The final game of a series dominated by home runs was decided by a bloop double that probably would have been caught had Mike Yastrzemski not pulled a hammy on his second step. Key Lines:
Lamonte Wade Jr 1B- 1 for 4, HR(5). BA= .243. Gotta say, hitter-friendly park or not, LMWJ has been a revelation in the first month of the season. Keep it going!
Mitch Haniger LF- 1 for 4, HR(2). BA= .313. Nice series to get the Giants top offseason acquisition(in terms of payroll commitment) going.
J. D. Davis 3B- 2 for 3, HR(6), HBP. BA= .289. Davis came into the game in a mini-slump. Hopefully this stops the slide.
Mike Yastrzemski CF- 2 for 4. BA= .292. As mentioned in the intro, YtY came up short and a bloop to CF, immediately grabbed his hammy in a kneeling position then limped off the field appearing to be in quite a bit of discomfort. That's a blow because YtY is off to a great start to the season back to his 2019 and 2020 level.
Alex Cobb RHP- 5 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 0 BB, 7 K's. ERA= 2.43. Cobb pitched a lot better than this line looks as he pitched 4 dominant shutout innings in an obviously extremely challenging environment against a lineup stacked with elite hitters. He was visibly tiring in the 5'th when he gave up the 3 runs. Given how the bullpen performed yesterday, we can understand why Kap wanted to get him as deep into the game as possible. BTW, yet another negative impact of altitdude on pitchers is the fatigue from the altitude likely affects pitchers disproportionately,
Giants are right back at it tomorrow evening in Houston with Ross Stripling RHP facing Luis Garcia RHP for the Astros.
They played an entertaining series, it's too bad they lost both games. I wanted Cobb to get that win. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't understand why Taylor Rogers wasn't used in the 8th inning? They're paying him $11 mil to pitch middle relief ? Tyler Rogers pitched in 4 games this week and Taylor pitched 2 games. Kap doesn't even use him to hold leads in the late innings. I thought that was the reason they signed him and to give Doval an occasional break. They need a bigger contribution from Taylor Rogers to be successful.
ReplyDeleteinjuries are becoming concerning and could be the giants undoing this year
ReplyDeleteUhh they basically only sign players with injury histories because they are looking for bargain discounts. Injuries can’t be their undoing when you sign all these guys that struggle to stay healthy and you suck at drafting and developing players so you have no good young players that can step into the major league line up and flourish. That all falls on Farhan. Dude should be fired for running the team like he’s incharge of the A’s and Marlins instead of a big market, big budget team like the Red Sox and Yankees. Giants have one of the highest revenues and are up there with Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers, yet we have nothing to show for it because Farhan keeps signing these free agents to one year contracts or two years with an opt out after one, then they have a good year and sign elsewhere the next season. What you want to do when building a team is to sign someone really good that can be part of your plans for the next several years. It’s like every year they go into the off season with one of the weakest rosters because the team has not been able to accumulate legit major league talent over the years with their best players that Farhan signs leaving the team after a good season. Every year there’s always some random bullpen guys who do good then the next year they suck. We have had bullpen issues almost every year since Farhan took over. The starting pitching is a joke and would be a legit pitching staff if they signed Gausmann and Rondon to long term deals where they could be paired with Webb and Cobb/Disco/Wood could be the 4/5 starters. Now that would be a good starting staff. Instead, Farhan wasted money by over paying for multi year contracts for busts Taylor Rodgers and Strippling. The Comforto signing was dumb, if he does good he’s opting out and signing elsewhere as a free agent, we already have a bad roster this year just like last year so no need to try to sign guys to one year contracts when they won’t be helping us win. Usually it’s small market teams like the A’s that sign these guys to short term reclamation deals, so that if the guy does good then they can trade them. But Farhan doesn’t do that with the Giants. I’m so ready to turn the page on the Farhan era. It’s really not fair that he’s getting such a long leash considering the failed product that he has put on the field every year. At least Sabean and Evans would go out and acquire legit talent to fill the holes and weaknesses on their roster. Farhan just signs bargain discount players and uses the churn to acquire AAAA players to fill the holes and weaknesses on his roster. Ugh
DeleteThat's quite a rant there, Anon. While I don't totally disagree with your main point I will add some qualifiers: 1. If Conforto has a great season and opts out, the Giants will almost certainly get surplus value from him, which is not a bad thing. 2. At this point, Gausman looks like a missed opportunity for a foundational investment. On the other hand, They got a ton of surplus value from Rodon(not Rondon), let the Yankees take the risk on a long term deal and he's been injured so far. And BTW, look where the Yankees are sitting in the AL East. 3. It's way too early to call Taylor Rogers or Ross Stripling busts. 4. It's also too early to give up on this season. There is pretty good evidence the Giants record worse than it should be based on their secondary numbers. There are still 5 months left in the season and the bar for getting into the postseason is fairly low.
DeleteCobb did a great job. And you're right about pitcher fatigue and altitude. Especially with the new pitch-clock which gives the pitcher less time to recover.
ReplyDeleteI just went through April. On the position player side there are four players who making significant contributions (MLB comparatives) - Thario Estrada was, through May, the Giants' best positional player. Wade Jr comes in #2. Yastrzemski and Davis coming in tied for 3rd/4th. Minor contributors are Bart, Slater and Haniger who have been pretty positive in their handful of PAs. While Bart hasn't harnessed his power, he's hitting line-drives and getting on base and that's good enough for his position. Most of the rest are either barely treading water or are outright negative. Pederson is pretty neutral, Conforto slightly below average while Crawford is the worst starter on the team as there is nothing positive in his game but a high level of experience that helps be competent within a small fielding area.
ReplyDeleteTaken as a whole, the offense grades out as a perfectly average team that, with perfectly average pitching would have a .500 record. Which gets us to the obvious problem - pitching. The starting rotation is, when healthy, good. Well, except Manea. The real problem is except for Tyler Rodgers and, to a lesser extent, Doval, the bullpen is a hot mess. Something none of us need advanced stats to see...
So, it was just one month. But it's not pretty. We have an average offense, mostly good starters and the bullpen from hell. Kudos though to Estrada. He's really been doing his best to carry this team and it shows.
The plan of carrying 3 bulk-inning guys in the bullpen is not looking so good right now, is it?
DeleteYup, they put Sean Hjellie in the game in the 7th inning today in role he's not used to. He needs to get sent down to regain his confidence.
DeleteA lot of bullpen problems are starter under performance. Too much usage.
DeleteBumgarner 2014 WS not withstanding, and some other memorable performances: Starters are not Relievers.
Fuhgettaboutit