Brandon Crawford broke a 4-4 tie with a walk-off, splash-hit home run in the bottom of the 10'th inning to send the AT&T Park crowd home in a delirious frenzy of joy. Key Lines:
Angel Pagan- 2 for 4. BA= .412. Pagan continues to be the heart and soul of this team making things happen at the top of the lineup. He's good for setting the table for the power guys or for driving in runners when the bottom of the order gets something going. Today it was keeping a bottom-of-the-order rally going with a 2-run single.
Pablo Sandoval- 2 for 4, HR(2). BA= .180. Pablo has had a rough first two weeks of the season, but has been hitting the ball hard, right at people. The dinger today would have been a splash hit had it not caromed off a flagpole in the RF arcade. Hopefully this is one to build on. Giants need Pablo to get hot!
Gregor Blanco- 1 for 1, 3B. BA= .091. Blanco got thrown out in the bottom of the 9'th trying to stretch a triple into an inside-the-parker. I don't have a problem with Flannery sending him in that situation. There's two outs so not a great chance that he scores if he stops at 3B. At worst, you come out of the inning still tied. It took a perfect relay throw and a perfect tag by the catcher to get him. He was definitely out, but his hand was just 1-2 inches short when the tag was applied to a sensitive area, leaving Gregor in some pain.
Brandon Crawford- 1 for 3, HR(1), SF. BA= .308. Crawford's game winner came off a pretty tough LHP to boot. He's making a statement that he is more than a platoon hitter.
Brandon Hicks- 2 for 2, BB. BA= .368. Hicks is playing himself into more and more playing time, at least until Scutaro gets back which does not seem to be imminent.
Tim Hudson- 7.1 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 0 BB, 5 K, GO/AO= 12/3. ERA= 2.35. Huddy pitched much better than the final line would indicate as he went into the 8'th having allowed just 3 hits and 2 solo HR's. Then he got BABIP'd in the 8'th with Rutledge's double down the RF line definitely a random hit as was the single off Lopez by Stubbs that drove in the tying run. In fairness, he may have been tiring a bit and getting some elevation on those pitches, but at least 2 of the hits in the inning were random BABIP jobbies.
Santiago Casilla- 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 2.35. No K's, but Casilla looked strong with a 94 MPH FB that he was getting in good locations. The leadoff walk caused a bit of anxiety, but Casilla easily got out of it.
The Win improved the Giants record to 8-5 which left them 1 game behind the NL West leading Dodgers who completed a sweep of the hapless D'Backs and are 9-4. The Rockies fell below .500 to 6-7, 3 games off the pace in 3'rd place while the Padres remained 3.5 games back at 5-7 after defeating Max Scherzer and the Tigers in Petco. The aforementioned hapless D'Backs fell a full 6 games back in last place at 4-11.
The Giants have Monday off, then start a 3 game midweek series against the Dodgers with Tim Lincecum facing Josh Beckett on Tuesday night.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Another big series coming up.
ReplyDeleteAs Cain showed with his emerging from his early season slump, so hopefully Lincecum will have a good game. Probably will have Affeldt replacing Perez.
All in all, a good weekend for the Giants taking 2 out of 3 from the Rockies. The Giants starting pitchers pitched deep into their games which is a good sign for the long run. The bullpen pitched solid all 3 games, although Friday's night's game(the only game I watched) became tense due to Madbum pitching out of the stretch almost he entire game and the Rockies almost coming back in the 8th inning thanks to Panda's throwing error... Luckily the offense came alive today from the 5th inning to pull out a big win. Brandon Hicks could be a nice pickup for the team while Scutaro gets well.. I read that Bobby Evans liked his versatility and Richmond's manager Russ Morman liked him while he was the Fresno hitting coach last year. Crawford sure had a sweet swing on his walk off homer against a tough lefty! It wouldn't be surprising if the Giants go with 13 pitchers when Affeldt comes off the DL since the bullpen has pitched a lot..
ReplyDeleteAlso , very pleased and not surprised that Kolten Wong is off to a solid start as the Cardinals starting 2nd baseman. He collected 2 more hits and a rbi today in the Cardinals win!
LG
craw's thoughts on the walkoff
ReplyDeletehttp://brandon.mlblogs.com/2014/04/13/another-day-at-the-office-brandon-crawford/
i love this kid
any thoughts on why bochy decided to stretch out huddy as tomorrow is an off day, so the pen would not be gassed before meeting up with the hated ones?
and why do i have this terrible feeling that beckett is gonna make like cy on tuesday night?
bacci
Huddy's pitch count was very low, so Bochy really had no reason to pull him. He wasn't pitching badly and he got into trouble so fast there really wasn't time to stop the bleeding. I thought Bochy handled it fine.
