The Giants got another strong start from Chad Gaudin and the offense came to life late with a lot of help from the BrewCrew's infield for the Win. Key Lines:
Marco Scutaro- 0 for 5. BA= .306. Apparently the leadoff spot is kryptonite for Giants hitters.
Hunter Pence- 0 for 1, 3 BB, 2 SB(17). BA= .280. Pence has been winning games with his speed of late.
Brandon Belt- 3 for 3, BB. BA= .265. Belt is now 4 for 10 with 3 BB's since his 3 game benching to clear his head and take some extra BP. It would seem that the Giants handled that one right.
Roger Kieschnick- 2 for 3. BA= .353. Nice 2-hit game from Roger K. Bochy pinch-hit with Jeff Francoeur against a LHP. The Brewers countered with a RHP and Frenchy got a busted bat hit to drive in an insurance run.
Chad Gaudin- 6.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 4 BB, 8 K's. ERA= 2.56. Gaudin has had just 1 subpar start and maybe 3 subpar appearances all season. He was never as far down and out as Vogie, but yeah, this is Vogie all over again. The Giants have a remarkable record for digging productive players out of the dumpster.
Javier Lopez- 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K. ERA= 1.33. With the bases loaded, 1 out and a run in, Bochy brough in Lopez to face a LH batter. The Brewers countered with Rickie Weeks. Weeks hit one up the middle that Lopez deflected to Scutaro who flipped it to Crawford to for the force at 2B. Crawford then doubled up Weeks at 1B where the Giants got a break as replays appeared to show Weeks hitting the bag just ahead of the ball hitting Belt's glove. Inning over!
Matt Cain looks to extend the Giants winning ways facing Wily Peralta tonight.
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I'm glad that Frenchy came thru with the single and they won the game, but I wanted to see what the kid Roger K could have done in that situation against the lefty. Didn't make sense with the season over anyway.
ReplyDeleteLG
The season may be over, but if the team senses that the manager is letting up, they will mentally let up too and their play will get sloppy. And getting to .500 is a pride thing, Bochy just reached it last season and probably never expected to get close again, but he has. And knowing what Frenchy can do is important too, as Pagan is the only true starter signed for 2014 at the moment, and you know the Giants love defense, which he has in spades, and he only needs to be average then to be a valuable (i.e. cheap) contributor. It's like what Shankbone has been saying, we need them pieces to fit around Posey and complement him.
DeletePlus, you never know, Puig has cooled off (though still good .301/.381/.447/.828 since July 3rd), and so has Hanley (though still good .308/.370/.527/.897 since July 8th), but their pitching has took it up a notch as they cooled up, with ERA in the low 2's since July started, whereas they were roughly 3.80 ERA in the three months prior. Their bullpen continues to over perform with most of them having a 0 ERA, roughly, plus Kershaw, if you can believe it, took things up a notch over what he was doing before. I think the other starters starting drafting after him. Their pitchers aren't good enough to keep that going forever, they will have to drop at some point.
And their offense has started cooling. In their last 11 games, they have averaged 2.8 runs scored per game, yet ended up 9-2 because of their pitching, when offense like that should have resulted in a 2-9 record. A 7 game swing like that would put the D-backs in first, the Giants only 5 games back. And no way their pitching keeps up a low 2 ERA for another two months, they should revert back to their 3.80 ERA that they were sporting from April to June. So LA is looking vulnerable to me right now.
The Dodgers are crazy hot right now. So sure, something might come down, that's sort of vulnerable. Personally I don't see the pitching regressing much, but there's always the chance of injury.
DeleteGiants need to grind away, try and win series, try and leapfrog one team at a time. Yes, hurting our draft pick chances. You never know...
LG - I'm sure you're all over this guy, what do you hear about Kodi Mederios? Interesting delivery and angle, but I sure do like them lefties!
OGC,
DeleteThats what great teams do. When they can't hit they pitch when they don't pitch they hit. Thats the reason the Dodgers are in first place and the Giants last.
Looking at the standings, as it is so close I would much rather have the Giants lose to have a top 5 or at least a top 7 pick than have 2-5 extra useless wins than the other teams and pick 14th or 15th.
I am all in favor of the Giants giving Francoeur a long look this year. He was once a top 5 overall prospect in MLB and you can still see the athleticism there. I think there is a 4 WAR player still in there somewhere. The season being over is all the more reason to give him a longer leash and see if his problems can be solved.
DeleteSorry, ogc, but the Giants aren't coming back. Remainder of this season is for evaluation and trying to build some momentum for next year.
I have noted a number of times that my preference is securing a Top 5 pick, or at worse a Top 10, but I understand that from a business standpoint, they need to give it the old college try or there would be paying fans' revolt. Also, Bochy needs to manage the team so that they play ball his way, and if he lets down, the team lets down. I see no right or wrong, just a choice.
DeleteThat's my point, the Dodgers are not a great team, their pitching's history does not suggest that they can maintain an overall staff ERA of low 2's ERA. Kershaw is the only one capable of doing that. The bullpen has essentially carried a sub 1 ERA for a long while now, again, they are good but not that good. Even the starting staff is good, but not that good. There is still two months left, plenty of time for them to collapse.
