I was expecting a little more after the stirring walk-off win Friday night. But the St. Louis Cardinals had other plans and delivered a weekend ass-kicking over the Giants in San Francisco. Out-pitched and out-hit the team was behind right away in both games and never managed to get the game-tying or go-ahead blow. Ryan Vogelsong and Chris Heston were both sub-par and the 'pen failed to stop the bleeding. With the Dodgers winning last night the Giants fall to four back. LA takes on the Cubs in the finale tonight. There are only 32 dances left on the card--the Giants have put themselves in a spot where they really need to win the big showdown series in SoCal this week. At least it is the "A-Team" of Jake Peavy, Madison Bumgarner, and Mike Leake. The team has to play five games better than their chief foe over the final month. It's possible, of course, but it's just stretching the probabilities at this point. The Giants need more than a hot month, they need at least a mini-meltdown from the other guys. At least they have seven chances to take matters into their own hands, the first one at seven o'clock tomorrow night.
GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
5 comments:
Giants are 3.5 back after LA got themselves no-hit by the cubs. It's hard to feel positive after yesterday. The long and short of it - our pitching is not up to snuff, or at least not able to hang with the Cardinals. Hoping that Heston's resting period would produce the benefit of a deep performance - it just wasn't happening. So the presumption (or perhaps, hope) of a solid rotation of Bumgarner, Peavy, Leake and Heston has to be re-examined. The good news, the smog suckers pitching isn't in any better shape (I guess we'll test the veracity of that statement soon). Maybe we can get a couple games out of Huddy. The tough central division has to play itself - Pittsburgh v Chicago 7 games; Pittsburgh v St. Louis 6 games; Chicago v St. Louis 6 games; and Pittsburgh v LA 3 games. Someone has to lose those games, and if things break right, we can get a lot closer to the cubs, a team in which I am deeply disappointed in for only winning 1 in LA.
I will say that the Giants have done a pretty damn impressive job managing their pitching so that we can get the maximum number of pitchers for the stretch run with maximum flexibility for a post season roster, should we be able to get there. The news says that Crawford hopes to be back, Panik is taking infield, and Pagan should be back soon. Not Lincecum, though.
Only three hours left until game time!! Big showdown, man. They have to get some pitching in this series and take at least two. Can't be falling any further behind. Really want to get the band back together in time for the final push.
I had to feel as if ST.Louis had our signs, yesterday, especially early in
the game. I think with the variety of pitches that Heston throws, it would
be difficult to get off to a start with multiple hard hit balls unless you
know what pitch is coming. After a while the giants changed their signs.
Matheny essentially outsmarted Bochy. Vogie battled through an outing that
he did not have his best stuff or control, but for the second time in recent
weeks, Kontos allowed two inherited runs. Nevertheless, Kontos can't be perfect,
and Bochy has been calling on him game after game. He has had quite an amazing
year. What is Brian Wilson doing these days? I would like the team to be healthy
for at least the last 3 weeks. Yesterday finally the rookies did not hit, after several
weeks of Duffy tearing it up and Tomilinson, finally Posey starts hitting right after
Duffy stops. The teams timing wreaks of the odd year disasters, but maybe, just maybe
we can break that spell from today forward.
Only a couple and a half more hours now....
Thank Willie that BCraw is back in the lineup. We were kind of lucky to win any games while he was out. The drop off, both offensively and defensively, with Adrianza in there was very noticeable. I am actually quite disappointed in Ehire. It sure seemed like his hitting woes (which are completely predictable and not really a deal breaker) have badly knocked his defense a bit off. That is unacceptable for a glove man. I know it is SSS, but that is all these guys get in the cut throat business of bench/utility guy.
Josh Osich is the only thing keeping me from being VERY ANGRY at Jeremy Affeldt. This is his third, at least, off day, non-baseball injury. That is very lame and unprofessional. I love Affeldt, he is a GREAT Giant. But that shit is weak....
I had a great time complimenting any dogger fans I ran into today on their new found skill of being no hit. Interesting thing to be so good at....it does get you a lot of press....still, it doesn't seem like something to build a future on....however, it might increase their ticket sales! I know that I would pay money to see the scum get no hit. I would prefer that it wasn't the cubs tho....
Post a Comment