Sunday, April 10, 2011

Lackluster loss to local boy Lohse

Barry Zito was closing in on a fine afternoon in the 6th inning, getting leadoff hitter Albert Pujols to ground out on a nasty-looking curve ball. Then the wheels came off. Two walks and two doubles spelled doom for the lefty and the Giants. Kyle Lohse had no trouble with the B-team, hanging 0-fers on Mike Fontenot, Nate Schierholtz, and Brandon Belt, and giving up only a wind-aided pop single to Eli Whiteside. He also shut down Aubrey Huff and put a 3-for-12 on Freddy Sanchez, Pablo Sandoval, and Aaron Rowand. Rowand acutally looked good at the plate and hit the ball well all day, but the Chico-born Lohse was masterful and earned a deserved win for his club. The former Hamilton Union High School Brave went 8 innings and racked up a Game Score of 73 for his 96-pitch effort.

The Dodgers come to town tomorrow night. Madison Bumgarner will match up with red-hot Clayton Kershaw who shut down the Giants to open the season. Tim Lincecum gets his shot Tuesday against Chad Billingsley. Lincecum was dominating in his last start in San Diego, and was the hard-luck loser against Kershaw despite an excellent effort. Jonathan Sanchez finishes against Ted Lilly on Wednesday. A little payback against the LAtriners would be nice.

--M.C.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I need to watch baseball soon, I can't take it anymore.

Brother Bob said...

I've come up with a name for it; "Zito Time," the inning when Zito caves in and fails. Yesterday it was the 6th, which is good for him. In his first start he did it in the 1st, which is more typical. After that sort of start it then becomes a question of how many innings he can eat up. That's about all we've come to expect from him- eaten innings.
I think I like the mustache though. We've become such a hairy team. Romo's change to his beard is cool. Muttonchops out of the 1800s. Before he looked like he was just imitating Wilson. I hope Cain lets his Fro grow out again.

Anonymous said...

His whole start sounded like "Zito Time" then. He had only one strikeout and all of those walks @_@. Just an all around bad game by Zeets I'm afraid.

Even though we had our worst starter out there, no Andres, and no Buster, it still really sucks to lose to Kyle Lohse.

Ron said...

A couple of early season beefs:

1) How & why do you promote a day to celebrate Buster Posey's Rookie of the Year Award & then don't play Buster Posey on his day? That seemed weird. If you needed to give him a day off, give him a different day off, but play him on HIS day.

2) Why are we now OK (i.e. acting like it's no big deal) with Jonathan Sanchez consistently failing to get into the 7th inning? Has the definition of Quality Start changed only for Jonathan Sanchez. He's young, he's a horse, he needs to pitch more innings. He needs to throw strikes, & he needs to maintain his mental presence. Otherwise, we have 2 people in the rotation who consistently fail to give the bullpen any kind of rest.

Ron said...

Tidbit from the St. Louis broadcast of Saturday's game:

In T-Ball, Matt Cain pulled off 5 unassisted triple plays. The announcers were quite impressed, noting that very few T-Ball Players would know enough about baseball rules to even attempt such a thing. And, this website's namesake did it 5 times!

Anonymous said...

@Ron: How old was he when he played t-ball?

M.C. O'Connor said...

As obsessed as I am about the Giants, the idea that someone would keep stats for a T-ball game frightens me.

Great story--believable, too.


(T-ball is 4 years old to 8 years old, according to their website.)

M.C. O'Connor said...

Zito Time (n., etym. MLB 2011, non-standard usage): pop a brew, suck down a doob, rock some killer tunes, bra. Gotta take my mind off this fucking game, that dude sucks!

I've been a Zito rah-rah guy this season. I have. Even sportin' a Zito 'stache. Really. But he is blowin' some serious chow. And I think I'm gonna cut it. Grow a full-face freshie for some good Wilson mojo. Then maybe sport a Romo later in the season.

It's a little early, but yeah, I want to see some more innings from JSanchez. Tough matchup for MadBum tonight. I'm excited about him this season, but uncertain, too. He's so damn young. Giants need to help him out and play good defense and put some pressure on Kershaw. He got rattled in SD in his last start, which was a real shocker. He's usually so calm and expressionless. This is his 21st regular season start.