Of all the stupid ideas to come out of the commissioners office of late, this has to rank right up there among the dumbest. To begin with, the "players' nicknames weekend" is foolish enough, half the players go by their regular names, so they have to make up nicknames or dredge up some from high school. The Giants shirts didn't look too bad, but the pants looked like they were wearing black jeans if they were over the socks, and pajamas if they were tucked in. But that was a far sight better than the white uniforms for the A's. They looked like guys who worked in a bakery, but less cool, if their pants were out and like they were at ballet practice with hats if they were tucked in. Plus, neither I nor the announcers could tell who the fuck they were.
Madison Bumgarner was on the hill, but he did not give the Giants a stop job in any sense of the word. He gave the Giants 5 innings, threw 97 pitches, gave up 4 hits and 2 runs, walked 1 and struck out 5. The Giants trotted out nearly their entire relief staff, Gott, Gustave (who gave up 2 runs), Abad, Coonrod, Anderson (who gave up 1), Moronta and Smith. At the end of nearly 4 hours, though, the Giants came out on top, 10 - 5.
That was mainly due their best offensive inning of 2019, an 8-run 8th. The Giants entered the 8th trailing 4 - 2. Stephen Vogt, DHing, led off with a line out, but would hit a 3-run home run with 2 outs in the same inning to score the Giant's final 3 runs of the game. RBI's also that inning for Longoria, Pillar and Crawford, and Dickerson (3 hits tonight) scored on a wild pitch. Sam Coonrod got 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th, he got the win. The loser was once-Giant bullpen stalwart, Yusmiero Petit.
That nudges the Giants back in front of the dbacks, who lost to the Brewers, who in turn are in front of the Giants for a wild card position. At least the Giants proved that their offense didn't die in Chicago. Second start for Logan Webb tomorrow.
10 comments:
Giants win 10 - 5.
You have to love their determination and fightback! This team, flawed though it is, has heart. If the Giants fell behind early or trailed late (but close) in the last two seasons it was certain death. Their was no comeback possibility. You can't say that about this team. It helps to have depth, and platoon options, credit FZ for that and Boch for juggling the lineup as needed.
Bum was not pretty but he held the line. The A's are a good team. They are 20 games over .500 and average five runs per game. They worked him, but he didn't implode. One of our rookies probably would have, but Bum's a vet and he found a way to help the club. Their pitching is a half-run better than the Giants but somehow the lineup found a chink in the armor and poured on the heat.
This is a weird team. It was assembled on-the-fly and is a work in progress. It is hard to get a handle on, but I'm convinced they are exactly what you see, a flawed +/-.500 bunch. But that's a huge improvement, and I feel good going forward.
Now let's keep winning goddamn ballgames! 2-1 or 12-11, I don't care, just score more than the other guy!
"There" was no comeback, of course.
All they needed to start the rally was a Posey hit. More of those this season, and the giants would be right up there. He came close to getting his second hit of the inning but just fell a foot short of getting a hit off the wall. Not that distance matters that much once a home run is hit, but the distances listed for the last two Vogt Dingers seem to be quite short of the actual distance. The 416 foot home run the other day seemed way longer, and that his dinger yesterday was only a few feet longer than Crawford's seems unlikely. Nevertheless our back-up catcher can hit.
Vogt has been great this year. It paid off to keep him around and cycle through all those other guys until he was healthy. He's a free agent next year.
The Giants will need a platoon partner for Posey next season. Posey started 122 G at catcher in 2016 (1069 innings), his career peak. Since then 96/826 and 85/759. This season he has started 79 G and played 698 innings at catcher. He'll get at least another 20 starts I should think. So the surgery has allowed him to continue playing even if his hitting has fallen off. He's still a primo glove. But he won't be carrying the load and the team will need another quality backstop, someone left-handed who can mash. I wonder if they plan to talk to Vogt. He'll be 35 in November.
Looks like Sandoval will miss the rest of the season.
Glad the giants were able to sweep the A's and finish the road trip 5-4, despite a 4 game losing streak right in the middle. Back to the topic of Buster Posey. He has been either my favorite player or one of my top two favorite players since 2010. With that being said something has to be done about his place in the line-up. Despite the fact that he is still physically okay enough to be one of the top defensive catchers in baseball, something is amiss about his offense. Clearly it is far overdue that Bochy take him out of a key RBI position in the lineup. An average number 3 hitter today would have assured a much large victory for the giants.
If he is hurt in a way that affects his hitting, he needs to come clean. If he is not hurt than he seriously needs to revamp his hitting. If the league has caught up with his approach as a hitter, he clearly has not re-adjusted. If he is not all the way back from his surgery when it comes to hitting, Bochy needs to make up his lineup accordingly.
Changing the subject back to the replay. Giants were on the wrong side of the replays today, including the play that would have otherwise ended the game. But the replay that was of most interest was the Slater play at first where he was called safe. The two different angles of replay gave us two different answers.
The view from the angle of the infield looking toward first base made it look clearly that he was out and that the play should be overturned. However, the look from the other side, gave a completely different view, and the opposite looked to be true. He looked clearly to be safe. To over turn a call it supposedly has to be definitive. What is the ruling if one angle makes the player look definitively out, while the other angle makes him look definitively safe? Does the play stay with the umpires call? Do we know that N.Y. has both angles? Does the call go with the team that asked for the replay? What is the rule on that situation if any? Or does N.Y. just fly by the seat of their pants?
Back to Posey. After his surgery last year, I expected him at some time this season to get back to hitting like the old Posey from the past. Not sure that this is going to happen. Anyone of the writers on this blog have any inside information as to what is going on with Buster's hitting? Is there any news on Yaz's hand, he was HBP on his last AB, and the pitched nailed him in his hand. He as pinch hit for by Erickson. I would have preferred he hit, and have Erickson pinch hit for Posey. Kuip and Estes did not mention anything about Yaz's injury at that time.
So far the word on Yaz is "contusion."
Buster will need to hit oppo more, I think. He's a part-time player at this point, but still a positive contributor, just not a star.
Flem and Miller talked about Yaz and said that they thought he was probably removed because of his hand. He is a better outfielder than Dickerson. A contusion is good news, though because it's not a break.
He is not in the line-up Monday night. Instead, Avelino is playing left field????
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