LA 5 SF 3
One of the problems with bullpen-based baseball is that the bullpen has to be perfect. Tonight, it wasn't. Ace reliever Reyes Moronta gave up two hits, a walk, and two runs in the 7th with the big blow coming on two strikes with two outs. Nobody's perfect. It turned a 3-2 Giants lead into a 4-3 deficit. Tony Watson allowed a run in the 8th as well. Derek Holland had yielded two in the 1st but a solo shot by Steven Duggar and a two-run shot by Brandon Belt in the 4th reclaimed the lead. Speaking of Duggar, he was in right and FNG Kevin Pillar got the start in center.
Giants play their Home Opener on Friday at 1:35 Pacific. D-Rod gets the nod against the Rays.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
6 comments:
Mac is back.
Mac Williamson cleared waivers and will return to the River Cats.
From MLBTR:
It’s not terribly difficult to envision Williamson earning another look with the Giants down the road this season. Although San Francisco acquired Kevin Pillar from the Blue Jays earlier this week, their starting trio of Pillar, Steven Duggar and Gerardo Parra isn’t exactly an iron-clad collection of established producers.
'Mac is back' was supposed to link to the tweet--I must of screwed up the formatting.
https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1113863096022466560
It's also worth noting that the new "Face of the FO" stepping in for Larry Baer is Rob Dean, husband of one of the daughters of Harmon and Sue Burns. The Burns family had a large chunk of the team that went to their kids when they passed away. Dean is from Ft. Jones in Siskiyou County, less than 20 miles from Yreka, where I live. An old colleague of mine knows him from growing up in the Scott Valley and attending Etna HS. The Scott Valley is just west and south of here, home to Ft. Jones, Etna, Callahan, and a lot of alfalfa fields. (There is also a Scotts Valley in CA but it is by Santa Cruz.) Shawn Estes' mom went to Etna HS as well.
The Athletic did a feature on Dean (he's 47) and he comes across as a humble and hard-working. Here's a couple of quotes from the Daniel Brown story:
To even hardcore Giants fans, Dean is an unknown. But internally, he’s made a steady rise from the Burns’ unassuming son-in-law, establishing himself as a respected consensus-maker. Baer’s outsized personality tends to overshadow all else within the ownership team, but Dean has been a stealth force for a while.
Consider that when the Giants hired Farhan Zaidi as the new president of baseball operations during the offseason, Baer was the first person to interview Zaidi. Dean was the second.
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One thing that will not change: full-fledged support of Zaidi’s baseball blueprint. The new president of baseball operations is under early heat after an offseason defined by an endless stream of back-page waiver-wire transactions, but Dean sees bigger moves ahead.
“I am 100 percent behind Farhan. I believe in his thought process,’’ Dean said. “I understand what he is doing. I admire the job he did with the A’s and with the Dodgers. I think he’s great.
“There may be some impatience with some people out there, but I think we bring the flexibility that the Dodgers have. We’re a big-market, high-payroll team. … I think he’s the perfect guy for our job.”
Michael Reed also cleared waivers and was outrighted to AAA. He can elect free agency, apparently, so we'll see if he sticks in the organization.
Both Joe and Reed were thrust into high-pressure spots very suddenly without much time to prep them. Joe is still in the majors and looking for his first hit, they seem to think he can hold his weight, at least for now. Reed could get another shot, maybe he just needs a smoother introduction to the system. He had obviously not played with a SS like Crawford before, but you can't fault his aggressiveness chasing down fly balls. I hope he can still contribute.
Time for the home opener! Assuming rain doesn't interfere - and it's pretty damp out right now, but scheduled to be, if not dry, at least not raining by 1 pm. The Chronicle today features an article by Ron Krochick, "Fans blend hope with skepticism" subtitled "Will the faithful embrace changes following 'offseason from hell' and a sluggish start?" Ann Killion has a column entitled "Good things happen when the Giants rebuild." I don't know why the on-line versions are titled slightly differently than the print edition.
Ann Killion, in particular, misses a crucial point. She talks about the fun in a Giants rebuild and the winning seasons that result. But the Giants have been emphatic that they are NOT rebuilding, but trying to win now as they "reload" for the future. Even today, a front page interview with Ron Dean by Henry Schulman, "acting Giants CEO steps into spotlight" he states, in answer to the question, You're not a fan of the word "rebuild"? "No, I don't think that's a fair description. We have one of the largest payrolls in baseball. We have a tremendous group of veteran players who have won multiple World Series. At the same time we're trying to develop young and athletic newcomers. I don't think 'rebuild' has to be exclusionary of winning today." The Ron Krochick article mentions some "fans" who have gone so far as to suggest that GM Farhan Zaidi is still working for LA - and that's ridiculous. But to suggest that, somehow, impatience with 2.5 (and counting) years of absolutely sucking is somehow, a fault of the fans, and that we should sit back and enjoy a rebuild which consists of mostly the same players and a few (so-far) substandard replacements, is also ludicrous.
Look, I'm not down on FZ. I suspect that he was given the job as GM with a lot of freedom, then had that freedom curtailed by the ownership who gave him the mandate that we use all the same players to win now. And in truth, we have to use some of them because they have no trade clauses, and those that don't are coming off of sub-par years that has suppressed their value. Add that to the stink of desperation that must come through the phone to a rival GM whenever the Giants are on the other end, and you probably have a tough time getting any decent return for the players we do have to offer. Do you want to trade Madison Bumgarner for a minor league prospect and cast-off 5th stringer? Me neither. So I can hardly blame him for waiting until the season started to add Kevin Pillar. But don't expect me to claim FZ's a success. If the Giants want to give FZ a couple years to do his job, then they wait a couple years for accolades. Bruce Jenkins today says that FZ added much needed credibility with both older players and fans with the Pillar trade. Sorry, Bruce, a defensively gifted, mediocre bat isn't going to give me hope that the Giants are a competitive team. And I'm not tuning in to look at smart guys in suits.
Still not raining. If they can get that machine that blows water off the grass going, maybe they'll make the 1:35 start time. At least we have one really exciting young player on the mound today. So check out those articles if you want some home-team boosterism. I'm frustrated with the results the Giants have been turning in the last couple years, not the efforts of the front office (although I still want to know why the farm system got so lousy). But, sorry Ann, Ron and the rest, I am absolutely not blaming myself for my frustration.
I don't read the Chronicle anymore.
It's a rebuild. Ownership does not want to call it that because it sounds defeatist. But fans know.
We all know the problem: expensive declining older and (mostly) un-movable talent. And, for whatever reasons, the minor league and international new talent pipelines aren't producing. You could have any GM or POBO in the game and he or she would face the same difficulties.
I hope they give FZ the time it takes to re-stock the entire system and to make over the ML rosters. I hope they invest in people and a process and STICK WITH IT and not over-correct because Giants fans are whiny and forget too quickly.
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