Blake Snell's start seemed promising but perhaps fatigue caught up with him in the 5'th inning and the route was on. Key Lines:
Jorge Soler DH- 1 for 4, HR(4). BA= .240. Soler's HR in the 4'th briefly cut the deficit to 1 but was the only bright spot in an otherwise absent Giants lineup.
Blake Snell LHP- 4.2 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 11.57. Snell got through the first two scoreless frames on 26 pitches and 3 GB outs against 1 FB out. Then he ran into Blaze Alexander who hit the first of two doubles off him, the first only after the initial HR call was overturned. Still, Snell got through 4 innings with just 2 runs allowed. The first batter of the 5'th inning doubled on a pop up to 2B. Snell got the next two batters but Christian Walker singled in a run on a ground ball to RF. The next two batters hit line drives and that was it for Snell. Probably not nearly as bad as the line looks and some reason for optimism going forward.
The Dodgers and Padres both lost so the Giants remain 2.5 games behind the Dodgers in 4'th place in the NL West, 1.5 games behind the Padres and 1 game behind the D'Backs.
Kyle Harrison LHP tries to get the Giants back on the winning side of the ledger this afternoon facing Zac Gallen RHP
The Five-and-Diver killed us again...and if Montgomery could tune up in AAA before joining the team why the heck did Snell not? He should still be there now. He's had two good seasons out of 8...this was NOT a good move,
ReplyDeleteWe'll see. I think Snell didn't really catch fire until about 100 innings in last year. Giants are hanging close to the Dodgers and their $ multbillion roster. I can envision the pitching really coming together and making a run. We're still less than a month into the season and have not fallen hopelessly behind. If you are looking for a fanbase that should be feeling restless right now, go check out the Dodgers.
DeleteGo figure — 'fan favorite' Nick Ahmed got half the Giants' hits last night, leads the Giants in WAR and dWAR (Fangraphs), all with the lowest contract salary (arbitration and pre-arbitration not included).
ReplyDeleteWent to the game last night with the kids. It’s clear that Giants fans are tired of boring baseball there were comments throughout the park about what a crappy product we were watching. Snell isn’t the problem though he will settle in fine it’s really the lineup and decision that FZ made to “improve” the roster that are looking very bad.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few positives as Hicks and Soler are meeting or exceeding expectations but Chapman is no longer elite with his glove and can’t hit. Lee is the highest paid singles hitter in the history of the league. Tom Murphy looks so awful at the plate it almost makes you wonder if FZ lost a bet to his agent while Joey Bart seems to have figured things out in a very small SS.
The guys that were here before like Yaz, Slater, and even Wilmer are barely major leaguers. The bullpen looks like a bad triple A teams. The rest of the cast has shown flashes like Conforto and Thairo but overall even those guys are below average.
The farm isn’t looking much better with zero breakout performances unless you want to give Ramos another shot but I can tell you how that will end. Nobody else even seems close to being difference makers and if they did go with a youth movement it would end up a lot like last year.
I’ve been saying it for years but baseball purgatory is hovering around .500 every year. No good draft picks and since FZ can’t sign stars we end up rinsing and repeating. I also said 5 years ago that I would have preferred a rebuild to this strategy and I still think that’s the only way out if this along with firing FZ and finding someone who actually knows the game instead of a spreadsheet analyst.
And yet, with all those poor performances the Giants are only 2.5 games behind the Dodgers and their $ multi-billion roster. Maybe they say at near .500 all season, maybe they fall progressively farther behind and sell at the deadline, but there's a chance they pull it together and make a run. I'm staying optimistic for now.
DeleteTalk about selling short!
Delete21 games into a 162-game season, 3 games below .500 and they are condemned!
Anon, you went to a bad game and convicted the team rather than the performance.
The Giants are 1½ games closer to 1st place in the division than they were at the end of the 2 brutal season opening series against teams that had had a head start.
Sure this team has warts and FZ has made some mistakes but he inherited a team that was 50 games below .500 — 5-0 — for the 2 years before he came. That team, which did include Buster and the Brandons, is gone now: this is Zaidi's team and it's far better than what he inherited, on the field AND the farm.
Slater and YtY will recover or be gone, Murphy will improve from his 2 for 24 start, Teng and Avila will be replaced by Cobb and Ray, Lee will earn his $7.83M (this year), and Chapman will hit 25 HRs and win another Gold Glove.
We can review this 140 games from now.
Incidentally, "the highest paid singles hitter in the history of the league" hit his 2nd HR today which puts him 5th among the 14 position players SF has used this year, ahead of Wade, Bailey, and Flores, among others.
DeleteFlores, incidentally, hasn't hit any in 55 plate appearances.
In fact, half the Giants position players, 7, in 245 total plate appearances, have hit no home runs. Zero.
And I like lollipops and Unicorns!!!!
ReplyDeleteRichard In Winnipeg
i think teng needs to go back to sacramento at this point. i don't think he's been that great in mop up duties and switching him and maybe go to daulton jeffries as the mop up guy until hjelle is healthy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I too want to tell the doomsayers that it's way too early in the season to throw in the towel. Those of us who've watched many seasons know that it's how you finish that matters. One really bad blowout still only counts as one loss, and there's still a lot of potential on the roster. True fans have a little patience.
ReplyDeleteSo true! But if you don't like Zaidi, the team is terrible and is maybe likely to eke out Colorado for 4th place in the NL West...
DeleteA last comment this Sunday morning, on a day after the Giants beat Arizona following a humiliating loss:
ReplyDeleteHarken back to the Dodger series when SF lost consecutive games 5-4: had they won but one of those, they would be 11-11 in First Place in the West and the Dodgers would be 11-12, tied with the Padres for 2nd.
That's how close it is.
Sure, if Wishes were horses, et cetera, but this is close: the Giants have won 6 of their last 10 and are getting better.
It was better put by someone wiser than we:
You of little faith, why are you so afraid?
Rebuke the winds and the sea.
Your faith has been tested, and you have come up short.
Have faith!
Yes indeed. I like the way the KJV puts it: Oh ye of little faith!
DeleteParaphrasing the KJV loses some of its beauty but was an attempt at secularity...
DeleteI love the KJV not so much as a religious text but a commentary on life: "There arose in Egypt a Pharoah who knew not Joseph." "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes." "some cried one thing, some another." "oh ye of little faith!" "Come let us reason together..."
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