Friday, April 18, 2014

Hanchez-ed

Because I wasn't going with 'Cained.' The young backstop had a rough night. Passed ball in the 1st that led to a run, whiff swinging in the 2nd, whiff looking in the 4th, two on and nobody out double play grounder in the 7th, flailing whiff with the tying run on second to end it. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, am I right? Matt Cain looked very sharp in his best start so far here in the first month of the season. That's eight straight one-run games for the Giants, the longest such streak for the franchise since 1910. They are 4-4. The Giants got a leadoff double from Angel Pagan but couldn't score him and that turned out to be a big play. Brandon Belt's homer in the 9th was all they could muster after that. Berkeley's own Tyson Ross was overpowering and made the once-mighty Giants lineup look feeble, much like Hyun-jin Ryu did the day before. I like the old Giants offense better, you know, the one from two weeks ago. You figure the games will be low-scoring in San Francisco and San Diego, but I've had enough. C'mon Giants, get some goddamn hits and score some goddamn runs.

Matt Cain pitched very well, and that is never bad. The Giants lost a very well-pitched Matt Cain game. It's that old, familiar weltschmerz. There ought to be some comfort in familiarity, but I'm not finding it.

Tim Hudson tomorrow at 5:40 p.m.

--M.C.

2 comments:

JC Parsons said...

It is funny how we had just discussed Hanchez the other day at work. I was finally reaching a level of tolerance for the youngster, although I have never been in favor with his handling. He sure finds a way to be right in the middle of things; good and bad. Yesterday was about as bad as it gets for a non pitcher. Impressively bad, you might say.

Hope our offense awakens. Soon our amazing bullpen will falter and if we keep hitting like this we could lose a bunch in a hurry. It seems like every team has a stable of young stud pitchers, even the puds. I really fear that run scoring is going to be tough this year

M.C. O'Connor said...

I don't understand why this lineup isn't hitting. There's enough talent there. I'm putting it down to a bad spell. And some good pitching in some low run environments. Panda and Pence start hitting and they could really light it up.