Three losses in four games in Atlanta is a tough pill to swallow. It should have been a split at the very least and could easily have gone the other way. The Giants got two dominant starts and lost both games, last night in particularly gut-wrenching fashion. This afternoon they fell behind early and the comeback wasn't enough.
Carlos Rodón was superb on Wednesday allowing only three hits, one walk, and one run in seven innings. He struck out ten. Of his 91 pitches there were 23 swings-and-misses. Charlie Morton was also excellent, giving up three hits and two runs and whiffing eleven over seven frames. The Giants took a 3-1 lead to the 9th but a bullpen meltdown gave it away and the Braves walked off with a 4-3 win. The Giants have lost four of their last five and three have been walk-offs. Jake McGee made the mess and Tyler Rogers gave up the game-winning hit. Some really poor umpiring behind the plate cost the Giants at least one strikeout in that fateful bottom of the 9th.
Today Alex Wood had his worst outing of the season. He gave up six runs and didn't finish the 2nd inning. The bullpen did a great job (one run allowed the rest of the way) and the Giants fought back to make it close. The final was 7-6 Braves. The lineup had 13 hits plus two walks and two HBPs but also grounded into four double plays. The Giants were 5-for-13 with RISP and left eight men on.
In other news the Giants traded Steven Duggar. He was finishing his rehab assignment and due to return to the active list and with the injury to Luis González it seemed like they would just plug him in to that spot. But LaMonte Wade, Jr. is also nearing a return so perhaps they wanted him instead. With so many lefty hitters in the outfield mix it is not surprising they moved on from Duggar. What's weird is they traded him for Willie Calhoun, a lefty outfielder from the Rangers. Calhoun is from Vallejo and played baseball at Benicia High. He's a power hitter and lacks Duggar's defensive skills and versatility so I'm not sure where he fits. It looks like they are sending him to AAA (he has an option left). Maybe they can tweak his swing or something and get him back to where he was a few years ago when he hit 21 HR in 83 G. I like Duggar and hate to see him go but he will probably get a better opportunity in Texas (he's listed on their ML roster) so good for him.
The Reds come to San Francisco for the weekend. The series opens tomorrow night at 7:15 Pacific. Alex Cobb gets the start.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
5 comments:
giants have been making moves to get players with options oft times trading a young player without options and perhaps not getting quite the equivalent talent, but that is hard to say. The part I do not like about the Dubon and Duggar trades is that in Walton and Calhoun we are getting slightly less athletic. With the giants being so much of a station to station injury prone team I am not ecstatic about getting less athletic. I liked Dubon's versatility and thought he was under rated as he was getting his strike zone discipline under much better control this year. His defense this year also was less sporadic than last year. One may say that Duggar is redundant with Gonzalez on the roster, but we will have to see if the league adjusts to Gonzo. Duggar also had quite the hot spell for a while last year. Despite Gonzo's speed, Duggar seems to be the superior outfielder. One key problem with Duggar is that he cannot seem to stay healthy. As far as the 4 game series with the Braves went it looked like 2 good teams facing off against each other, but game 3 to me was so poorly called and calls all game consistently went the Braves way in relationship to the strike zone, that it seemed to me that game was gifted to the Braves. The calls today were not great either, but nothing like Wednesday. Wednesday was a commercial for the electronic strike zone. First I thought maybe he just did not see the ball as well as he should, but when all the calls went one way, I chalked it up to bias, and as an observer and a fan, that should never be the case. I think if and when Milwaukee wins today, the giants will be a half game out of the wildcard today. After suffering all the crazy calls in the Smoltz, Glavine, Maddux era on TBS, a game like Wednesday seemed to bring me back to that ERA. the giants announcers have been pretty good about not blaming umpires on calls, and often not calling them out. Other teams seem to be a lot worse, but on Wednesday I thought Javy was going to have a stroke. My wife certainly thought I was going to. Atlanta is 660 miles from Ft. Lauderdale and I know they could hear me screaming in Atlanta. At least from an entertainment value the games were entertaining. According to stat-cast the Braves homer in the first went 8 to 10 feet long than Joc's homer in the ninth. Seems to me that Joc's went further. At least according to the eye test. The bums beat up on Cincy, lets hope that we can continue where they left off.
Giants have dropped 4 of their last 5. More disturbingly, 3 of the 5 they lost in the 9th inning.
Calhoun was DFAd and outrighted by getting him the Giants don't have to make a spot on the 40-man. They can stash him at AAA. The Rangers had to put Duggar on the 40-man and had to make a corresponding cut.
You have to give up talent to get talent. It's interesting about the outfield defense. It does seem like that's not as high a priority as it ought to be. Then again, the Giants are the most ground-bally team in majors, so infield defense is probably a bigger impact!
Calhoun came out of the Dodgers system, that's why FZ-Kap like him. He was teammates with Cody Bellinger in A and AA ball. They know his skills and must feel like they can tap into that talent.
Duggar did a really good job last year. He turned 27 and it seemed like he was putting it all together. A lot of guys hit their prime around 27-28. Calhoun is a year younger than Duggar. They have the same birthday: November 4th, Duggar '93 and Calhoun '94.
Giants pick up a soon-to-be 29-year old LH reliever named Matt Hall on a minors deal. Like catching, LH pitching is something to stockpile! He has 40 IP of MLB time over three seasons.
Maybe he was even drafted when Farhan was in the dodger system, and he was a relatively highly rated prospect, and started out showing some power. But since that time the league adjusted to him with no bounceback on his part. He is not fast, nor noted to be a good outfielder. Unlike many of Farhan's guys, Calhoun does not walk much. Giants may have lost 3 out of 5 in the ninth, but they lost 2 or 3 of those games by taking opportunistic at bats, and destroying rallies by hitting into easy double playes. Single, single, single, with one out, grounder double play. Then next inning next two guys get on base. 5 of 6 get on base and at that point nothing. One run did come in finally. If one works his way to a 3-1 count and swings to pull a low outside fastball, the surprise is why would he not hit into a dp. Also the pirate that hit 3 homers in one game vs. the giants has not done much since. I guess teams will not only not once, but three times throw a pitch right in his wheelhouse. Sometimes despite all the brain power in the giants organization, they either make stupid mistakes, or the talent fails to execute the plan.
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