DrB, I agree that the season is essentially over. Using a baseball game analogy, we are down 8-1, bottom of the 9th, very little chance of us coming back. Still, as I pointed out, the Dodgers were that close to bringing the whole division back into the race in roughly a week and a half, and we still have 7 weeks left in the season. If we were only 5 games back, that's better than where we were vs. Padres in August of 2010. And I'll always remember the Giants coming back from something like an 8-1 deficit in the 9th, against Pittsburgh in the early 70's, so I'll always have a little bit of hope in reserve, no matter what.
And I agree there should be evaluation and building of momentum, which ties into my comments above about Bochy managing to win still and keeping his players motivated to play out the string.
Bringing the whole division back into the race? ogc, where on Earth does THAT notion come from? I haven't been looking at the standings lately because I don't care, but a quick glance just now shows the Dodgers with a 6 game lead on the second place D'Backs and a greater than 10 game lead on everyone else.
DeleteGot news for you, ogc, the Dodgers ain't coming back to the division and the Giants ain't getting back into the race! This thing is over!
You never know. Dodgers just lost for the first time in a long while on the road. No team can maintain this kind of streaky wins. I'm glad they did it now and not in September/October.
DeleteShankbone, I remember seeing this cool feature on Kodi Medeiros on the local news. Check it out..Scouts are projecting him as a 2nd round pick in 2014. Its amazing how a small high school in the Hilo area can produce outstanding baseball players like recently drafted Kean Wong and this kid. Kolten Wong also grew up in the Hilo area.
Deletehttp://www.khon2.com/2013/07/18/76-premium-profile-kodi-medeiros/
LG
DrB, yes, it is mostly over, much like how the Giants ran off with things last season.
DeleteHowever, the Dodgers averaged 2.7 runs over their last 12 games, but ended up 9-3. They should have been 7-5 by Pythagorean, based on what they actually did. However, Prior to that, they were giving up 4.0 runs allowed per game, so they should have ended up that stretch 4-8. That's a 5 game swing for them, and that would have brought most of the NL West close enough to make it a race, at least for the D-backs and maybe the Padres.
So my point is that they are vulnerable right now, the Giants when they went on their historic run in 2010, had pitching capable of that type of run, the Dodgers do not, particularly the bullpen unless they all learned one or two new pitches that allow them to keep their ERA close to zero (yes, zero, they have been that good). And as we saw with our offense, a short run of inability to score could stretch out. And referring to 2010 again, the Padres collapsed as well, and that brought the Giants back into the race.
Most probably it won't be the Giants repeating, but at this point, I think the Dodgers are vulnerable to an extended period of sucking, and some teams could start winning and make the NL West a competition again. The Giants pitching, however, is coming on strong so you never know, if the offense could ignite (and frankly, I put that on Posey's apple shoulders, he's been ordinary lately, not Super Posey like he was in 2010 and 2012), we could be back in the race. Unlikely, but to your point about prospects too old for a league, sometimes they do succeed.
Nice stretch of pitching lately! Except for the Zito imolation and Gaudin's 150 swings in the batting cage affecting him in his next start, that's 10 starts in a row (since July 23, second game) with the Giants giving up 4 runs or less, and only one of those were 4 runs. With Zito now out of the rotation and Gaudin presumably not doing that again, looking good for the rotation going forward.
ReplyDeleteAnd skipping prospect starts and Lincecum's post no-no battering (and Zito), that stretches back to Cain's last bad start on July 10th. So the starting pitching and bullpen has been doing well for a while now.
Now we need the offense to ignite this sucker. I was so hoping that Posey would be that igniter, for in 2010 and 2012, his superman hitting routine seemed to start in Milwaukee both seasons.
While Scutaro/Crawford was an oh-fer up top, I would also note that they were BABIPed, 9 AB's but only 1 strikeout, should have resulted in 2-3 hits on average (2.4 to be exact). So I liked what the new lineup did yesterday, and Bochy said that this lineup will be tried out for a while, so I look forward to see what happens.
And it makes total sense to swap Pence and Pablo, at least right now, as that puts some speed up in the lineup and particularly in front of Posey. I'm also glad that Pence and Pablo are not batting consecutively, I like that they bookend Posey, I still think that screws with pitcher's minds.
I totally agree with the Vogie and Gaudin comparison and that Gaudin was never as down and out as Vogie (though really, extremely hard to compete with Vogie's history).
Still, Gaudin hadn't pitched regularly as a starter since 2009 and had a career 4.72 ERA as a starter, 7.2 K/9, 4.3 BB/9, 1.71 K/BB, before joining the Giants. This season, as a starter, he has a 7.7 K/9, 3.0 BB/9, 2.58 K/BB, all very good numbers for a starter. Also, out of 10 starts, he has had 6 DOM starts, which is very good, three DIS start, and one was his batting over practice start. More amazing, all the DOM starts were 5 PQS starts, the highest you can record.
Belt: so far, so good, he's finally drinking the last of his Kool-air regarding how to bat, it seems, will this be the changes that brings his potential to the fore?
Keep up the good work Roger K! Seems to be trying to figure out how to hit in the majors first, then bring the power later, for as well as he's been hitting so far (.353), no extra-base hit so far. Nor any walks.
Eh, Giants needs some breaks to get Karmic balance after getting Joe West'ed over the weekend. I wonder what their record is for series in which he is one of the umpires. His name comes up far too often to be coincidence.
Go Cainer!