The Giants offense, led again by newcomer Alex Dickerson, picked up a shaky start by Tyler Beede and the bullpen locked it down for 5 innings. Key Lines:
Mike Yastrzemski RF- 1 for 5, HR(5). BA= .256. It was a quiet game for Young Yaz until the top of the 9'th inning when he tacked on 2 insurance runs with a blast to RF. He impressively got on top of a high hard one from Archie Bradley and drove it deep. It as Yastrzemski's 3'rd HR in 4 games and his 4'th in 9 games. He is hitting .286 over his last 7 games and .273 over his last 15. Am I the only one who sees just a bit of Will Clark in his sweet swing?
Kevin Pillar CF- 2 for 4. BA= .242. Pillar is hitting .410 over his last 10 games with 6 multi-hit games. He continued to lead a group of hitters at the bottom of the lineup who have been carrying the team. He's scored 8 runs over his last 3 games.
Alex Dickerson LF- 2 for 4, 2 2B. BA= .286. Dickerson doubled in his first AB to complete a cycle in the first four hits of his Giants career. He has also set several records for 2-game starts with a new team. What's a bit worrisome is the most recognizable name among the players he is beating out here is John Bowker. Dickerson's big challenge will be to stay healthy as he has hit at every level when he's played.
Brandon Crawford SS- 2 for 4. BA= .217. Crawford added on to the Pillar/Dickerson rallies twice with singles up the middle to drive in Dickerson from 2B. Crawford's bat has come alive with a .346 BA over his last 7 games.
Tyler Beede RHP- 4 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 3 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 6.96. Beede was not able to build on his previous best start of his career. This one boiled down to two words: Fastball command. He didn't have it and it made for a very rocky 4+ innings of work with 95 pitches thrown. He came out after giving up a leadoff double to David Peralta in the 5'th inning.
Bullpen- 5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K's. Trevor Gott inherited Peralta at 2B in the 5'th inning. After a K of Adam Jones, he allowed a soft single to LF on a play which ended with runners at 2'nd and 3'rd. He impressively got the next two batters on a K and a pop-up to end the threat. Mark Melancon, Sam Dyson, Tony Watson and Will Smith all worked scoreless innings with Smith recording his 20'th Save.
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Don't look now, but the Giants are 6.5 games behind in the Wild Card race. In previous seasons, that would be enough to make them buyers at the trade deadline. If Farhan still going to sell?
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Shaun Anderson goes for the sweeep this afternoon against RHP Merrill Kelly.
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Zaidi may be getting results from roster churning. Perhaps it’s time for lineup churning.
ReplyDeleteBegin at the beginning: Joe Panik is not an effective leadoff. Not just this week when he’s 2-23 in the last 6 games and his last 24 games sport a .194/.252 /.255 slash. Time to move on, for both positions: lead off AND 2B.
Normally a team’s best power hitter isn’t a lead off batter but when he’s tied for 58th in the league in HRs he’s not really a power hitter. Belt is good at getting on base and very good leading off an inning. He should bat first and if he leads off with a HR, then the Giants have the lead when on the road – he hits nearly twice as many HRs on the road than at home anyway.
2nd is patience and contact, could be Joe here and batting LH with Belt on 1st he’ll have a good infield to hit into. He doesn’t hit into many DPs.
3rd be nice to have a power guy but the Giants don’t have one. Maybe Sandoval or Pillar is here and 4th also.
Longoria at 5th – could be Posey but bases loaded and 1 out in the 1st inning could still be a DP. Put Buster 6th – at least there will be one run in with a great start to the 1st inning.
7th and 8th flip a coin. If Dickerson is for real, he should be batting 4 anyway and everyone shifts down putting Crawford at 8.
Yastrzemski, like Dickerson, if he’s for real he can slot in higher. Duggar needs his ABs but maybe not with the pitcher behind him – time for a 2nd leadoff at 9?
Bochy is great with people but would anyone cast him as innovative? He’s definitely old-school which is frustrating with a team as defunct of hitters as the Giants.
Churn churn churn
Beede didn't have command of his curve either. He gave Buster a workout stopping wild pitches. I like Dickersons story of 2 game historic success after 2 years on the DL. Cool story, easy to root For him. Yaz-hard to understand why he didn't have more of a chance with the Orioles, another guy easy to root For. Bullpen saved the game for sure. Wow, Will Smith's slider is filthy! No wonder he's perfect in save changes. Couldn't believe that the Astros traded for young stud OF Yordan Alvarez by giving up reliever Josh Fields to the Dodgers. Wow, dodgers Will regret that trade for awhile. Can you imagine if the Dodgers still had Alvarez? I think that Zaidi will make trades to get players with multiple years of control, no rentals.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea about that Astros-Dodgers trade - if Alvarez were a Dodger the situation would be hopeless and they would have the division locked up for 10 years - in which case I might just stop following baseball.
DeleteWill Zaidi still sell if the Giants keep winning? I think Dyson Watson and Smith would still be sold as there are some hot RPs in the system with Adon, Bergen, Selman that can step up -- and SF needs some electric young SP arms. Bumgarner is not looking like much of a trade chip - the Yankees say they don't want him now - maybe some good QSs before the All-Star game will make him irresistible to bidding warriors, but if that happens and they're >.500 by mid-July - then Zaidi might have him play out the season and go the QO/draft pick route. Got to cash in the relievers in July though.
ReplyDelete