Every hitter in the Giants starting lineup got at least one hit. The only exception? Buster Posey, the best hitter on the team. Buster was walked twice but didn't figure in the scoring. The coup de grâce was delivered by FNG Thairo Estrada who hit a grand slam in the 9th. He had two hits and an RBI before that. LaMonte Wade, Jr. had a two-run homer, continuing his streak of excellent play, and Alex Dickerson broke out of his funk--we hope--with a homer. Brandon Crawford had three runs batted in and Steven Duggar scored three times. Starter Alex Wood struggled with command but still struck out eight in his five frames. He came up with some big pitches, mostly with the slider, when the game was still in the balance. Jarlin Garcia and Dominic Leone had an easy time in the 6th and 7th, but Jimmie Sherfy gave up two homers in the 8th, both solo shots. Zack Littell did the mop-up work in the 9th. That was the 81st game, the halfway mark of the season, and the Giants are 51-30.
Estrada is 25 years old and from Venezuela. He came up with the Yankees and mostly played second base but added a little shortstop, third base, and even some outfield. He's a righty hitter and was tearing it up at AAA. He has yet to find his ML stroke but he's only had 128 ML PA. With Mauricio Dubon struggling the Giants needed to make a move. Estrada is probably not as skilled a defender as Dubon but he may have more upside as a hitter.
Sammy Long starts tonight at 7:10 PT.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
4 comments:
51-30 is the best start by the club since the 1971 and 1993 teams. Certainly no one expected the Giants to be in the mix of potential playoff teams. It is easy as a fan to have "expectations" of what the team will "do" with this great start. I like the way Kapler talks about it:
“I just don’t get caught up in trying to compete against a projection,” Kapler said. “We have players on the other side and teams on the other side that are trying to beat us every night. I think it makes much more sense to try to plan for that and create opportunities for our players to beat the other team and not to get caught up in expectations. I actually think that’s really important.
“High expectations, low expectations — they are independent of how we have to prepare and the process that we build and ultimately the energy that we bring to the games.”
I like the "(expectations) are INDEPENDENT of how we have to prepare" line and obviously the emphasis is mine. Build a good team, embrace a good process, go out and compete. It's great when you get a ring at the end, of course, but only 1 team in 30 gets that payoff. In the interim, enjoy watching some good baseball!
speaking of Wood struggling with command. Except for his HBP, he was severely squeezed that game. I thought Okay, that is the umps strike zone. Maybe he sees the ball coming in from a left differently than from a right. But the zone was tight for the Dbacks pitcher as well. But then Mantiply came in, and pitches more outside and much worse than Wood's were called strikes. When Wood walked the pitcher, on TV at least, every pitch was on the line of the theoretical strike zone, and good have been called a strike. This was going on all game. Later in the game I remember the first pitch to Slater was about 6 inches outside called a strike from Mantiply. He has several similar pitches also called strikes. It did not overall effect the game, but if I am Wood, happy that I won, and my team won, and I watch the game and how it was called, I am still pissed. But I am not Wood. I heard Dubon had himself quite a game in triple A yesterday.
Yeah the balls-and-strikes thing is damned irritating. Krukow always says "as long as it's a consistent zone" he's OK. I think that's BS. There is a rule book strike zone and umps should do their very best to stick to that. Ultimately I think they'll have to shrink the zone to reduce the pitching advantage and add more balls in play.
Interesting game on Saturday. Giants managed 13 hits, 2 of which were home runs, 7 walks, and at least one hit batter, and only scored 6 runs, in a nail biting game where the winning hit was a long bomb by Austin Slater. Of interest after the rain delay in the dodger game it looked as if Washington was going to get out of the inning unscathed as Pujols hit a sure DP grounder to short. But the backup Nationals shortstop bobbled it, and tossed a slow under hand feed to second, the runner was safe and then the second baseman threw to first and ball was not handled. It was the second baseman who was charged with the error on the throw. After getting the next batter out, the bums scored their winning run. To me the error should have been on the shortstop as his bobble is what screwed up the play. Also the throw by the second baseman was not bad, and should have been handled. Wrong guy charged with the error. Now getting back to the giants. They almost lost the game as as Wade could not come up with a hard hit ball that could have been a DP. The Dbacks followed with runs. Another opportunity had come in the first as men were on all the bases for the giants, and Wade did not tag up on a medium short fly by Crawford. Perhaps a good move, but the throw turned out to be way off line, and Wade most likely would have scored. The giants ended up winning a one run game to stay ahead of the bums by a half a game, but also picking up a game against the Pads. The relief crew did a nice job giving up just one unearned run in 5 innings. The error by Wade was a tough play but a legit error. The error on Casali, was due to catchers interference, which I am fairly sure Casali thinks was done on purpose by the batter. The 3rd error came when a throw came in from left to Crawford and he threw the ball to first which was being manned by Flores. I thought the ball should have been caught, but the error went to Crawford. I could not understand why the runner was given third base as the ball went into the dugout. He was moving back to first when it happened. Estrade was picked off first by at least a foot and a half, but after watching it in ultra slow motion, I could not see the tag ever touching Estrada. I would hope that they can also go frame by frame in the N.Y. replay office. Hopefully a lesson learned by Estrada. Our announcers gave Yaz some credit for disrupting the pitcher at first, when Slater launched his home run into orbit. Giants clearly need to figure out how to hit with runners on. I checked yesterday, and despite hitting 328, and now 327 after his GIDP, Posey is only hitting 220 with runners in scoring position. He starts to hit in those situations and the giants are unstoppable. It is already July 4th on the East Coast, so Happy July 4th.
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