Winning is always good. I like winning. The Giants won again, 8-2 at home against the Cardinals. Buster Posey snapped his months-long homerless streak with a two-run clout in the 4th and a stout 'pen backed a shaky Matt Moore and the Giants had another win. Did I mention I like wins? Yadier Molina made a throwing error that lead to a six-run 3rd and that set the tone. Moore managed five, facing 24 batters on 93 pitches. But he hung on and didn't implode and the lineup took advantage of their opportunities to score. Suddenly the team looks like the pre-ASB Giants. I like this new look. Let's see more of it.
Jeff Samardzija tomorrow (6:05 Pacific) against Mike Leake. After they got Leake last season I thought he was going to be our middle-of-th-ro' guy this season. But we got Samardzija for that. And the Cardinals got Leake. And now they pitch against each other. Which one of them would you rather have?
GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
12 comments:
The roller coaster ride continues. It's fun but exhausting. I guess the baseline assumption is that if the Giants make it into the playoffs they will have a good chance to take it all. I go along with that but damn they're driving me crazy. If Buster can stay hot anything's possible.
Hey I have to jump in here! Maybe I have really drunk the kool-aid on this one, BUT that was no ordinary win. We all know that you can just look at the numbers and be cold blooded math nerd on this stuff, however we should also know that this amazing team sport with a BIG ASS season is subject to ridiculous human emotions and motivations. Teams get weird. This team is really into that. Some losses are worse than a number. Some wins are much better than "good". And the last two nights, as soon as it got to be like a playoff, have been those types of wins. When your superstars emerge and DOMINATE their closest opponent, that is a win that the rest of baseball notices. And even if they don't, you can THINK that they do.
Also, since I am going all in here: time to shed the roller coaster analogy. I don't think this one is coming back down to the station. Up, up and away! We have had everything it takes (slumps, injuries, historic horrors) to bring a crazy team together. We have Hunter Pence doing his magic and it seems to be working. That alone is a joy just to watch. And now we may have Buster. The piece that makes us hummmm. A force of baseball nature that has been so frustratingly quiet. We have MadBum and Cueto, who I will matchup against anyone ever. We have a defense the most teams dream of. Sure we don't have it all and we will be underdogs. But I think we can do it.
Even if we lose the next two. I believe in this crazy team. It looks like the right people are bringing it. They will be in it to the very end.
Note: Author is almost always wrong with his baseball prognostications. Gambling is not advised.
P.S. I also still think Hilliary will win easily. I think it is wonderful how politics and Giants baseball somehow got linked on this site. I guess there is a need to co-join terrible things. Great conversations. Sad and distressing how well racism, hatred and showmanship sell today. People tend to vote rather seriously for the prez so I think it will be ok. President Obama will be a big difference. Non whites will bail us out. Focus on the baseball for now.
It's nice to feel good after two months of hell! Will it be too little, too late? No doubt this team has the goods--that's what has made this post-ASB stretch so agonizing, they were clearly playing below what they were capable of. Four games is tough, especially with only fifteen to go. They will likely have to sweep at least one set of the LA games if they want to win the West. But they are certainly in charge of their own destiny when it comes to the playoffs. They don't need help for that.
Samardzija and Leake: that's a pair, right next to each other on the Fangraphs Pitcher Leader Board, at 2.0 and 2.1 fWAR respectively. They are pretty much tied with that much coveted, platinum-encrusted pitcher Zack Greinke, at 2.2. As to preference, even if I did not have faith in the Giants' FO, I prefer S for his higher ceiling over the steadier, lower-flying L. But I have been disappointed in how often Samardzija, like his team more generally, has bungled his way down from what he can do, and at the cost of a 1st-round draft pick too; and I am pleased that his spot as a #3 has been given to Matt Moore, albeit now lagging at 1.8 fWAR.
And how little it takes, how quickly it happens, to trample our elated expectations! Just a little visit from Santiago Casilla, Bigfoot, in the night.
