The Giants brought back Torture baseball winning a wild Opening Day game in Oracle Park. Key Lines:
Brandon Belt 1B- 2 for 4, HR(1), BB. Belt had quite the day. He started the day riding in a boat with his Captain's Hat and throwing out the first pitch. In the third inning with Joey Bart at 1B and two outs, Belt pushed a bunt against the shift a little to hard but the Marlins 3B threw it away down the RF line. Bart showed off a tool that Buster Posey never had by motoring all the way around to score the first run of the game. Belt later hit his first HR of the year, all this after going playing in just 3 spring games and going 0 for.....
Darin Ruf DH- 1 for 3, 2 BB. Ruf played a key role in this game. His oppo field single in the third inning drove in Belt for the second run. Then in the 10'th inning he drew a walk after Dubon's baserunning gaffe took out the "ghost runner". Austin Slater doubled down the LF line and Ruf turned on what jets he has to come all the way around to score the walk-off run.
Thairo Estrada 2B- 1 for 4, HR. Estrada contributed to the near-disastrous top of the 9'th inning by throwing the ball away while trying to complete a DP. He made up for that in the bottom of the inning with a no-doubt HR. He also made a couple of sparkling defensive plays earlier in the game. Kap seems to be hinting at Estrada winning the full time starting job at 2B. Is 20 HR's a reasonable expectation?
Joey Bart C- 1 for 3, HR(1), BB. I think we can say this was a successful start to what we all hope is Bart's breakout season. The HR reportedly left his bat at 108 MPH and travelled 414 ft.
Logan Webb RHP- 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 3 K, GO/AO= 12/3. I'm not sure why Kap sent Webb out for the 7'th inning at 80 pitches. The leadoff batter he walked scored ahead of Jacob Stallings HR given up by Dom Leone. It wasn't a big strikeout game for Webb but he had the Marlins killing worms on the infield all afternoon.
Tyler Rogers RHP- 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K. I was down on Rogers in spring training but he came in and got 2 K's to maintain the Giants lead after Stallings HR in the 7'th inning.
Camilo Doval RHP- 1 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 0 BB, 0 K. Doval came into the Save situation and proceeded to cough up the 2-run lead. He still threw mostly sliders trying get strikes with them. If you throw enough sliders in the strike zone, you will eventually hang one and it will go a long way. IMO, Doval is not ready to be a frontline MLB Closer until he can trust his FB, which he clearly does not at this point.
Ghost Runner- Neither Ghost Runner scored in the 10'th inning.
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Carlos Rodon LHP makes his first Giants start tomorrow afternoon facing Pablo Lopez RHP.
Several things.
ReplyDelete1. If Doval won't throw the fastball about 80% of the time, he'll never be a closer. If he's still freaked out about hitting the guy in the playoffs last season, then he needs to go down until he gets it right.
2. The team is appears to still be trying to hit homeruns every time up. Thankfully Belt did the push bunt. It made the difference between victory and defeat.
3. DH and ghost runners are, and will always be, ridiculous rule changes.
4. Why do you think that 80 pitches was a high pitch count? I had no problem with him coming out for the 7th. Also didn't mind Webb being pulled after the base runner.
1. Agree. 2. Home Runs are the current offensive currency in MLB. 3. DH is not as ridiculous as watching pitchers kill rallies every single game. Ghost runner not as ridiculous as 16-18 inning games which had become too commonplace. 4. Short spring and Kap said he would be on a pitch limit. Webb showed signs of tiring in the 6'th.
DeleteAdd that IMO, if you go into an inning planning to lift your SP at the first baserunner allowed it's better to not send him out there at all and let your RP start the inning with a clean slate.
Delete-it took the bullpen some time last year too to pitch well, at least we held on this year on opening day.
ReplyDelete- it amazes me that dubon is still making these mistakes, has to eat him up that he did it again the first chance he got on opening day.
- I'm not sure Estrada has ever shown 20HR power but he's young enough that maybe the Giants found something in his swing
5. Mauricio Dubón, 28 yo in July, will never learn how to run bases.
ReplyDelete6. Bart doesn't — yet — have the gravitas to tell a 30-yo, 5+ MLB experience pitcher what to throw. Would Posey have gone out and told Leone he had to throw his FB?
7. Sandy Alcantara is a pretty good pitcher, throws hard, and was effectively wild last night. 3 HRs and a 2-out double hit well enough to score a 225#, near-36 yo with 4 SBs in 444 ML games is a good day.
8. Winning ugly beats losing elegantly.
6 (above). Perhaps should have been more about Doval than Leone, though both of them were mostly pitching from behind in the count. Bart did pretty much take command and, hopefully, with each game will take more command.
DeleteHe was the only "rookie" out there!