Tim Lincecum had a Quality Start while Brandon Belt drove in the tying run in the bottom of the 8'th inning and the walkoff winning run in the bottom of the 10'th. Key Lines:
Angel Pagan- 3 for 5. BA= .274. The team was in second place when Pagan went down and they have certainly played much better since his return. He scored 2 of the 3 runs in this one.
Brandon Belt- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .283. Belt is now firmly established as a guy you anticipate giving the Giants a chance to score in an inning where he bats.
Buster Posey- 2 for 4, HR(15). BA= .312. Buster's finger does not seem to be hurting him at the plate. He seemed to do OK behind the plate too.
Tim Lincecum- 8 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.40. Timmy economized his pitches and took this one through 8. Very nice effort! Dave Cameron of Fangraphs thinks the Giants should give Timmy a Qualifying Offer and that he should reject it. This is based mostly on the differential between his ERA and FIP/xFIP. The only problem with that analysis is it ignores the cause of that differential, which is that Timmy loses his command when he's in the stretch. That seems to be slowly getting better, though.
Ryan Vogelsong takes on Jorge De La Rosa tomorrow evening.
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so i heard mitch williams on the radio yesterday.
ReplyDeleteand while he advocates for much stiffer penalties for ped use, he doesnt believe that peds turned avg players into hr hitters
he said that "if i make my pitch, doesnt matter what the other guy is taking"
he believes (as i do) the only thing that peds do is allow players to go hard the entire 162...as the normal body starts to fall apart after the first 100
bacci
I won't argue with that. It's very close to my own beliefs about PED use.
DeleteThat is where I am too, that nothing turns avg players into HR hitters. And I think greenies usage had a much bigger impact on the record books than steroids, due to the length of time of usage, plus that there is still nothing proven about how steroids usage could help a hitter hit, whereas amphetamine's benefits are clear (they are US military approved!).
DeleteOne of the few times I agree with Mitch Williams, I totally agree that if a pitcher makes his pitch, the hitters not going to hit it.
I'm really starting to believe Pagan's injury was the blow that this team couldn't overcome. Good leadoff hitters are tough to come by these days, so Pagan's health could really dictate whether the Giants are competitive in the years to come.
ReplyDeleteIt worries me some that Bochy continues to run out practically the same lineup most nights lately. I know most of the guys are coming back next year, but please don't get static in the offseason. It's going to take more than bringing back Lincecum and Pence to get this team going again.
Thinking about LF... I would very much like to see the Giants make a push for Ellsbury or Choo, but I also wonder what it would take for the Royals to part with Alex Gordon. He would be a very nice addition to the outfield.
Pagan was (in hindsight) as big a blow if not bigger tha Posey. With the pitching staff this year (as opposed to two years ago) we just couldn't adjust. There were other issues though:
ReplyDeleteBelt's slow adjustment
NO left fielder
Bad defense at times
Horrible pitching.
On the latter, Zito came back down and Timmy really didn't improve all that much until too late. Vogey's injury may have hurt, but given he's not lighting the world on fire, not sure. And certainly Chaudin plugged that hole.
I hope Timmy gets going at the end of the year, and someone else gives him lots of money and we get another high round pick. I'm looking forward to our guys getting some time off, MadBum and Cain coming back strong. I am hopeful that one of Escobar or Surkamp can fill the left spot of our departing Zito, Petit gets a shot and then we just have Vogey/Chaudin battle it out for the last. We're going to have a boat load of money coming off payroll, and the only signing we might make is Pence and his salary won't go up that much if at all. So we'll have some money for other spots, including pitching.
Belt has really hit it in stride (although he did last year at this time too). Hoping he finally now gets it. I actually think him moving higher up has helped as he gets better pitches too. Would love to see him move to LF and free up a spot for someone else (Posey?) at first base.
PiLamBear
Sorry for the disappearing posts. Someone made a generalization about LHP's that someone else took umbrage at. In response the offended party made some comments that yet someone else might take offense at so I'm taking down the whole series.
ReplyDeleteNobody was out of bounds, but it was possibly headed that way.
Just being safe.
Pagan's injury was the start, but it was not due to lack of a leadoff hitter, it was because it was the first of a waterfall of injured players.
ReplyDeleteIf you look through the lineup after that, Blanco was the leadoff guy mostly and he actually hit well at leadoff - unlike Pagan during the time when we were actually winning games and leading the NL West early in the season - until he hit the wall somewhere, his OPS was up to the high 700 OPS range into summer. So leadoff was not the issue.
It was injuries. First Pagan, then Vogie, then Scutaro, then Crawford, then Sandoval, plus Casilla and Affeldt, our top two setup men. Plus Torres hidden struggles with his heel that finally got him DLed. Add to that Lincecum's inconsistencies, Cain's continued good but not great pitching since his Perfecto, Zito's disappearance into his black hole, all the issues with almost everyone appearing in the WBC.
As much as I do blame Belt for being stubborn about changing his mechanics, he was one of the few bright spots this season even before he changed things and improved. He had been one of our top hitters after starting out very cold for the first couple of weeks, for like 2-3 months, before he got cold enough to finally change. I would not place any part of the blame for this season on his part, his part was very minor, I think, in the overall tableaux centered around the injuries.