Marco Luciano and Landon Roupp had big nights which could have significant career implications for both and the Giants hung on to win after building an early big lead. Key Lines:
Tyler Fitzgerald 2B- 1 for 2, 3 BB. BA= .216. Otto Lopez was optioned out giving Fitz a leg up in the reserve MI race.
Marco Luciano SS- 2 for 4, HR(1). BA= .206. 8 days ago it was all but a foregone conclusion that Nick Ahmed would be the starting SS on Opening Day and Luciano would start the season in Sacramento. Since then, Luciano 6 for 14 with a double and HR. I'm thinking we may be back on track for Luciano to start at SS with Ahmed as the reserve MI.
Luis Matos CF- 2 for 4, 2B. BA= .292. Matos keeps refusing to make final cuts easy.
Tom Murphy C- 1 for 2, 2 BB. BA= .250. Bold prediction is Murph will get the most PA's of any Giants C this season.
Trenton Brooks 1B- 1 for 3, 2 BB. BA= .400. I am a Trenton Brooks fan. Would like to see him get a shot in some role at some point.
Landon Roupp RHP- 3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 2.25. Did we just see Landon Roupp win a roster spot?
Juan Sanchez LHP- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 1.80. Amir Garrett LHP was released which clears the way for Sanchez to win a roster spot as the second LHP out of the bullpen.
Split squad doubleheader tomorrow with both games against the Cubs. Keaton Winn RHP faces Justin Steele LHP in the away game. Logan Webb RHP faces Javier Assad RHP in Scottsdale.
G Men finishing ST strong and may have some momentum to start the season. Good to see multiple options to put together not only a competitive roster but one that may actually be interesting to watch!
ReplyDeleteOh, and while too early to tell, we may have dodged a couple of bullets with the Dodgers signing some of our top FA targets instead of us. As the Stones used to sing, you don't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.
Billy Baseball
Yep. Also thought of an old Garth Brooks song, Unanswered Prayers. LOL!
DeleteTwo songs that applied to me were The Waiting by TPHB and Patience by GNR!!! After all, FZ did a lot of what I wanted, just not on my time table (even finally dumping Garret!)..Hey, I'm only a fan!
ReplyDeleteGreat to see another strong effort this late in preseason..Why not give the hot hitting Luciano the chance to start in SF? If he falters, no biggie, just send him back to AAA for some ABs and bring up Schmidt or Lopez or whoever...Great to see ROUP dominate over so many innings...If his arm and back are healthy, why not give him a shot at the 4th/5th starter until Snell is ready and see what happens (or will that be HOWARD and the other Minor League FA guy?)....Sanchez is a good story and deserves to be on the team now but A vet LHRP would still be nice and necessary
SteveVA
Forever Giant, 1st round pick Tyler Beede makes the Cleveland roster! He's had 2 starts of 4 appearances, his last start being a week ago and was pretty good.
ReplyDeleteFor the Giants, what will give @ Catcher?
Giants could carry 3, but that would impact some other position, most likely adversely. Predict that as 0%.
After a quite good Spring Training, would the Giants give up on Joey Bart and not even get a good trade for him? Hope that is close to 0% happening.
Least pain solution would be to let Bailey play @ Sacramento — is that a non-0% possibility?
Could they, or would they, trade Murphy? Doc would probably rate that pretty close to a non-0% possibility.
5 days and counting...
I think the wild card in the catching situation is the Giants internal data on pitch framing and whether Bailey is really way ahead of everybody else on it. Judging just by the bats, Bailey could use some seasoning which would afford a longer look at Bart extending into the regular season.
DeleteAgreed. It would be a tragedy to give up on Bart if he is just coming into his own with the bat. My gut always told me that there was an impact hitter hiding in there somewhere.
DeleteIt's not just pitch framing. Bailey was by some metrics the most valuable defensive player in the league last year. By some other metrics, the second best. So aside from injury, Bailey to Sac isn't happening.
DeleteBailey nearly led the league in errors last year fellow anonymous
DeleteReally? Can we get out of 80s baseball evaluation? You know who had one less error than Bailey? Gold Glover Matt Chapman. Btw, Bailey was the runner up in NL catcher gold glove. And at least 3 of those errors were throws during the second half when he was noticeably gassed but was still trying to do too much.
DeleteReally? You are going to call out errors then turn around and appeal to Gold Glove voting? Ha Ha! That's funny. I tried looking up defensive stats from last year and they are not that easy to find or interpret. It appears Bailey was a mixed bag. He was #1 by some Framing metrics. He as very good at throwing out runners but he also made a lot of throwing errors. It seemed like most of those errors came later in the season. Maybe he was gassed? Maybe he was trying to do too much and making throws he should not have made? He also was close to worst in blocking. In his defense, it seems the setup the Giants coaches insisted on to maximize framing also made blocking more difficult so that may be a tradeoff management is willing to live with. I still say it comes down to the Giants internal framing metrics which may or may not be different than data you can find online.
DeleteI still believe, Matos is going to be a star. The bat to ball skills and the eye are just too good. He just needs to tune his approach and keep growing as he did last offseason. I do think the lack of defensive prowess is a bit befuddling though -- seems contrary to every report I read on him as a prospect. Hopefully last year was just a down year there.
ReplyDelete- Fan
He repeatedly had bad breaks on deep flyballs to either side especially to the gap in CF @ Oracle.
DeleteWith Lee now anchored in CF, that won't be a problem in LF but he HAS to hit with some power, doesn't he?
Incredible comeback win @ Scottsdale Stadium today but down 10-0 they didn't quit with 5 extra base hits along the way!
ReplyDelete