An error by Brandon Crawford leading to 2 unearned runs in the 2'nd inning was the difference in this game. Key Lines:
Joe Panik 2B- 2 for 4. BA= .247. New York Joe is hitting .346 over his last 7 games but with a .333 OBP and a .346 SLG%. Panik has 1 more season of team control. Giants have a big decision to make with him, but does he have any trade value right now? Probably not much.
Austin Slater LF- 2 for 4, HR(1). bA= .281. So now I am not sure if I should rag on the Bruce Bochy for making Slater come off the bench for 4 games after his 0 for 11 skid, or to praise him to giving him a breather to regroup and come back stronger. Anyway, Slater appears to be the big beneficiary if Cutch gets traded, although Slater should be well ahead of Gorkys on the OF depth chart.
Casey Kelly RHP- 6 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 2.16. Somehow it seems like Kelly has not pitched all that well in any of his 3 Appearances, but here he is sporting a shiny ERA. Will he get another Start before Shark makes his return?
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With the Loss, the Giants are sitting 9 games out of first place in the NL West pending the outcome of the D'Backs vs Angels. Dodgers and Rockies are still playing too. Once they reach a 10 game or more deficit, they are officially out of the race in my book. Unofficially, they are already.
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Madison Bumgarner tries to bounce back from a rough start in Cincinnati on a Getaway Day tomorrow facing Cy Young candidate Jake DeGrom.
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D-Backs & Rockies Win, Dodgers lose late via another blown save (another HR given up) by Kenley Jansen. Cards swept them in Chavez Ravine. Dodgers 4.5 out in the West, 3.0 back in the Wild Card.
ReplyDeleteDodgers going to get some help with weakness of some remaining opponents. 6 against the Pads, 3 against the Mets, 3 against the Reds, 2 against the Rangers.
They close the season in San Francisco. Would be amazing if the Giants had some say in whether the Dodgers get a playoff spot.
1982. Joe Morgan, baby! The Dodgers eliminated the Giants on the second-to-last game. We eliminated them the next day! It was sweet, sweet, sweet revenge.
DeleteThe season would not be a total write off ; as long as we " Duck the Fodgers"!
DeleteRichard in winnipeg
That would be very nice but the Giants are not a team that has found a "way to win" this year as they have been in their good seasons.
DeleteHow dreadful would it be to be swept and the Dodgers "squeak" into 1st or the playoffs.
And worse, if SF maintains a 5-man starting rotation, Bumgarner pitches Game 129 today and hence Game 159 against San Diego before the final 3-game series with LA.
Maybe the Giants can re-insert sometimes Dodger-killer Ty Blach back into the starter role and have him, Bumgarner, Holland, and Young Dereck ready and in the mix for the final series.
If BB lets it get to that point with Kelly, Stratton, and Suarez in rotation, I'm going back to being a Cardinal fan!
blach is much better out of the pen than he is starting. rodriguez and suarez will be shut down at some point in september. shark will pretty much be "rehabbing" in the rotation during september.
DeleteGiants will have plenty of reasonable opportunity to shuffle Bum to line up with that last series with the Dodgers:
DeleteEvery Thursday from here on in is an off day. And, 6 of the last 12 games are with the Pads, which should have zero playoff implications.
Bum will face the Dodgers in that last series.
Rooting hard for hip surgery to help Buster regain his power stroke, but it seems unlikely he will be catching 120 games a year going forward. Rooting hard for both Brandons to finish the year strong, to justify optimistic outlooks for both going into 2019. Rooting for the Shark to show signs in September that he will again be able to miss bats, and rooting for Longoria to find an exercise/nutrition guru that can have him come into 2019 looking 29 again. Rooting for Joe Panik to show in the next six weeks that he can recapture his range at 2B and can get some pop back at the plate. Rooting really hard that Duggar and Slater can push through the end of the year with lots of playing time and continue to show signs that they going to grow into very nice MLB players. Finally, rooting for Suarez, Rodriguez, Black, Blach, W Smith, Stratton, Beede can stay healthy so they can head into the off season ready to prepare for Spring 2019.
ReplyDeleteThat is a lot of rooting. For 2019 to be a better year that 2018, a whole bunch of things will have to break right. It's just not likely. I don't know about others who frequent Docs blog (is it too early to say THANKS for another great year with WhenTheGiantsComeToTown?), but I am ready for a couple years of following young guys through the system and paying the price that NEEDS to be paid to be a legitimate WS contender.
