SF 9 TEX 2
Chadwick Tromp made his debut on Wednesday and struck out three times. Tonight he got two hits (including an RBI double) and two runs scored and also caught SIX different pitchers! It was a supreme bullpen effort, 5-1/3 innings with only two hits and no walks or runs and seven whiffs. And we can't forget the real game-changing blow in the 5th, a 3-run homer by Wilmer Flores that erased a 2-1 Rangers lead. It was all Giants after that. Darin Ruf was a beast, Mauricio Dubon seems to be finding his stroke, and Evan Longoria is obviously healthy. I note Brandon Belt sat against the lefty starter (Mike Minor). Dubon made a nifty play at short and then later made a couple of bad throws. It seems like the whole team is still figuring out how to play together. It's a challenge with all the shifts and the changes, although tonight Kap stuck with one crew, mostly. Steven Duggar subbed for Pence at the end, Hunter is still hitless for 2020.
The 'pen, after Logan Webb's 3-2/3, was Conner Menez (1-1/3), Shaun Anderson (1), Wandy Peralta (1), Tony Watson (1), and Sam Selman (1). Watson seemed to be back on track. Selman is up for the injured Sam Coonrod.
What a great win! Nine runs! Let's see some more of that.
Tomorrow's game is the same early start, 6:10 p.m. PDT. The Rangers have righty Jordan Lyles.
GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
5 comments:
Drew Smyly starts tonight.
From Jeff Passan at ESPN: Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred told MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark on Friday that if the sport doesn't do a better job of managing the coronavirus, it could shut down for the season, sources familiar with the conversation told ESPN.
Exactly who the fuck is supposed to be managing baseball? I thought that was the commissioner's job. I have been absolutely horrified the few times I have tuned in. It's like watching a commercial for not wearing masks. Most players are not masked, including in the dugout, umpires aren't all masked when the conference for a replay, and did you see that near-brawl between the Astros and LA? My god that could have been 30 infections right there.
So instead we got a protracted dispute where the goal was plainly to generate advertising revenue and draw some lines in the sand for the next labor negotiations. We got the commissioner insisting on stupid, stupid, stupid rule changes and now teams are voting on whether to play or not? Do all these guys have degrees in epidemiology? Did no one think about what would happen if an infection broke out?
Here's some rules for you: All players, coaches and umpires wear masks at all times, in the field and in the dugout (I'd even allow an exception for outfielders when in the outfield as long as they were masked when at all times as they traversed the infield. That includes when at bat. Hot? Breathing is (ever so slightly) restricted? Tough shit. $10,000 fine for the first infraction, suspension for the remainder of the season for the second. Stand up for something besides grubbing every last quarter. For once.
I took this from Marc Craig's story at The Athletic:
“We don’t know how the virus got into the Marlins, or how it spread,” Emory University epidemiologist Zachary Binney said in an email. “We also don’t know if any spread to the Phillies was from on-field activity or contacts in the clubhouse. We need far more details of, for example, contact tracing investigations before making any judgments about what the failure point(s) were here and, more importantly, how likely this is to happen again and if there’s anything we can do to prevent it short of establishing a bubble.”
Maybe that's what needs to happen.
The article suggests MLB was relying on the work of individual compliance officers on each team (a team-designated employee) to make sure the protocols were followed. MLB's take seems to be that the individual teams fucked up, that the protocols are fine. Sounds like that's what the league (Manfred) would say! More from Craig:
One would have thought the threat of a horrible virus in a world without a vaccine might have been enough of an incentive to follow the protocols. For days, folks in uniforms acknowledged that the next big hurdle to clear was to travel safely. Yet, it didn’t take training as a compliance officer to see high fives after homers, dogpiles after walk-offs, and spitting — lots of spitting.
If this goes to shit I see the MLBPA taking a big hit for not policing their members. This kind of thing was only going to work if all the franchises worked together. I get the feeling that MLB Ownership is really a pretty loose confederation of people who would just as soon not work together, kind of like OPEC or a drug cartel. The enterprise makes too much money and confers too much status not to participate, but no one wants to go to the meetings or do any kind of "we're working together" corporate rah-rah bullshit. So Manfred cobbles together a working majority and gets tacit approval on everything else and keeps the real work and real thinking away from the oligarchs who own the game. Oligarchs always "have people" who take care of things for them. And those people "have people" who take care of shit for them, and on down to some clubhouse attendant telling million dollar athletes to wear a mask and to not leave the hotel for burgers.
On the baseball side, the Giants are .500!
As you know I'm fine with the DH.
I think the extra-inning rule could be a lot of fun. It was too bad that Padres game wasn't close, there was no drama. If the goal is to keep roster size in check (the September expansion was cut way back) then you have to deal with pitching and catching fatigue. Maybe you get to have a taxi squad for extra innings or something. Otherwise I see the players pushing back. I could easily see a version of that rule work. Maybe you wait until 12th. In the 13th you get 2 runners. In the 14th bases loaded. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm willing to restrict unlimited traditional extra inning games to the post-season. Tie-breaking schemes are not unprecedented in professional baseball, they are used internationally.
The expanded playoffs is good for this season (assuming we have a season), just like the other two rules, and they are thinking of 7-inning doubleheaders, too. Again, if your goal is to reduce game times then you have to be creative and try stuff. This is a good year to try this stuff.
Would I support expanded playoffs in the future? I don't know. I'm not immediately opposed. I'd like to see more emphasis on within-division play and I'd like to see balanced schedules. I think you should play every team in baseball at least one time. you could do 3 at home one year and 3 away the next year. That way the Yankees, for example, always get to play the Giants and fans can plan to see them. I think that would be way better than the current interleague setup. I think division winners and teams with the best records should be rewarded in some fashion and they need to get rid of incentives for tanking. (Like the draft.)
More playoffs means more post-season fun. Fans like that stuff. But baseball fans are fussier than fans of other sports, so we'll see. Well, I HOPE we get to see!
With MadBum gone there's nothing left to like about pitchers trying to hit. I wonder how he's coping with the "no snot rocket" rule.
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