4 GIDP's kept the Giants lineup from capitalizing on 9 hits and 12 baserunners in a game that led to some second-guessing for Manager Tony Vitello. Key Lines:
Jung Hoo Lee RF- 1 for 3, 2B, BB, R. BA= .100. The top of the lineup did what it's supposed to do in the third inning when Lee doubled to lead off and Matt Chapman singled him home.
Luis Arraez 2B- 2 for 4, SB(1). BA= .273.
Rafael Devers DH- 2 for 4, 2B. BA= .250. When the 3 and 4 hitters go 4 for 8 with a double and a SB and yet have 0 R and 0 RBI, something is seriously messed up.
Tyler Mahle RHP- 4 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 5 K's. Mahle did not pitch poorly but threw 80 pitches in 4 innings.
Ryan Borucki LHP- 1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 5.40. This is where the 3 batter rule bites. Borucki easily got two outs against lefty batters which brought up Aaron Judge with another lefty batter, Cody Bellinger, on deck. There is a lot of talk about how Tony Vitello should have put up 4 fingers but Bellinger historically has a pretty severe reverse split and savages LHP's. As it turned out Judge homered and Bellinger popped out. IMO Vitello showed his rookiness by not being forceful enough in pointing that out in his postgame presser.
Tony Vitello Manager- Another critique comes from letting Jung Hoo Lee bat against Tim Hill LHP in the 7'th inning. Again, most managers are not going to pinch-hit in a 2-out, no runners on base situation. Then there was Jared Oliva pinch-running for Adames in the 9'th which is defendable but it comes after Adames was lowered to #6 in the batting order amid rumors of some friction between him and Vitello. Adames just said he was surprised about getting taken out. Then there was Patrick Bailey batting with one out and runners at 1B and 2B and GIDPing, but Bailey was batting left against David Bednar RHP and there were no lefty batters on the bench.
The Giants and Tony Vitello have a day off in San Diego to think about it all.
Landen Roupp RHP starts game 1 of the series on Monday against Walker Buehler RHP which is another opportunity for second-guessing all by itself.
I wonder if Vitello told Borucki not to throw any strikes to Judge. Regardless, he threw a batting-practice FB that Kristian Koss would have hit out.
ReplyDeleteMy least favorite was failing to have Bader bunt with two on and no outs in the ninth.
Not a good start for Vitello.
The argument against bunting them over is simple: they would still need a hit to score 2 — where would that come from?
DeleteWe really have to hope one of the three at the bottom of the order doesn't make an out (or hit a dp) so that the top of lineup comes around: Bader is the most likely from history, from experience, and from the game (he of the 3 is the only one with a hit).
Whenever a team loses, it's very easy to find something the manager did that could have been different.
After watching Adames continue to swing away no matter what the pitch count or game situation, I'm kind of liking the fact that Vitello seems to be trying to actually coach him up ... and not treating him like a big ticket star on this team. He is something like 0-11 at the plate ... not a good start!
ReplyDeleteWell, he is a big ticket item. And Vitelo needs to coach him without causing tension.
DeleteKoss might be the only Giant that would have hit a ball down the middle yeaterday. They probably saw at least 20 pitches that were center cut and did nothing with any of them.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know that I’ve ever seen a lineup with the same players 3 games in a row with no pinch hitters that scored 1 run combined. Tony V had the best seat in the house to this train wreck and all he did was eat popcorn the entire time.
Something else is going on internally with this team and the only thing I can think of is Tony has expressed his opinion on what he needs to build a winner and this isn’t it. He also has a few ex big league managers standing behind him who would be just fine managing a 500 team if it meant they got another shot in the bigs. How much support are they truly giving him and how much do they want his job?
How much would Tony V like to be able to clean house and manage kids who listen and are moldable but he can’t because we have an ownership group who only sees dollar signs and is perfectly happy to go 500 every year as long as people keep showing up?
I think Buster is OK with a rebuild but Baer and Co aren’t. They let Buster make a few big moves last year but he knew they wouldn’t let him continue to spend this year or rebuild so he traded away our bullpen end of last season and signed some guys FZ would have been onboard with to set things up for an epic failure and forced rebuild.
This team may have been built to fail on purpose so that Buster can finally show ownership how bad they let things get with FZ running things. If we suck bad enough this year Buster could clean house before the deadline getting whatever prospect value he could for anyone not part of the future. Force the rebuild and deal with any backlash by basically telling ownership, now yous don’t have a choice like Sonny in A Bronx Tale! Of course I am overreacting and probably offbase but if I’m even a little right then I hope Buster has the balls to do it.
That all might be giving Buster a little too much credit for playing 3D or even 4D chess which I highly doubt he is doing. I think it's more likely that Buster had a vague idea the Giants needed name players and name prices to achieve legitimacy and took what he could get. Probably still too soon to say that plan is a bust but it's not looking good right now.
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