After winning 3 straight and battling the Dodgers into the bottom of the 12th before losing, the Giants flew East for the start of 10 consecutive games with the bottom-feeders.
ReplyDeleteMaybe expectations were too high for a team with a broken rotation and a weak hitting offense, but did anyone expect such a collapse?
For most teams, this would call for a total housecleaning, but probably not for San Francisco. As Dave Fleming said in a pre-game interview on KNBR, "The Giants have made a great improvement on last year when they were awful." Or something like that.
Sure, Dave, they moved up 15 or so wins into 4th place. And got a lot older.
We can hope that BB will play the kids next year.
No, but I'm not surprised either. It's not so much as what I expect, but just that I recognized even with our bad record we've been over-performing. (Sad as it is.) We are +4 pythagorean wins over our run-differentials. Still are actually. We're also pretty terrible on the road (.412) and we've had our 'getting our butts kicked on the road' more than once.
DeleteThe bloody obvious fact is that we're just not a good team and there isn't any reason to expect them to do well on the road and being surprised at some regular butt-kickings on the road just isn't in my world view.
i think some major changes are coming this offseason. if they don't get harper, it will force them to trade core players to get younger. i think sabean and baer are gonna have a discussion with bochy about his options for next year, he can either be a lame duck manager next year, retire, or move to the front office and i don't see bochy wanting to be a lame duck. the first item of business this offseason could be to hire a new manager.
DeleteMcCutchen clearing waivers (no one wanted the $3.155MM left on his contract?) is a good thing -- he can be traded to anyone now.
ReplyDeleteEven if the Giants only save part of his $3+ million, it might help on the CBT and pay for the roster expansion in September.
Just hope they don't have to give up too much to get someone to take him -- do we have more "expendables" like Jason Bahr and Cory Gearrin? Getting rid of Jackson was very expensive.
Getting rid of Bahr, for me, still hurts.
DeleteI guess I don't quite get the exuberance for Jason Bahr. Nice prospect, but realistically fringy to ever have a significant MLB career.
DeleteGiants payroll waa how high? Just inder $197 M? And they won how many games and finished where?
ReplyDeleteThis season is a disgrace.
The fact that we got this far; with major loss of starting pitching to injury, and the yeoman like work from the replacements is some what amazing. So I respectfully disagree; the season is not a disgrace.
DeleteI have been a Giant fan since me dad turned me into one in the late 1950's. I am 67 now and given all the ball I have followed with the Giants over the year. 10 12 and 14 and to some extent 16 made me smile big time.
2018 = disappointing to me; not a disgrace.
Richard in Winnipeg
P.s nice outing by Bum today!
yes Bum pitched as though a playoff berth were on the line - plus he drove Slater home with the winning run
DeleteI'll agree with Richard. Been a Giants fan since the 70's and I've liked how they've hung in the race in what's been a rough year with injuries. I know all teams have injuries, but losing Bum for an extended period 1 week before opening day was just the start of a multitude of injuries. Cueto having TJ, Samardja with arm problems, Strickland with his bonehead injury, now Buster having hip surgery to top it off. Had my doubts that they were a playoff team, but never got to see all their starting players healthy and playing together for a significant amount of games. They've been around 500 all year without getting much breaks. The breaks don't go your way some seasons. A disgraceful season for me is losing 99 games in 2017 and 100 games in 1985.
DeleteLG
Gotta agree with Richard and LG. Calling this season a "disgrace" seems just a bit over-the-top. Although there's been a lot of disappointment and frustration, I've actually found this year's team to be quite entertaining to watch. First of all, it's only been in the last week that they've seriously dropped out of contention and we're getting close to September. Secondly, there have been some surprising and rewarding individual performances that have been downright inspiring. You can't find a much better baseball story than what Young Dereck Rodriguez has accomplished. Alen Hanson has been a great story. Derek Holland has been a nice surprise. Will Smith's comeback from TJ to become a really good Closer has been nice to watch. Pablo Sandoval's (partial)comeback was fun and heartwarming until he got hurt. Steven Duggar and Austin Slater give hope for the future as do D'Rod, Andrew Suarez and Reyes Moronta.
DeleteYup, I am not ashamed of this season at all! In fact, I have quite enjoyed it.