Monday, April 19, 2010
Pitching well enough to lose
The Giants couldn't solve southpaw Clayton Richard, one of the four players the Padres obtained for Jake Peavy, but managed to chase him with one out in the 7th. Righty Luke Gregerson, who struck out 93 guys in 75 innings last season, powered through 1-2/3 and handed the ball to closer Heath Bell in the 9th. Most of us, I expect, had tossed in the towel at that point, but Juan Uribe muscled up a huge game-tying home run! Bell was hitting 96 mph, but he left an 82 mph curveball out just enough for Uribe to jack it over the wall in left. The Giants had a reprieve, it seemed, from an agonizing dink-ball affair that looked like a sure loss. Matt Cain wasn't pretty, needing 26 batters to get 18 outs, but he was effective, limiting the Padres to two runs on 7 hits. The Giants got impressive work from Dan Runzler and an out from Guillermo Mota to get the ball to super set-up man Jeremy Affeldt. But Mr. Scrappy, David "Plays the Game Right" Eckstein, hustled and gritted and willed a game-winning home run to lead off the 10th, and we had ourselves another painful loss. The Giants don't like Petco Park, going 2-7 there last season, and 23-34 including tonight. I never imagined I would miss Aaron Rowand, but poor Andres Torres looks overmatched. Let's hope our sleeping bats awake soon.
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7 comments:
Just got MLB Extra Innings. It's kind of a ripoff but whatever, I got to watch the Giants, live and not the free gameday with all of its "3D" glory! The offense really needs to pick up, though I am proud of Nate (2 infield singles and a stolen base) and Uribe (once again, a dinger for naught). Andres shouldn't start. I like Nate, we should use him and Bowker. What's the deal with Boch? He said that Bowker got the job, but half the time he's just pinch hitting. That's just not nice.
Is there any regular player in the NL LESS LIKELY than Eckstein to hit a walkoff homer??? Jeez.
Bowker has 6 hits in 30 AB with 2 BB, 1 2B, 1 HR, 8 SO.
Schierholtz has 6 hits in 17 AB with 3 BB, 1 2B, and 3 SO.
Velez has 7 hits in 25 AB with 3 BB, 2 2B, 2 HR, and 5 SO.
Torres has 2 hits in 18 AB with 3 BB and 6 SO.
We need some production from our outfielders. Velez is 0-8 with a walk and 4 SO in the last two games. Maybe Nate should get the leadoff gig for a bit, or at least rotate it around while Rowand is on the DL.
At 71 RS and 44 RA we project to be 9-4.
RS^1.82/((RS^1.82)+(RA^1.82))
35 career HR, .359 career SLG in TEN YEARS.
FanGraphs says that Eckstein's expected HR rate against Affeldt in Petco is 0.0031%, or 31 times out of 10,000 PAs.
Crazy!
I have to commend you, MOC, on your calm and balanced commentary. I would have simply titled the post, "FUCK DAVID ECKSTEIN." First, no one, NO ONE loses in the 10th inning due to a David Eckstein home run. That is humiliation enough, not even including the asterisk that will have to accompany a Giants World Series title because of it. Second, the reason we lost was not because of a 10th inning hr. It was because the Giants played like shit. 3rd inning - Schierholtz on 2nd, 1 out: Cain ground out and Velez K! 4th inning - Panda at 2nd, Huff on 1st, NO OUTS: Bengie ground out, 1st and 3rd, then Uribe walked to load the bases, Torres GIDP! 6th inning - Huff double with 2 outs: Bengie ground out. 7th inning - Schierholtz sacrifices Uribe and Torres to 3rd and 2nd: DeRosa and Velez, K and K!! Torres, 2010: 18 ab + 3 walks, take away one hit each from his GIDP last night and one previously and you have 0 hits, take away an OBP for his one caught stealing, and you have a flat 0.000 adjusted (true) batting average and a 0.095 adjusted (true) obp. Keep him in there because we don't want him to lose confidence! Bowker on the other hand, who might be able to help the team, can sit! Another idea - let's bat Schierholtz in the 8 hole so that most of his hits will mean nothing because they are followed by two outs! Also, didn't Velez misplay a hit to left to set up the Padres first run? Not sure about this, but wouldn't be surprised.
...and MadBum is fine. He topped 93 MPH and averaged 90 MPH in his last outing. Only allowed one walk and 1 run too.
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