Put Philly in the rear view mirror and step on the gas. Jeez. The Giants got swept in Philadelphia, losing the final game by a score of 6 - 3. That hasn't happened since 1982, when Mike Krukow was on the mound in game 4 for the Phillies and Duane Kuiper led off for the Giants.
In the 1980's, the Giants were mostly bad. Real bad. It remains to be seen how good the Giants are in 2018. They looked terrific in Atlanta, but got the crap beat out of them, repeatedly, in Philly. Philadelphia has some good, young players that appear to not have any fear. They have one veteran hitter, Carlos Santana, who hit 3 home runs against the Giants in the series and picked up 13 rbi. They have one veteran pitcher, Jake Arrieta, whom the Giants did not face. Not that Arrieta could have been more effective. The Giants struck out 15 times today and a grand total of 55 times in the series. 55 times! Given each team has 3 outs, or chances, an inning, that is 1.5 chances each inning the Giants' hitters are giving away. 3 outs every 2 innings! From some guys named Velasquez today (7 starts before this season), Pivetta (in his 2nd year), Nola (in his 4th year who is actually from Baton Rouge, not New Orleans), and Eflin (parts of 2 previous seasons). The Giants were outscored 32 to 8.
Ty Blach had the honor of picking up the L today. The Giants actually led the game until the 4th, that's the first time that's happened this series. So I guess that's positive. Also, the Giants, after some sloppy play in the field, committed no errors. The road trip that started out 3 - 0 is now under .500 at 3 - 4. On to Pittsburgh. Hit the ball. Get some wins.
5 comments:
Poor performance is just a prelude to new successes. A losing streak is just a chance to show how tough and resilient you can be!
Hanson has been in pro ball since he was 17. He's got about a season's worth of MLB time over 2016-present with three clubs (PIT, CHW, SF). He'll be 26 in October. A lot of guys don't put it all together until they get to their mid-20s. Maybe the Giants have found a diamond-in-the-rough, though I have to say I'm a little concerned about his fielding. Regardless, let's keep up the power hitting: 7 of his 11 hits are for extra-bases.
What's with all the strikeouts? I can live with strikeouts if the other numbers (BA, SLG, OBA) are OK, but they are not. Belt for example whiffs a lot but he also gets on base at a good clip and hits the ball hard with regularity. Lots of guys whiff, but contribute other positives. But the Giants whiff as a TEAM. Its like a fog descends over the dugout and zombies emerge who dutifully wave at whatever is thrown at them. And the totals suggest it is up and down the lineup: the stars are not immune to the K-virus any more than the scrubs.
Too many strikeouts for sustained success. Posey with way too few RBI per opportunity despite being a 300 hitter. With men on, and the pitcher in the stretch, he looks as if he is trying way to hard to produce success. He ends up killing rallies by hitting sharp grounders to shortstop, leading to double plays where he is out at first by 20 feet. With his average and RBI opportunities he should have somewhere in the mid twenties in RBI's. Bochy has a way lately of putting up the rally killer right in the middle of the would be rally. But today, the strike out mode was so bad, and also for the series, was Philly doctoring the baseball? Probably not. Giants need to go back to smart hitting. Work the pitcher like you did in Atlanta, work your opportunities, hit it where they are not. Other teams seem to be able to come through in the clutch when our pitchers are in the stretch. Our hitters, over the course of the season have not produced enough runs, in relationship to their peripheral stats.
Seems as if to the giants Pittsburgh is just an extension of Philly. Giants should just hold up the 4 fingers, take the two losses off the field, and go home, and figure out what is going wrong.
Outscored 43 - 10 in 5 games. ERA, while an imperfect stat and sometimes unfair to a pitcher who's ERA gets inflated by poor relief, is a less poor indicator for a team's pitching. The Giants ERA has blown up from 3.75 to 4.38 in 5 games. That is, from the middle of the pack in the NL, to tied for 4th worst with San Diego. Somewhat surprisingly, it remains better than Colorado's, Cincinnati's and Miami's.
Here's a better read:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/In-the-depths-of-the-Depression-SF-had-the-best-12908333.php
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