If you looked at the pitching matchup for yesterday's game against the Dodgers and said to yourself, "it sure is a good think the Giants won that crazy, crazy game Friday night" to avoid a series sweep, I can say you were not alone, because that's what I was thinking. I'm not sure what the deal was with Walker Buehler RHP. Maybe this pitches were a bit straight? Maybe his command was just a bit off? I will say, the top velocity I saw on the ESPN TV monitor was 95 MPH which is a tick or three slow for Buehler. Keep THAT tucked away in the back of your mind! At any rate, the Giants jumped on him for 6 runs in 3 innings and held on to win the game.
That gave the Giants 10 wins in the 19 game season series which accounts for the one game lead they have in the standings coming out of the series. Possibly more importantly, the Giants went 10-5 over the last 15 games after starting out 0-4 including a 3-game series sweep loss in the first series of the season played in Oracle Park. The only reason they didn't start 0-5 was that game-saving catch over the LF wall by Mike Tauchman OF to bring back a walk-off HR by Albert Pujols. The Giants went on to win that game plus the next 2 in Dodger Stadium and went 7-5 in the rest of their games against the Dodgers.
So there. Tauchman's catch remains my leading candidate for play of the year. It not only saved a walk-off loss, it ended up winning that game and completely turning the H2H season series around which is now the difference in the standings.
If only he could hit!
ReplyDelete25 games left — 13-12 makes 100 wins! Whoddathunk?
Nice to see the Giants boot Walker.
ReplyDeleteFound the Espn broadcast crew generally very balanced in their call of the game.
Lets hope the Giants handle the Rockies and the Cards gave the Dodgers a series kicking.
Richard in Winnipeg
Agree that Tauchmans catch is the play of the year. It turned series momentum. I also think back to Yaz's grand slam against the dbacks late in the game. They came back and won 9-8 after trailing big. I think that's helped them too. You were right about the pitching matchups looking unfavorable, but DeScafani pitched great and Buehler got knocked around. I was upset at myself for benching DeScafani on my fantasy team, but ended up being happy he pitched well and the Giants won the game, lol!
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