Logan Webb pitched six scoreless innings to open the series in Cincinnati and the Giants held on to win. Webb did not have his strikeout stuff and gave up six hits but also did not walk a batter and induced ten ground balls, two of which led to double plays. It was an outstanding performance against a strong lineup. He kept the ball in the yard, a tough task in that park.
The bullpen gave up the three Reds runs, the first in the 7th when Jarlin Garcia had a two-out brain fart (walk, WP, single), and again in the 8th when Matt Wisler gave up back-to-back homers. He almost gave up a third before getting the final out. The Giants need both Wisler and Garcia to be reliable bullpen options and they unfortunately have not performed with any consistency so far this season. Tyler Rogers--again--came on to get the save in the 9th. Brandon Crawford made a two-out error to dial up the TortureMeter™ but Nick Castellanos flied out to end it.
The offense cranked out three homers, a two-run shot from Wilmer Flores, and solo shots from Mauricio Dubon and Mike Yastrzemski. The Reds played some poor infield defense, gifting the Giants a run in the 1st and again in the 8th. In fact the Flores homer in the 4th was after an error that put BCraw on base ahead of him. The play in the 8th was a blown rundown. With two outs Austin Slater was picked off first base, but he stayed in jeopardy long enough for Darin Ruf to scoot home from third. Duane Kuiper called it "junior varsity" on the post-game show!
But the story was young Logan Webb who out-pitched veteran Sonny Gray and got his first road win of the year. He's lined up up to pitch Saturday at home against the Dodgers.
Anthony DeSclafani tomorrow afternoon at 3:40 Pacific.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
5 comments:
Yaz looks like he is getting hot. If he could do an MVP thing for the next month or two, the baseball world may just take us seriously. Gotta have the stars to get the coverage. Not that that matters much...
I like flying under the radar. Just keep playing good baseball, that's what I want.
We still need to get that bullpen straightened out. I have been noticing more teams purposefully trying to hit against the shift. Something the giants seem to do way to frequently. I am surprised that Kapler let Wisler pitch to another batter. He seemed to
be primarily serving up hanging sliders. It is a 3 man mandatory. The one hit that Rogers gave up, was apparently after he should have had a called strike 3. The balls and strikes that game were called terribly. I think the visual acuity on 95 plus MPH fastballs and sharp breaking balls is not longer there for umpire West. fortunately his bad calls were not lopsided, and we benefited from just as many as we did not. If an ump is going to miss a lot of calls, I prefer he do it in a nonbiased fashion. The umpire union must be very powerful, as by now, not only do the teams know who the bad umps are, but the fans who pay attention do so as well. One can say it is part of the game. Even, part of the charm of the game. But since the advent of HDTV, it has become super annoying.
TV, super slo-mo, and now Statcast have changed everything. There is less desire for the so-called "human element" and more desire to get the call right.
Other sports have embraced technology. Hawk-eye is replacing line judges in tennis. They use it for LBW calls in cricket. In fact cricket has "snick-o" and "hot-spot" technologies for tricky stuff like whether the batsman barely nicked the ball or that it struck him or not. With 100 mph deliveries from bowlers, umpires can't always see it in real time.
Robot-umps don't have to replace the home plate umpire, just relieve him of strike zone judgment. He could spend more time on things like HBP, catcher's interference, batted balls hitting the batter, fair/foul bunts, etc. As well as spend more time on enforcing the pace-of-play or pitch-clock demands. In fact the home plate ump could stand off to the side and view the batter at any angle if the robot was calling strikes and balls.
Tommy La Stella goes to the 60-day IL. He is obviously "more" injured than it first seemed! He is the only player FZ has signed to a 3-year deal. We won't get to see him again until July. He had a bad start to the season but I suspect he is a much better player than that.
Giants claim a RH reliever from the Mets, Trevor Hildenberger. He's a local boy (Mountain View) and went to Cal. He goes to AAA.
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