It is my good fortune to post something when Madison Bumgarner pitches. He gets wins and that makes me post in a much better mood than when the Giants lose. You, in turn, benefit by being spared my vitriol. At least some of it.
Madison Bumgarner pitched for the Giants tonight and the Giants beat the Cardinals by a score of 9 - 8 in a wild game. 40 different players made appearances in this game. The Giants went up 4 - 0, then the Cardinals caught up, then the Giants went up 7 - 4, then the Cardinals went up 8 - 7, and finally Kevin Pillar hit his 21st home run of the year with Brandon Crawford on base for the GWRBI in the 8th inning.
The Cardinals have been playing excellent ball, they had won 20 of their last 25 games. OMG if only the Giants could put together a run like that. Last night, if you recall, Derek Rodriguez pitched superbly but came away with the loss and the Giants gave up 1 solo home run but were held scoreless by Jack Flaherty. They said that August was the best month of pitching for a Cardinal since Bob Gibson, one of my childhood heroes. Madison was not nearly so good, nor anywhere near as good as he can be. He gave up 9 hits in 5 innings, walked 1 and struck out only 2. 1 of those hits was a home run and he gave up 6 total. The Giants were charged with 1 error, on a Corban Joseph bobbled grounder, but there were a couple of other near misses that led to runs. Jaylin Davis had one clang off his glove at the wall and Mike Yastrzemski missed one at the fence in left. Both of those would have been spectacular catches, but on another night, that might have prevented Cardinal runs from scoring. The Cardinals also erred once, on a bizarre 3rd-out ground ball in the 6th. DeJong at shortstop picked up the ball, started to throw to 1st to retire Longoria and then choked and tossed the ball to Wong at 2nd, who was totally surprised and off the bag when he snagged it to allow Posey to reach base. That put 2 men on for Brandon Crawford who homered for 3 runs to make the score 7 - 4. Yaz also homered, a solo shot in the 3rd. Kevin Pillar has had 8 4-hit games in his 6-year career, 4 of them have been as a Giant. The Giants used 6 pitchers, the Cardinals 7. So that's Bochy win # 1993. 1 win out of their last 5, 2 out of their last 9, 4 of their last 14. Please, please, please don't go into the final weekend needing a sweep against LA to give him 2000.
6 comments:
That should be "they said that the pitching by Jack Flaherty in August was the best...".
That guy has been an absolute beast. It was good to see D-Rod match zeroes with him.
Big win last night. I like the team's come-from-behind chops! It is a reflection of the deeper roster, certainly, but I like their never-say-quit ethos, too. If this team can get the pitching straightened out for the final few weeks they could have a little run and finish on a high note.
during the cardinals 20-5 run their bullpen had been stellar. But not in this game. Funny how deep stellar bullpens help teams have nice winning runs. Strong bullpens are a very under rated factor when it comes to winning games.
This is a very interesting time for relief pitching in general. Here's something from The Hardball Times:
For half a century, relief pitchers have had a lower ERA than starters. This year, relievers’ ERA is the same as starters‘; just three years ago, relievers’ ERA was almost half a run lower. Bullpen ERA is the second-worst in the past 69 years; only 2000, in the steroid period, was worse. ERA in innings seven through nine has jumped. Relievers’ strikeout rate advantage compared to starters has dropped as well.
I suspect that stretches of good bullpen work stand out because overall bullpens in 2019 are bad. I think there may be a more unpredictable post-season this year because even the really good teams have a lot of variation in bullpen performance.
Here's some more from the article:
Another line of thought is that bullpens and relief pitchers are inherently volatile and unpredictable. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts notes the scarcity of relievers who are consistently effective over even three or four years in a row. Friedman sums up by saying, “Every year … the bullpen performance is what keeps me up at night. And it’s funny because the years that I’ve had the most confidence is probably the years where we’ve struggled the most, and the years where I’ve been the most afraid are the years where we’ve been the best.”
The data bears out what they say. In his article “So You Want to Have a Good Bullpen,” Jeff Sullivan looked at bullpen projections, and concluded that “bullpens can be the hardest to see coming,” “there’s very little performance carryover” from one year to the next, “the difference between good and bad in the bullpen is slim,” and “there’s just this strong whiff of unpredictability.”
Next year relievers will have to pitch to three batters! It is a stupid rule, I think, but there's no doubt the game is reaching some kind of equilibrium point if the relievers are not pitching better than the starters. I wonder if we will finally see a different kind of usage, maybe more use of openers, bullpen games, or even the re-emergence of the multi-inning reliever, like the old days of Elroy Face or Goose Gossage.
The LaRussa-Bochy schemes of LOOGYs and ROOGYs and setup men and closers may need updating.
If you put starters on strict pitch counts, or for whatever reason limit their innings, you are necessarily going to get inflated ERA's out of bullpens. The statements are obvious - if the relievers were more consistent and predictable, they wouldn't be relievers, they'd be starters. When you need more relief innings, you are going to introduce more chances for giving up runs, and as you are using second tier pitchers, you are going to get more runs, and hence, higher ERA's.
And, 10 - 0. So much for momentum.
Yeah, it's an equilibrium point. When your relievers are indistinguishable (or worse) than your starters, you need a new strategy.
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