); I believe the cost-benefit analysis of the Wheeler +/Beltran trade should include the alternate draft pick, at the min., the first round (probably higher without the trade) - that is to say, we probably would drafted where we picked someone other than Panik, someone higher on our draft board.
DeleteAs it was OK to not trades prospects to defend the title this past trade deadline, I also think it was reasonable to say that Giants fans would have understood, when Posey went down, had we not done anything in 2011.
When you are defending a championship, the team is in first place, you need a hitter and can get the best one on the market for a pitching prospect, you have to pull the trigger. End. Of. Story!
DeleteNot when your MVP had been knocked out like that.
DeleteI think you should ride the energy of us against the world; if you faltered doing nothing, we'd be like where are today with all those injuries.
We'll just have to disagree on this. While Buster Posey may have been the MVP of the championship teams, those teams were much more than just him. It is not at all unreasonable to think Beltran's bat could have made up the difference. Gotta go for it.
DeleteThe Giants needed more than one bat in 2011. Beltran, when he played, was very effective for the G's. Considering Beltran's effectiveness and where the Giants finished in 2011, can you really, honestly, in hindsight, say that this trade was a good move?
DeleteFlags fly forever, so says Shank. And it's true. But this was a roll of the dice, and the Giants never really had much of a chance, even with Beltran.
Even so, I don't fault the trade itself (in a vacuum). However, the fiasco that followed in the off-season regarding Giant efforts to sign Beltran show this to be a very poor move.
Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. Gotta judge the trade on the basis of what information was available at the time of the trade. Sabes had to pull the trigger. It didn't work out. Now, for the umpteenth time, Time. To. Move. On!!!
DeleteHey Doc, I'm not the one making highly opinionated declarative statements such as:
Delete"you need a hitter and can get the best one on the market for a pitching prospect, ***you have to pull the trigger. End. Of. Story!***"
or
"It is not at all unreasonable to think Beltran's bat could have made up the difference. ***Gotta go for it.***"
or
Gotta judge the trade on the basis of what information was available at the time of the trade. ***Sabes had to pull the trigger.***
All in this thread. There was no "had to" about it. (See "Trade Deadline Restraint, Giants, 2013.")
Posey was not the only one who was missing in 2011. Huff, Freddie, Uribe, Torres, Ross. Giants needed two bats at minimum, but really, THREE bats to replace the lost production.
Not my thread. And I didn't bring this subject up. But please allow disagreement to your opinions presented as absolute fact about that trade.
IMHO; I believe that Angel Pagan injury has had a bigger affect on the bench then many would have thought. He is genuinely the leader of the Hispanic players. I also see his intensity as huge to the whole team. My biggest hope is that the pitching staff gets managed gently thru the end of the season, and that we get an opportunity to see some different strategies,ie like as has been mentioned > lets find out if Pill can play 3rd base and left. Lets see Belt in left or right field. Love to see Hunter tried in center. Lets see what could be in 2014.
ReplyDeleteRichard in Winnipeg
I see this season as a perfect storm of emotional letdown, SP fatigue, key injuries at key times and a fair amount of bad luck on the field. Looking back, Pagan's injury certainly seems to mark a turning point.
DeleteThis has been an error prone team, both officially and in the mental side of things. Pitchers have not fielded their positions. Sandoval has been a big black hole.
DeletePagan and Vogelsong going down definitely hurt the clubhouse. Pitchers giving up a lot of HRs in key moments were very un-Giant like as well.
Without good defense and starting pitching, the rest of it doesn't really matter.
If we want to finish with the 5-7 pick, let's keep up the Barry Zito farewell tour, and get Surkamp and Kickham rocking as well. All the lefties all the time. I generally say play hard and let the chips fall where they may, but finishing in the cellar will be a slap in the face that was earned by the club.
I'll say this - Dunning and Cody Hall look like future parts, Heath Hembree does not.
If Hembree does not look it and Kickham needs, as Dr. B mentioned yesterday, more seasoning in Fresno (for a couple of months perhaps), I might ask again if our rotation and the overall staff is a long way from being the foundation of a 'pitching and defense' contender.
DeleteAs it stands today, it seems to me to be a long way away; of course, developments the rest of the season, all the way till the season starts next spring, can change all that. For example, Surkamp could come up and excel or Kickham could rebound and do well the rest of the way. So, we will see.
I expect Cainer to come back stronger next year. I do hope they use him sparingly even after he comes off the DL though. Bummy should still be Bummy. We'll have to wait and see with TImmy, but the most likely scenario is he gets a qualifying offer and accepts it. If he sticks with his diet and workout regimen this offseason and into next season, I think he could come back strong. We'll see what Vogie does the rest of the way, but his last start was encouraging. That's a pretty good 1-4. Just need to find one more. I would be comforrtable with a competition of Kickham, Surkamp, Escobar and Petit for the 5'th starter spot, but I would also expect the Giants to bring in a cheap reclamation project as they seem to do every year.
DeleteI don't think it's that far off.
The cavalry should start arriving in 2015.
You're right about 2015.
DeleteNext year will be a bridge year until the cavalry arrives.
I think Cain should rebound. The time to worry is next year if he doesn't because that would make it 2 data points.
Timmy - well, let's hope he does what has been preached here for a couple of years now.
Vogelsong - next year could be the last good year before his sunset golden years, as he is not young in baseball age. If he surprises us to the upside, it wouldn't be the first time.
To me, that's a long way, meaning a lot of question marks to be resolved.
It doesn't mean it won't be resolved happily for all of us. It's just mean it's a long way to get there. This is in contrast to our typical year (for the last few years) where we knew, or thought we knew, we would very likely get elite, near or somewhat elite production.
I don't think the Giants are all that far away from being a pretty good offensive team too, so maybe it's a combination of marginal improvement in both offense and pitching and a whole lot better defense and a whole lot of staying in the game mentally.
DeleteTorres to the DL with the achilles injury, stating that it's been bothering him since 2011. And he blames the condition for his lack of power from the left-side, and his subpar defense. Bochy wasn't aware of the situation until a couple of days ago. Not a big fan of hiding injuries that can hurt the team, but giving full information on the state of your health is at least part what got Nate Schierholtz in trouble with Bochy. This is the downside of that lesson, i.e. guys hurting the team by hiding injuries, specifically thinking of Scutaro and Torres, and perhaps we can put Buster in that category as well, since he looks like he got rode a little hard early in the season.
ReplyDeletePeter
Scutaro did not hide his injuries. His back is chronic and due to his uneven legs. His pinky injury happened earlier this season, he even risked permanent injury by snipping something in order to play with it, but the docs were wrong, it is still bothering him and might need off season surgery. Nate and Andres were bad about that though.
DeleteI think a case can be made that Scutaro hid the extent of his back discomfort Nate had the opposite problem; he would inform Bochy if something was bothering him, to the point where Bochy felt he couldn't count on Schierholtz. This demonstrates that in a Bochy led clubhouse providing full information on the state of your health might not be the best thing for your career - even if it seems like the right thing to do for the team, i.e. enabling a manager to make informed decisions. And this is just a hypothesis, not sold on it myself.
Delete