I thought Casilla had Molina struck out, but it was called a ball. Later in the inning on a 1-0 count a worse pitch, higher and further inside, was called a strike to Span. Span did get a hit. Too bad Nunez had not stolen second. Giants choked again. If Bochy were not regarded with so much esteem, a second half free fall with so many blown saves, would have cost many managers their jobs. Everyone cringed when he brought in Casilla tonight. Things just do not seem to go well when he comes in lately, even if the has good stuff. Looked like he got the ground ball for a DP to end the game, but it was just placed where there was a hole. Giants have some really poor arms in the outfield. Span can barely throw the ball 90 feet.
Though it would cost us since Buster is so good at framing, I am REALLY tired of umpires screwing up the results of games with inconsistent calls which ends up hurting one team. I can accept that another team beat us and maybe is even better than we are. I despise seeing us lose because the umpire gives them a ball on a pitch than give us a strike on the same pitch location.
I know the Giants are a good team, but they have been out of sync since the ASG. There is too little time to win the division but plenty to get into the WC playoffs and throw Bumgarner or Cueto in the WC game, I like our chances there with them. It would be nice to see our bullpen figure things out, but we were spoiled by all those years of the Core Four, other teams go through this type of stuff a lot of the time, it is just our turn now. My hope is for Law to lay down the Law and get things going again. We'll see.
Samardzija is doing about as advertised. If he had started out like he was mid season then turned it on like he did early season, then feelings would be different. There is a reason why his career has been up and down, and not worthy of his stuff. My hope when we got him is that we could fix him up during the two seasons Cueto is with us, and take over the co ace spot. I was also hoping Madison would rub off on him some. The mid season slump was disappointing given how well he started the season, but gave us a window as to what he could do when on. I think he is on track, plus Moore has me even more excited because he could be an ace too, a lefty who can throw mid 90 heat is gold, the rarest of rare and valuable. Next year should be fun all year instead of up then down like this season.
Actual boos rained down on the large head of Bruce Bochy. Understandable? Deserved? I was a bit surprised, I must admit. I guess I assumed our brain trust was beyond that type of fan fickleness. I did not agree with how he did it ( l figured Law would get the ninth and we would sweat Romo/Casilla in the eighth ) but I'm sure not ready to boo the man. Opinions? Truthfully an unimportant topic but I think it may come up a couple more times, so I figured everyone may want to get their position ready. Does hating a team mean that you boo it? Hmmm
Giants win today they knock the Cards three back in the WC race. I can feel good about that with only 13 to play. The West is out of reach--at this point it would take a miracle, like sweeping both series. Or LA would have to collapse and they have played better ball in the second half than the first so I'm not counting on it.
If the Cards play Colorado, the Rockies always do us dirty. The giants have to beat the dodgers, or the season will be over, no wild card, not division, just a seat at home watching on their high salaried high def. televisions. You would think the Mets would be tired after their long season last year, but the giants look more tired. We have all heard a million times that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So I guess using Casilla lately makes Bochy seem insane. Especially against Lamb. Kruk says today in the third, Diaz loves the first pitch, so Suarez puts one right in their on the first pitch and the ball is gone.
Me, I'm glad Bochy and Casilla got booed, merited or not, since that expression of feeling will, or should, sharply decrease the likelihood of Casilla's closing again and having yet another rerun of the hypnotizing ruinous rerun we've watched.
GAs to ogc's dream that next year should be fun, I admire his buoyancy and also remind him that the same "should" should have applied to this bloody bust of a season, when we were riding so high into mid-July, improved the lineup with Moore and Smith and Nunez (over whoever was subbing for injured Duffy), and humiliatingly crashed with no acceptable excuses for doing so. "Should" is largely a measure of how painful "won't" will turn out to be.
One more thought. Can it be that the "chemistry" that makes the team cohere, the "familial" loyalty that binds them, makes things worse when they start downhill as well as better when they're striving in unison? If one boasts about Teammate Y picking up Teammate X, should one look equally for a kind of sympathetic vibration that starts when X gets the shakes long enough to transmit them to Y, not to mention Z, till they are all in some kind of flailing palsy when facing major-league pitching? What else explains the collective slumping of the team when they one by one step into and slouch away from the batter's box?
For GAs in my observation on ogc above, read As. I never would apply "Gas" to ogc.
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