There as a strong offshore flow in SoCal today and balls were flying out of Dodger Stadium. Unfortunately, more of them flew out for the Dodgers than the Giants in this one. Key Lines:
Brandon Belt- 2 for 4, HR(4). BA= .323. Belt appears to be on track for his widely expected breakout season. John Kruk(yeah, THAT Kruk!) did a great job of explaining "wrapping" and how Belt's change in grip has improved his hitting. That was, by far, Kruk's best contribution to the ESPN broadcast.
Hunter Pence- 1 for 4, HR(1). BA= .138. Pence seems to be heating up after a very quiet opening series in Arizona.
Matt Cain- 6 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 0 BB, 3 K, 3 HR. ERA= 5.73. OK, I knew there were going to be some dingers tonight when I woke up this morning and the wind was blowing in from the northeast. Dry as a bone and the balls go flying! On the other hand, the pitch he threw to Kemp for the first HR just had nothing on it at all. You can't make those mistakes against the Dodgers on any day and certainly not on an offshore flow day. The other early warning sign I had was that Cain was obviously trying to pitch to contact and keep his pitch count down. He was getting outs, but all on batted balls. THAT will eventually catch up to you, especially if you are a flyball pitcher.
Zach Greinke(Dodgers)- 6 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 8 K's, 2 HR. ERA= 3.27. I don't think balls and strikes were an issue for Matt Cain, but the ump gave Greinke and the Dodgers relievers a ridiculously huge strike zone all night. Greinke is a tough customer with a regulation zone. Greinke was also acting mighty strange in the 6'th inning frequently squatting behind the mound as if he was trying to stretch something out and generally acting like that was the last place in the world he wanted to be. Yet, he' showed excellent movement on a comebacker and then shook Mattingly off when the Dodger's skipper went out to ask if he needed to come out. After the game, Greinke tweeted that he had "no idea" why Mattingly was out there. Weird stuff!!
With the Loss, the Giants record falls to 5-2 but they maintain a 0.5 game lead over the 5-3 Dodgers in the NL West. The Rockies lost to the D'Backs to stay 2 games behind at 3-4 while the Padres topped the Marlins and are 2.5 games out at 2-4. The D'Backs improved to 2-7 and stayed 4 games off the pace in last place.
The Giants have tomorrow off followed by their Home Opener on Tuesday against the D'Backs with Tim Hudson facing Trevor Cahill.
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The 2nd homer he gave up to Kemp looked like it was on a poorly located pitch too that caught too much of the plate.. The team had a nice road trip going 5-2, but I really wanted to see Cain pitch better then he did today, win or lose.. He is such a key to the teams fortunes this season.. The lineup looks more promising this year with Pagan leading off and 5 long ball threats following him, which could give them the ability to score runs in bunches and come from behind in games.. Espn mentioned that the 2 sides are exchanging proposals on the Panda's extension.. I hope it gets worked out within reason.. I'm wondering if this team would be able to afford paying the Panda and lets say Belt later on.. I think I read somewhere that the Giants already have $127 mil committed to 13 players for 2015. Looking forward to a great 9 game home-stand coming up!
ReplyDeleteLG
DocB, I had no idea, listening on the radio, about the wind. Thanks for the insight.
ReplyDeleteBut, sure had an idea about Cain's pitches getting too much of the plate. He's got to work this out, because Bad Cain is not an option.
The Bum's bullpen is BAD. You ain't coming back on them right now. The Giants have had the advantage on the West with their shutdown pen for the last 4 years. Damn where did all those Bums arms come from?
Let's see how the Giants new found power game works at home. Hopefully, the hit parade continues.
I agree with you on the Dodgers bullpen. Posey's AB against Chris Perez might just be the single worst AB I've see in Buster's entire career so far.
Deletei dont think the bums pen is all that great...i think the giants were way too aggressive and gave them k's
Deletewas dry yesterday and balls were carrying....but matty made mistake after mistake...to the wrong players
and while kruk gave a great explanation as to why belt is hitting better, seems english is that guy's second language....the rest of his day was made up of sentence fragments...although he did get a good dig in on the bums fans, with their multiple waves and beach balls....most uneducated fans in all the mlb
and while im happy that giants fans seem to no longer have a prob showing up to the latrine wearing their colors, i still will never return to that hell hole
still, good road trip....but sp must improve
bacci
Also, the ump had a very generous strike zone for the Dodger's pitchers last night. It may have been generous for the Giants too, but it was not as much of a factor due to the way they pitched.
DeleteDodger's Bullpen is for real, though.
Well well looks like when the Giants are beginning to find a solid offense the pitching staff turns to mediocre.
ReplyDeleteWhy can't we fans have both sides?
Impress by Belt, I will admit I have always been a Belt basher on this and other giants forums but dude is starting to pick it up. He might be the best hitter on this team (even better than Buster) in the long run.
I just dont see Cain anymore being the dominant pitcher that he once was.Looks like when players get these huge contracts their performance starts to fall off (hugely) they also start getting weird injuries. Something to look into?
Kruk described Greinke as awkward fellow. Anyone got more info into this?
Greinke missed some playing time early in his career with what was diagnosed as Social Anxiety Disorder. He's always been a bit of a different personality. Apparently he is highly intelligent, is very sabermetrically oriented, and has been known to involve himself in his teams' draft planning. He will probably be a GM someday!
DeleteOGC,
DeleteDid you, by any chance, watch the game? 3 of the 4 dingers Cain gave up were off FB's in bad locations.
You don't think Brian Sabean is socially awkward?
A few reasons why I hope 2014 is better:
DeleteBelt is definitely progressing
Pagan is back
We have 3 OFs capable of offense, with 2 good defensive OFs.
Panda appears more in shape.
Hector appears more in shape
We have way more depth at pitching than last year, with guys having moved up. Especially in the pen.
Here's hoping we continue the 2014 progressing the right way.
PiLamBear