Game Wrap 6/14/2014: Rockies 5 Giants 4

Same song, second verse, could get better but it's gonna get worse.  It was Deja Vu all over again in the  9'th inning  with another Blown Save by Sergio Romo and another questionable OF play by Angel Pagan leading to the Giants 5'th loss in 6 games.  Key Lines:

Hunter Pence- 2 for 4, HR(9).  BA= .307.  Pence got the Giants on the board first with a HR to the deepest part of left-centerfield.  A fan reached over the field  above the wall to catch it.  The ball was clearly over the glove of Charlie Blackmon, but it looked like it may well have hit near the top of the wall instead of going over had the fan not caught it.  Is that replayable?

Buster Posey- 2 for 3, 2B, HR(9), SF.  BA= .269.  Buster broke out of his slump with a hard hit double into the LF corner and a 2-run HR into the LF bleachers to tie to game at 3.  Later he hit an off-balance fly that got deep enough to RF to score Pagan on a SF.  Hopefully this leads to one of his prolonged hot streaks.

Ryan Vogelsong- 5 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 2 K's.  ERA= 3.94.   Vogey battled it out for 5 innings.  He gave up a lot of hard hit balls but enough found gloves to keep the game close.  He allowed the leadoff batter to reach base in 3 of the 5 innings and a 1 out double to Morneau in another inning, so he was in the stretch for most of the 5 innings.

Sergio Romo- 1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 0 K.  ERA= 5.08.  OK, here we go.  Romo got the first two outs quickly, although PH Troy Tulowitzki hit it deep to CF for the second out.  Dickerson then poked a liner to LF to keep the inning alive bringing up Barrett Barnes.  Barnes hit what looked like a soft liner to right-CF.  Pagan rushed toward the ball and seemed to have things under control until the ball suddenly appeared to accelerate and shoot right past his glove all the way to the CF wall.  By the time it was retrieved and thrown back in, Barnes had circled the bases for an inside-the-park HR that was ironically similar to Pagan's own inside-the-park walk-off against these same Rockies last year.  It looked like Pagan might have thought the ball was more softly hit than it was and took too aggressive of an approach, but I'm not sure.  It was very strange to watch because on the TV, it looked like a soft liner that would probably die once it hit the grass too.

As for Romo, he's not getting the strikeouts he's gotten in the past which is part of the reason he keeps getting BABIP'd.  It might be time for him to get rested for 2-3 days, definitely tomorrow.  If his struggles/bad luck continue after a couple of days off, Bochy might have to consider pulling him out of the line of fire.

That is part of what I don't like about the closer role in general.  It's just so dogmatic that the closer has to pitch every 9'th inning he can in a Save situation.  I know closer-by-committee seldom works, but in the Giants case, if they are facing 2 LH batters in a row in the 9'th inning, I would like Bochy to have the flexibility to use Lopez to face them rather than the knee-jerk that the closer has to pitch the entire 9'th inning with a 3 run lead or less and has to stay in there until the lead is lost.  It's become such an iconic role with large amounts of money to say nothing of pride at stake that it becomes this huge deal to change closers or play matchups in the 9'th inning when it really should not be.

The Dodgers are now 7 games back of the Giants and play tonight.  The 3'rd place Rockies gained a game to 9.5 back while the Padres won and are 13.5 back.  The D'Backs play the Dodgers tonight.

Madison Bumgarner tries to avert a series sweep tomorrow afternoon facing Juan Nicasio.