What's the deal with the Giants yellow logo hats? Tribute to pollen?
Madison Bumgarner tossed another good game for the Giants tonight. That has mostly led to speculation in our local rags that he will make a good trade candidate. Which really irritates me, obvious though the trading potential may seem at first glance. The assumption, of course, is that the Yankees, or some other team will be desperate for pitching and give the Giants the keys to their super good farm system in exchange for a couple months of rental. But that's not how it works these days, there is too much data to quantify player value and teams are not going to trade away too much of their future. Maybe the Giants, but they did that and look where it got them.
The Giants were in Arizona, and the theme, in contrast to last night, was to score early, keep the pressure on and put a few more runs on the board from time to time. The Giants scored in the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 8th and 9th. Arizona chipped away at the total, but the Giants were able to keep ahead of the snakes and win this one by a score of 8 - 5.
Madison threw 105 pitches and made it through 6 1/3 innings. He walked 2 in the 7th, gave up a double to score 1 and then Sam Dyson gave up a run on a ground-out, which was charged to Madison. He also allowed a solo shot in the 4th, after the Giants were up 4 - 0. He struck out 6 and walked 4 (each of whom, btw, scored). But only 5 hits on the night. It was a team effort, and I must say, the team looked pretty good. Joe Panik scored twice. Steve Duggar had 2 hits and an rbi, Buster Posey had 2 hits and an rbi, and Brandon Belt had 2 hits and an rbi (on a solo shot into the chlorinated faux-asis in center field). Evan Longoria and Mac Williamson each had an rbi and Pablo Sandoval had a pinch hit home run. Brandon Crawford is carrying a .205 average, but had rbis in 2 innings, a sac fly that scored Buster in the 3rd, and a triple to score Longoria in the 6th. That is the kind of team effort that is necessary for this team. Want to hear something weird? The Giants have scored the 2nd most runs in May per game of any team. Who would have imagined?
3 comments:
I would not have imagined such a thing, and I like to think I keep pretty good tabs on that stuff. This team, though, discourages making too close of a look at any numbers!
I don't think anyone has an idea about how the new trade market will play out in mid-season. I agree about trade return--the fans will be upset if MadBum goes. They won't get a number-one prospect. They'll get talent, but it won't get fans excited. We might get just as lucky with a prospect by trading, say, Dyson or Watson or Smith.
Let's just hope they play well. Things are going to happen and we may not see the payoff for a few seasons, so let's enjoy it when they play winning ball.
BTW those were Armed Forces Day caps (third Saturday in May). Just wait for Memorial Day and Fourth of July caps. Those are sure to be catchy and colorful.
Let's just go all out and have a different cap for every game. If you run out of ideas (Game of Thrones caps, Lord of the Rings caps, Metallica caps, Beat LA caps, etc.) you can always just put the game number up there in Roman numerals. I already want the Game 88 cap (LXXXVIII), July 6th v. St. Louis.
Sunday's game the heroes were Brandon Crawford for a game saving play, with the help of Brandon Belt, Pablo Sandoval's offense, and Will Smith's strike out the side stuff for the second game in a row. The giants could have won this game a lot easier during the inning in which they had their rally. They had scored 2 runs and still had runners on second and third and only one out, at which point both Vogt and Williamson get themselves out, by literally swinging at several pitches which were not even close to the strike zone.
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