Saturday, March 20, 2021

Spring Training Game Wrap: Reds 6 Giants 2

Giants bats were mostly quiet while Aaron Sanchez RHP made his first spring appearance and several prospective Giants relievers looked sharp.  Game Notes:

Just getting through 2.1 IP was probably a big win for Sanchez and the Giants but he gave up 3 runs on 5 hits while striking out 2.

Jarlin Garcia LHP, Jake McGee LHP, Tyler Rogers RHP, Jose Alvarez LHP and Caleb Baragar LHP threw scoreless frames while racking up a total of 10 K's.  Those first four should be locks for the bullpen with McGee seemingly the frontrunner for Closing duties.

Reyes Moronta RHP's inning did no go as well as his last appearance as he gave up 2 runs on two walks and a hit in 0.2 IP. 

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The Giants have today off before taking on the Dodgers with Scott Kazmir LHP on the mound to start the game on Sunday.

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As we've mentioned, Dedniel Nunez RHP will undergo TJ surgery and is out for the full season.  The Giants will try to stash him on the 60-day IL and see if he can stick next year.  They will have to add him back to the 40 man roster before next year's Rule 5 Draft.

3 comments:

  1. Back in November you covered the signing of Jason Vosler. You mentioned some were dreaming this might be a clone of Max Muncy.

    Muncy said this about his changes in 2018:
    "When I got picked up by the Dodgers, and I was in Triple-A, that was when I was able to start making adjustments to my mental approach at the plate, my aggressiveness, a bunch of little tweaks in that area," said Muncy.

    "In a sense, my swing was still the same, but I was in a better position to start it. The swing itself, nothing had really changed in that, it's just that I was able to get myself into a better position to fire the bat quickly, and a lot of that had to do with being mentally more aggressive. Also, I was able to figure out that I could be more aggressive, mentally, but still lay off pitches that I didn't want to swing at, and when that kind of clicked for me last year, that's when things really started taking off."

    A few days ago Maria Guardado on MLB.COM covered the change to Vosler in 2017 when before he was not a 20+/year HR hitter. The following is from her column::

    After hitting only three homers in 2016, Vosler, now with the Giants, decided to make “a swing preparation change” to help tweak his mindset at the plate.

    “It wasn’t necessarily like, ‘Hey, I want to hit fly balls,’” Vosler said during a Zoom call with reporters on Wednesday. “It was more, ‘All right, I’m going to ditch these ground balls. I’m going to start trying to beat the center fielder with line drives during batting practice, those rising line drives with backspin. I think it just kind of organized my swing in a way that produced that more consistently, and then more balls started going over.

    “It wasn’t a huge mechanical change or anything. I think it was almost the thought of hitting more line drives kind of organized my body in a way that, probably some changes did occur, but they weren’t that intentional.”

    Can he pull a Muncy?
    Vosler is 27 yo, knocking at the door.
    Muncy was 27 in 2018 when he came from nowhere to get 35 knocks for the Dodgers.

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  2. If the Cubs let Eric Sogard go — he's on a minor league contract — Zaidi might pick him up. There is no backup to Crawford. None.

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    1. One reason why I really wish FZ held onto Daniel Robertson. Seemed like maybe FZ's obsession with acquiring a lefty IF bat caused him forget to adequately back up the SS position.

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