DeleteAs for Beckett, maybe you feel that way because the Giants always seem to lie down and die in front of him?
Looked it up to be sure, Huddy threw a total of 85 pitches in the game, so he wasn't really stretched out.
DeleteAnd has yet to walk a batter this season.
DeleteEven if Huddy's pitch count was low, Bochy should have gone to the pen in the 8th, or he should have had a pen that he had confidence going to in the 8th. He's been loggin a lot of innings early in the year. The dinger to Morneau may have been indicative of some fatigue. It would be nice to have a lights out guy to take care of the 8th - then to Romo.
DeleteGiants almost let one get away, and the bullpen had a lot to do with it.
Huddy was pitching fast and low. Made about 4 bad pitches all day. I love having a pitcher like this. Timmy seems to be choosing the Johnny Sanchez route, having a pitch to contact go throw strikes guy is awesome.
DeleteI don't know if you can get too jacked up about Javy Lopez letting in a runner from third with one out. Casilla manned up and didn't blow it at least.
Crawford has been very good at rolling the order so far, getting some key hits. One thing the beats noted was that all of Pagan's RBI are with 2 out. Interesting? Not sure, but I wouldn't be quick to dismiss it.
Ryan,
DeleteWas the HR Huddy gave up earlier an indication of fatigue? Man, it you could detect fatigue based an a single HR off Huddy, you are a much better reader of pitchers than I am! He looked just fine on the other hitters in the 7'th!
As for the bullpen, Casilla was pretty much lights out as was Romo. I don't think a lack of confidence in his bullpen played a role in Bochy deciding to let Huddy go back out there, maybe a lack of confidence in his next two SP's, but not in his bullpen!
Shankbone,
Not sure if you were referring to my comment re. Lopez, but I thought I made it clear that the hit he gave up was a BABIP jobby and not due to poor pitching on his part.
Nope, Ryan's comment about the bullpen having a lot to do with it. Hudson gave up his lead. It happens once in a while, not a big deal.
DeleteDoc,
DeleteI just think the Giants should ease up on Huddy's workload in April. 80 pitches in 7 innings - nice work, time for a rest, let's use the pen.
I thought the pitch up and over plate to Morneau was a likely indicator of fatigue. He's been the horse so far, innings wise. Each inning is another cool down and heat up phase.
Save some of Huddy for the stretch.
Just watched the CSBA telecast on my brother's DVR. Man, BC crushed that Rex Brothers pitch something wicked. Serious Bonds pose for a second out of the box (and deservedly so). He earned all off that Splash Hit!
ReplyDeleteAlmost as good was his post-game interview with Amy G. Pagan sneaked in for a Gatorade shower of the Messiah! This looks like a disciplined yet loose veteran club house. As long as they stay healthy, I think they go all the way.
Go Giants!
NWGiantsFan
DtF!!!
Thats why stats/numbers dont always tell the whole truth. If anyone was not watching the game they would think that Hudson pitched a bad game but dude was dominant.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you look at peripheral numbers like K's and walks and WHIP and such, he pitched very well. It's just the ERA that is misleading. In a large enough sample size, I think ERA is still the best stat to measure pitching performance, but for one game like this, it can be very misleading.
DeleteI still go by ERA at the end of the day thats what gets pitchers into Hall of Fame!!. but there are guys who end up with the same ERA yet you know that one of them is way more dominant than the other. Example: Cain and Garza, even though in previous years both these guys had similar ERA you could tell that Cain was more consistent, less bad games, more shutouts, more QS, etc. In a WS game I would much rather have Cain than Garza pitching.
DeleteSame goes with hitters two guys can hit .280 but theres always that one guy that diffrentiates from the other, IMO
Just for fun, I looked up Huddy's game from yesterday in Fangraphs Game Log: His ERA for the game was 4.91, FIP was 5.32, but his xFIP was 2.91, which is right about where I think his true performance was.
Delete7 IP, 2 ER would have been a great line.
DeleteDo you think there is any truth to what Kruk and Kuip have been saying that because a building was taken out in CF that it has changed how the wind affects the ball making the stadium more hitter friendly. It does seem like AT&T has been giving up a lot of HRs lately
ReplyDeleteHard to say. It's certainly possible. The wind patterns at AT&T are very quirky and do have a lot to do with it's playing characteristics. On the other hand, most of the HR's I've seen so far went to left-center which has always carried well, or were pulled to RF. I think there would be a lot more HR's to RF in AT&T if LH hitters pulled the ball more. I know, easier said than done, but I have a feeling Darrell Evans would have put up very good numbers in this park.
Delete