The St. Louis Cardinals came into tonight's game as the 2nd wild card team. They're in decent shape to end the season in that position, but it's far from certain as the Story-less Rockies, coming off the losing end of a sweep by the doggers (damn it) are not far behind. The Cardinals played like a team that has designs on playing in the post season. And the Giants......gave it a pretty good effort themselves. This was no give-away by the orange and black, but they came out on the losing end by a score of 5 - 3.
Madison Bumgarner on the mound. He threw 98 pitches to get through 6 innings, and gave up 3 runs on 8 hits and 1 walk. He struck out 5. It seems to me like Madison is striking out fewer people per start this year, I'll check at the end of the season to see if that is true. He still has the smooth, deceptive, sweeping lefty-handed delivery that we're used to, but maybe the league has caught on to him a bit. At the end of 6, the Giants were behind, 3 - 1.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals' starter, John Gant, couldn't finish the 3rd inning, but they brought in Tyson Ross to get through the 5th. The Cardinals used a total of 6 pitchers on the night, compared to the Giants' 5 (Okert and Moronta in the 7th, Melancon and Watson in the 8th). The Giants scored 2 more in the 7th on a Blanco single and a Longoria ground-out to tie the score at 3 all, but Melancon gave up the game in the 8th on a 2-run double to Matt Adams.
The Giants struck out 16 times in this game. Think about that. 16 times. That's like coming to the plate with 2 outs per inning in every inning except 1. Although the Cardinals struck out 8 times, so, like giving away 1 out in every inning except 1. The announcers were saying something about how the Giants have a hard time hitting fastballs, Buster Posey and Alen Hanson excepted. That doesn't make sense to me. I always thought the one criteria for being in the major leagues was that you could hit a fastball, therefore pitchers always needed other pitches. Is that not true for the Giants? Evan Longoria had a good game, he is hot at the end of the season, so maybe his broken hand bothered him for a bit longer than his stint on the disabled list would indicate. No one else had a notable offensive night. And with this loss, the Giants cannot finish at .500.
10 comments:
7.5 K/9 this season, 8.2 K/9 last season, 10.0 K/9 in 2016.
Here's a bit from Baggs' game story (from The Athletic).
Then Gregor Blanco made contact on a 102.4-mph sinker that lumbering left fielder Marcell Ozuna misplayed into a hit.
It was the fastest pitch to a Giants player that ever resulted in a base hit, according to four years of Statcast data. Blanco broke the record previously held by … Blanco, who doubled on a 102.2-mph pitch from Aroldis Chapman in July 2016.
The Athletic is a subscription site and I've resisted it most of the season but I finally signed on. There's good stuff, plenty to read about the Giants and baseball. I missed Andrew Baggarly and this is the only place to read him.
https://theathletic.com/
That's for Madbum?
Watching these St. Louis broadcasts, I seem to be getting a lot of misinformation from their announcers.
That's 0 for 9 on the road in September - all against teams that have something to play for in October (Colorado, Milwaukee and St. Louis). Meanwhile, 4 - 7 at home, including a 3 game sweep by Atlanta.
According to Henry Schulman in the Chronicle, the Giants are 31 - 50 on the road for 2018. That's bad. Also, they have hit fewer home runs on road in all the "hitters" ballparks (282) than in the "pitching-friendly" ATT (307) where they still have 6 games remaining.
That's a weird, weird thing. How in the world can they be so bad at hitting on the road?
And yes those K/9 numbers are for Bum, you said you thought he was striking out fewer guys and the numbers back it up.
Bobby Evans gets the sack. But since this is the Giants, he isn't actually fired, just "re-assigned." You had to know this kind of thing was coming. I wonder if they will go outside the organization for a new GM (aka "Head of Baseball Operations").
This is from MLBTR:
While the past couple seasons for the Giants have been miserable, Evans should have no trouble finding another opportunity with a different organization if he decides to move on from the Giants. He’s among the game’s most respected executives and would bring a wealth of experience to a new club. It’s worth noting that there is at least one other GM opening that’ll need to be filled, as the Mets are searching for a new head of baseball operations following Sandy Alderson’s departure from the team earlier this summer.
David Pinto of Baseball Musings reported on the story and ended with one of his characteristically succinct observations:
The Giants won three World Series in the five years before Evans took over, so that was going to be a tough act to follow for anyone.
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