Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Independence Day

DET 5  SF 3
Matt Cain's 6-1/3 IP was his longest since he went seven on May 26th, a 2-0 loss against the Braves. Alas, the five runs were too much today. Giants hit some balls hard and got denied but really couldn't solve Tigers starter Michael Fulmer. Matt Cain could have had a better outcome, what with a play or a bounce or a call here and there. But the flip side is that he's now gone 90-1/3 innings and allowed 116 hits as well as 36 walks. That's a lot of baserunners and you do that enough you will give up runs. But I'm not complaining, the Giants had a nice run of wins. What happens now really measures the team: if they can play consistent winning baseball for a long stretch (like the rest of the season*) we can say it's a good team having a bad year. If they give it up again and play like doormats then we have to say it's a bad team. Different kind of fixes depending on the diagnosis, eh?

Happy Fourth of July to everyone!

--M.C.


*Here's a bit from Belt: "I think there's a confidence and expectation to win," said first baseman Brandon Belt, who leads the Giants with 16 homers and 42 RBIs. "I'm not sure what triggered it, but this is the way we feel we should have been playing the whole time."

3 comments:

Zo said...

@ Brandon Belt: No shit.

Zo said...

Kontos came into the game in the 7th, got and out (that made it 2 outs) and then threw 3 balls up (2 balls and a hit) to Upton, when he was trying to throw something down for a ground ball. After all the fine execution we have seen from him, that was not.

nomisnala said...

agree on the Kontos thing. Would have been good if the catcher would have come out. He had ownership on Upton,but looked like he was out of sync during that at bat. That at bat ended up costing Cain another loss. Kontos has been decent this year, but he has not had the success in not allowing inherited runners to score as he did last year. At least before the all star break last year. Kontos was our secret weapon against Arrenado.........