With all due respect to Tim Flannery and Michael Morse, the BABIP gods were smiling down on Young Dereck Rodriguez tonight as the D'Backs squared up pitch after pitch and hit rocket after rocket that went right to Giants fielder's gloves or at least close enough for a diving catch. Speaking of those fielders, they gave Young Dereck a big boost at the plate as their squared up pitches went higher and farther than the D'Backs, all for an easy win. Key Lines:
Donovan Solano SS- 2 for 4, HBP. BA= .331. Solano's remarkable season continues. He let off the game with a single that started a 2-run rally and later doubled with 1 out in the 8'th and scored on Austin Slater's single.
Austin Slater RF- 3 for 3, 2B, SB(1), 2 BB. BA= .284. Perfect night at the plate for Slater as his slash line got a major boost. He also made a couple of nifty catches in RF on scalded balls in the first inning to get Young Dereck's night off to the right start.
Buster Posey C- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .257. Talk about scalding the ball, Buster has been scalding them to the R-CF alley lately which is a sign he is swinging the bat well. Hmm.... on second thought, he's hitting just .250 over his last 7 games and .255 over his last 15.
Evan Longoria 3B- 3 for 5, HR(15). BA= .255. Longo is back to where he left off when he hit the DL with plantar fasciitis. .414 over his last 7 games and .340 over his last 15. If YtY has designs on leading the Giants in HR's this season, Evan Longoria is going to have something to say about that. Giants top 4 batters went 10 for 17 and reached base 13 of 20 PA's.
Dereck Rodriguez RHP- 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K's, GO/AO= 5/8. ERA= 4.79. Flan and Michael Morse were spinning the fly balls as a positive on Postgame Live. They must have been watching a different game than I was. A lot of those flyball outs were hit haaaaard!
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The Win allowed the Giants to pick up a game on the Wild Card field and now trail the Cubs for the final slot by 3.5 games.
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Jeff Samardzija tries to keep the momentum going tomorrow evening against former Giant Mike Leake.
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As the Roster Churns: Aramis Garcia and Williams Jerez got shipped back out to Sacramento while Dereck Rodriguez and Fernando Abad got called up(Abad pitched a scoreless 9'th inning). Kyle Barraclough was DFA'd to make room on the 40-man for Abad.
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Jaylin Davis is raking tonight in Sac. Slater has such a good eye now he could draw 100 walks in a full season.
ReplyDeleteAny thoughts on next year's OF? Slater, Yaz, Pillar, Jaylin, Davis. Can Davis play CF? Because Yaz and Slater at the corners would be great.
Solano and Slater - what a one, two punch!
And what about Kevin Pillar making that diving catch in the 9th inning with the Giants leading big. He'll play all out regardless of the score. I bet his teammates and fans appreciate that. Is all of this roster churning really necessary? Not too crazy about it, but gotta give Zaidi credit for finding players like Yaz, Dickerson, Solano who have really helped this team. Liked the trades he made at the deadlines. How did he get the Braves to pay all of Melancon's salary? I remember when the Pomarnaz deal was going down with the Brewers for Mauricio Dubon, Rosenthal tweeted the Giants must be sending another player to even the trade out, it ended up being Ray Black. I hope the Giants are exploring the possibility of signing Madbum if they want to be competitive next year. He can still pitch!
ReplyDeleteIt was a hot evening at Recreation Park (102 at start of the game) with almost 3,000 fans (most wearing Giants’ colors) there to see Johnny Cueto. He received numerous ovations and the crowd expressed their displeasure when he was taken out of the game in the 3rd inning – then cheered loudly as he walked off the field. He looked good on the mound, able to throw all his pitches for strikes (36 of 49) and displayed his usual variety of deliveries, with his shimmy, his shake and an occasion quick pitch thrown in the mix. He only gave up one hard hit ball, but gave Rawhide left fielder Jorge Perez (all 5’8” and 165 lbs) the memory of a lifetime as Perez hit a no doubt homerun off Cueto. Two of the other hits were little bloopers and the other would have been fielded by a major league second baseman. The word from one of the Rawhide employees is that Cueto was driven up to Sacramento after the game for his next rehab assignment and then it will be on to San Francisco for a start in early September. :) APGiantsfan
ReplyDeleteThe two balls Buster got into the air were hit well but the other three were grounders at infielders, the first topped at the plate and Lamb let it roll to see if it would trickle foul. The other two were cookie cutter double play balls, the second of which a rally killer with the bases loaded and one out (and the Giants well ahead, so no big deal).
ReplyDeleteQuestion: @ 32 yo, is it too late in his career for a "swing adjustment" to get the ball off the ground?
Although his K% is up over recent years, it's lower than the year when he was "THE BEST" (15.5% now v 15.7% in 2012 -- Fangraphs says that 16% is on the good side of average) and he is making good contact.
With his painful lack of speed and the Giants getting more runners on base in front of him (8 last night for Solano and Slater), it would be great to get the ball in the air, even popups don't hurt like ground balls do.
Or is it too late for old dogs to learn new tricks?
Billy Hamilton DFA'd -- horrible contract to pick up but cheap after he clears.
ReplyDelete.275 is a pretty bad OBP but that means if he does get on he's in scoring postion.
However, Mr Z, he has lost a step.