One nightmare inning is the story of Justin Verlander's season and it bit him again tonight as the Blue Jays took advantage of some extreme BABIP luck while the Giants were plagued by extreme bad sequencing luck. Key Lines:
Heliot Ramos LF(.265), Rafael Devers DH(.258) and Patrick Bailey C(.208) had 2 hits each out of 11 total for the Giants. Devers' double was the only XBH. The Giants had 2 hits in each of the first two innings but also GIDP'd in each of those innings.
Justin Verlander RHP- 2.2 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 0 K. ERA= 4.99. 6 of the 9 hits were groundballs and 2 were IF hits. Maybe some of them were hit hard, but every projection model I know of says a BABIP of .529 is not sustainable.
Tristan Beck RHP- 4.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's, 7/1 GO/AO. ERA= 6.11. Beck starts the second half with a bulk appearance, to borrow a Kapler Era phrase. Will the effort buy him a ticket to AA Sacramento since he now won't be available for at least 3 games?(He did only throw 46 pitches).
Matt Gage LHP- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 0.00. Gage finally pitched in a MLB game for the organization that drafted him all the way back in 2014. Ironically for a guy who has had so much trouble getting to and sticking in MLB, he has performed well at the level with a career 1.37 ERA in 26.1 IP.
Logan Webb RHP tries to shake it off tomorrow evening against veteran Eric Lauer LHP who comes in with a 2.78 ERA.
The Giants need to ditch their automatic transmission and get some old fashioned clutch!
ReplyDelete.529 BABIP is good way to talk me off the ledge...but everything I see from Verlander says old, fat and tired. Cheap shot, but....he looks the part. I get his velocity is good, but those FBs look straight and hittable, a lot like Strickland's from way back. And the curves just seem to cut a very predictable path.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to say cut bait...but to what? Don't see anything in-house to swap in.
Going into tonight's game, of the Giant players who have 100 or more plate appearances, Christian Koss has the highest batting average (.265).
ReplyDeleteHe's not on the playing roster.
Maybe Verlander will catch fire to end the year. But the fact is he’s a shell of himself 42 year old on the verge of retirement who has a 4.99 ERA with less than two weeks to go before we hit August. He’s got no future with us, if one at all. Only reason to keep him on the roster is because we are pushing for a playoff spot otherwise we got 3 or 4 other guys who are 14 or more years young that will be part of our future and it would be better to see what they got.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Verlander at 42 is looking pretty bleak. I saw him hit 94 mph tonight, but his lack of control on both sides of the plate left him vulnerable once again to leaving too many pitches over the middle. Beck looked great … with 64 games left, he deserves a spot in the rotation.
ReplyDeleteI think we may need to stretch out Spencer Bivens to start at this point.
DeleteI didn't see the game due to my TV malfunctioning but when the Giants played in Toronto in past years, the artificial turf played like a billiards table. I wonder if the disaster inning was as much about the infielders adjusting to the surface Verlander's pitching.
ReplyDeleteTime to embrace the bullpen game every fifth game.
ReplyDelete