SAC 4 COL 0
The Sacramento River Cats, the Giants Pacific Coast League affiliate, won the AAA national title tonight with a win over the Columbus (Ohio) Clippers. The Clippers are the International League affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. So, a bit of good news for the Giants organization. It's a remarkable accomplishment when you consider the roster turnover. The B-R page lists 65 players for the River Cats this year.
Current Sacramento manager Dave Brundage led the Richmond Braves to the AAA championship game in 2007, and that team lost to the River Cats! Brundage is from Oregon and played for the OSU Beavers before turning pro. He never made the bigs but did play in nearly 800 minor league games over ten seasons. At age 54 he has 22 years of managerial experience, 14 at AAA.
The Salem-Keizer Volcanoes of the Northwest League (A-), the Augusta Green Jackets of the South Atlantic League (A), the San Jose Giants of the California League (A+), and even the Orange Giants of the Arizona League (rookie ball) made the playoffs this season. Not bad!
In other news, the major league club played a game in Boston at Fenway Park. Mike Yastrzemski hit a homer with grandpa Carl in attendance, which was pretty cool. The game lasted 15 innings. The Giants looked good early, then they looked bad and let the Red Sox back in the game in the 6th, but hung on to scratch out a run and take a 6-5 lead in the 13th which was around midnight Eastern Time. The ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth Giants pitchers, Sam Selman, Burch Smith, Wandy Peralta, and Kyle Barraclough could not get the job done and the Sox tied it up and sent it to the 14th inning. But Dereck Rodriguez, the lucky thirteenth pitcher, got the next six outs, and the Giants finally finished it off 7-6. D-Rod gets the win, but shouldn't he get the save as well? If you are going to pass out credit, I think you should go all the way!
Next year we won't likely see thirteen-pitcher games (Boston used eleven guys) as the September rosters will only be increased to 28 players instead of 40.
Jeff Samardzija tomorrow. GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
p.s. Number 1999 for Boch. First SF Giants win--ever--in Fenway.
1 comment:
The Stud of the Night Award has to go to Stephen Vogt who caught all 294 pitches over the 15 innings and almost six hours.
Giants set a record with 13 pitchers. Here's a good quip from the AP game story:
"I wanted to get my 10,000 steps in," Bochy joked of the changes. "I was a little behind."
Post a Comment