Wednesday, September 25, 2019

A Stumble on the Last Lap

Did you know that the Giants had already won the division series with the Rockies before the game started?  I was surprised, given the way that Coors Field has been so inhospitable to the Giants in the last couple years.  The Giants are in their final home stand, 3 against Colorado and 3 against LA.  I guess fans at the park got their money's worth, if you measure by innings.  The Giants played 16, only to cough up 3 runs in the final frame and lose by a score of 8 - 5.  Derek Rodriguez got the loss.  25 pitchers threw in the game, an MLB record, and the Giants used 13 of them.  The Giants used, by my count, 33 players and the Rockies used 28.  Oh, and their chance for a .500 season was thwarted by their 82nd loss.

Buster Posey hit his 7th home run of the season.  Evan Longoria hit his 20th, giving the Giants 3 20-home run hitters for the first time since 2006.  2006!  Madison Bumgarner hit a home run, his 2nd of the year, giving me a chance to use my favorite label.  Trevor Story has homered in each of his last 6 games against SF.  The Giants and Rockies were tied, 5 - 5 after 9.

Madison Bumgarner was on the hill.  He is determined to lead the National League in innings pitched.  After the 7 he threw last night, he has, after 2 years of injuries, given us 207.2 innings, with one start remaining on the last day of the regular season.  Stephen Strasburg is second with 203 innings.  Madison is a horse.  He threw 106 pitches, struck out 9 and walked 2.  He also gave up 3 home runs for 4 total.  In fact, 12 of the 13 runs scored were as a result of a home run, including Blackmon's final, 3-run blast.  It's warm in SF.  Madison did not, of course, get the decision, just like 14 other times this year.

Yet, Madison had a 3.62 ERA at the end of August, but has given up 19 (earned) runs in 31 innings since then.  Yesterday he threw a couple of pitches, like the one to Desmond, that were very, very fat.  He seems to lack concentration sometimes, although I really have no idea if that is the case or not.  I think that, as most of us cannot experience what it is like to compete at that high a level, and as we have no good descriptors of the randomness and elements of luck that make up the game, we often hear about things like a player's concentration, or desire, or heart, or team spirit, or lack thereof.  Sometimes this is just coded racism, but it is probably often an attempt to put an explanation when the real explanation hinges on such non-predictable events, like the flight of a round ball when struck by a round bat.  In any case, some of Madison's location mistakes wound up over the center of the plate, and then in the stands.

2 comments:

M.C. O'Connor said...

Sports is about good stories. No one wants to hear that much of it is just luck, or at least random variation. I suspect slumps are closely related to physical health, that is, stretches of poor performance can be the result of a nagging injury that isn't enough to sit a player down but enough to keep them at the level they are used to.

Brother Bob said...

Madbum makes too big a deal out of close calls on balls and strikes. Umps must hate him. Someone should do a stat for how he does after his little tantrums. I suspect he sucks after those moments.