SF 10 AZ 9 (11)
The Giants and Diamondbacks combined for TWELVE home runs in an extra-inning slugfest that featured 28 hits and 19 runs scored. Mike Yastrzemski outdid everyone with a sensational three-homer display that included the eventual game-winner in the 11th inning. The not-so-young rookie has "served notice" that he's a power threat to be reckoned with. Currently he sports a .548 slugging percentage, the highest on the team by far, and one of only two Giants above .500 in that metric. The league slugs .437 overall, and the team .404, the fourth-worst in baseball.
Two spectacular bullpen meltdowns were featured, with Tony Watson and Sam Coonrod blowing a five-run lead in the 8th, and Will Smith blowing a two-run lead in the 10th, but the Giants kept fighting back and eventually prevailed. The D-Backs hit six homers, one in the 1st, three in the 8th, and two in the 10th. Brandon Belt hit the first of the Giants six bombs in the 3rd, then Yaz added his first, Kevin Pillar hit one in the 4th, Yaz did it again in the 7th, Pillar again in the 10th, and then Yaz finished things in the 11th with his third. It was a wild night in Arizona.
The Giants are now 7-8 in August and 62-61 overall, a game ahead of the D-Backs for second place in the NL West. 22-year old righthander Logan Webb will make his debut tonight at 5:10 Pacific. Webb is from Rocklin, CA and was signed with the team right out of high school. He has 60 starts in the minors, mostly at A and AA level. In his one start with the AAA River Cats he threw seven scoreless. Webb had to serve an 80-game suspension earlier this year because of a positive PED test. MLB Pipeline rates Webb as the team's number-five prospect.
GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
6 comments:
Clearly the ball is juiced. I keep seeing football scores in baseball. I love the long ball as much as anybody, but I love small ball even more. I am worried now about our pitching. Our starters have always been a problem, but our bullpen was rock solid. I think that Bochy took Smith out so that he wouldn't get the stigma of having two blown saves in one game.
I think Bochy took Smith out because he had already thrown 30 pitches and there was a righty up and the on-deck guy had just homered. But, I share your concern. Smith and Watson are both going through a bad stretch that needs to end real soon.
Those guys have been used a lot, and not only that, have pitched brilliantly. It is not surprising they would come down to earth for a spell. They'll bounce back.
With the 40-man roster expansion looming, I say get ready for lots of rookies and no-names getting a start or two, or being thrust into high-leverage relief spots. The Giants need the pitching equivalent of Mike Yastrzemski to emerge from the pack and throw some great starts.
Logan Webb tonight--I like seeing all these young guys even if they are stinking (mostly). The Giants have to find out what they've got in the system. Neither Anderson nor Beede belong in the minors. They still have to prove they belong in the majors, but more time at AAA is wasted at this point, even though they both have multiple options remaining. They are learning on-the-job, and I think it is exciting. One of these arms (incl. D-Rod, Menez, Suarez, etc.) is going to stick. It is fun, as a fan, to be in on the ground floor. Next year the rosters will be 26 and expand to 28. No more goofy lineups.
That being said, I really want the team get to 82 wins and finish above .500 and get back to winning ways. That means 20 more wins out of the final 39. So, some guys need to step up.
It is nice to see the hitters take advantage of the friendly ballpark and the warm weather and hit some bombs. They've won a number of improbable games this year, playing all kinds of baseball. With the roster turnover, it took a while for the team to gain any kind of identity. I'm not sure what to call what I'm watching, in terms of baseball style. It is more like basketball, or better yet hockey, where you swap out several guys at a time. This team is deeper and more versatile, and has more matchup options. Platoon baseball. "Juggler Joe" Altobelli (an unfairly maligned manager, IMHO) would be proud.
I think we are going to see a lot more crazy baseball the rest of this season.
I don't think you can blow your own save. At that point he was set for a win. Putting Gott in allowed for Gott to get the save, but, I think Bochy did not want to go any more pitches with Smith, and he just did not like the match-up especially after the match-up he had just faced. I thought his leash was way to short with Watson, as Watson's pitches just did not seem to be moving. It wasn't so much the speed or location, but the flatness of his pitches last night. Overall, despite the first time a high strike was called was against the relatively short Solano. It all worked out in the wash as the giants came out of it with the "W".
After they broke up chemistry 101, which they found and worked nicely in July, they have skirmished to find chemistry 102, and after about 2 weeks, maybe they found a new equilibrium. Just maybe.
As far as the juiced ball goes, MLB is in a bit of denial but overall the evidence is pretty clear that the ball is different. I've read several independent analyses that confirm it, and when they introduced the MLB ball to the minors there was a spike in homers.
It seems they had a similar problem in Korea. The difference is the KBO made some changes to the ball and it paid off, this year the offensive numbers have dropped. The "de-juiced" balls travel 13 to 16 feet less. That seems like a lot!
There's a guy on FanGraphs (Sung-Min Kim) who has been researching this topic. Here's a quote:
As has been covered extensively this season, researches have shown that the balls in use in the majors are wound tighter and have smoother leather, resulting in flyballs traveling farther than they have previously. The league is on pace to set records in home runs hit in a season. Is Major League Baseball going to take steps to remedy the current trend or are they going to just let things be? We don’t know for now, but if MLB were to look to neutralize the current home run-happy environment by tweaking their baseball production, they could learn some lessons from the KBO, where it has been made clear that a careful and intentional manufacturing process is important, and changes to the ball, even small ones, can have a significant effect on the game.
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