Sammy Long threw scoreless baseball for 5-1/3 innings tonight in New York City and the Giants backed him up with a barrage of homers and crushed the Mets. Jay Jackson finished the 6th, Jose Alvarez took the 7th, and Tyler Chatwood threw the final two frames for the team's 14th shutout. That's tied for second-best in MLB with the Braves, one behind the Brewers. Brandon Belt got it started with a solo shot in the 1st, Mike Yastrzemski hit a two-run monster shot in the 2nd, LaMonte Wade added his own two-run homer in the 4th, and that was followed by another solo shot from Belt. Four homers in the first four innings! The Giants had 15 hits overall and limited the Mets to a mere five. Superb effort from the rookie southpaw tonight--the best outing of his big-league career so far.
That's the team's 81st win which guarantees them a .500 record for 2021. There are 37 games left to play so I expect they'll win a few more, but that's a hell of an accomplishment nonetheless. The Giants last finished above .500 in 2016.
Johnny Cueto gets the call tomorrow. Same time, 4:10 Pacific.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
4 comments:
Long has a beautiful curveball. It's the kind of pitch you expect from a "wily veteran" but the young studs all seem to be about fastballs, along with a few sliders and changeups thrown in. I continue to love Lamonte Wade. Wilmer Flores is moving up my like list. His face never changes. If he could make it in NY NY he could make it anywhere, or so they say.
Agree about Wilmer. He really is stoic and never seems to let any moment in a game get too big. Most of the time he looks bored! He's been a valuable guy these last two seasons. They have a $3.5M option on him next year so there's a good chance they'll keep him around.
Longoria is hurt again. Finger is not healing. Seems he is a slow healer. Posey and Crawford out with supposedly minor injuries and are both day to day. I wonder sometimes how guys like Mays played almost every game every year. You know some of those old timers were playing hurt. Hopefully our guys will remain fresh for the rest of the season, if not injury prone. I heard an analysis on MLB TV. saying how badly the injuries hurt the dodgers this year. They certainly did, but there was no mention about the injuries to the giants. Giants injuries this year have also been significant. If you bet on the giants on a line that was 77 wins over or under and you bet over, you are already a winner. Seemed like a good bet after the short season last year. The giants were only going to get better.
The Giants rely on "old" players so they are much more willing to sit guys and send guys to the IL. They like to keep everyone fresh. They tend to err on the side of excess caution. It's hard to blame them. One, it appears to work. Two, it has been a big year for injuries all over baseball.
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