Or a shutout. Lance McCullers, Jr. carried a no-hitter into the 7th inning in Houston tonight. Donovan Solano broke it up with a two-out double. In the 8th Austin Slater hit a homer off reliever Josh James to end the shutout bid. Otherwise it was just another wacky night of Giants baseball. Solano, the man they call "Donnie Barrels," kept his 15-game hitting streak alive but made two poor plays in the field in a goofy 3rd inning with the Giants trailing 1-0. With one out he let a grounder under his glove at third base for a single. Chadwick Tromp was then called for catchers interference to put on another runner. Starter Logan Webb, who deserved better, walked the next batter. A pop fly that fell, barely fair, in front of left fielder Alex Dickerson (who didn't really have a play on it) went for a double with two runners scoring. Next was a grounder to Solano who tried to throw the runner from third out at home and wound up hitting him! Another grounder was too slow to turn two and a run scored. Another grounder ended the inning and it was 5-0. Solano hit a double and drove in a run in the Giants valiant comeback attempt in the 9th, and he's of course absolutely raking, but it is frustrating when the veteran players make mistakes in the field. I expect some from the raw youngsters (like the two catchers!) but the fielding miscues have hit everyone on the team, even the older players.
6:10 p.m. PDT tomorrow.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
p.s. LHP Jarlin Garcia made his Giants debut in the 7th with an inning of relief. He walked two and gave up a hit but no runs. Garcia is 27 and has 170 IP (150 G) over three seasons with the Marlins, who waived him in the off-season.
3 comments:
Here's FZ on Solano (from Baggs' story on The Athletic):
“With all the advanced metrics and tools at our disposal, there’s still a lot of value in hitters who just have a knack for finding the outfield grass,” Zaidi said. “He’s obviously done a great job of that over his time with the Giants.”
Solano is a great story. Not many ballplayers from Colombia, for one. And shaking off his AAAA/journeyman reputation in his 30s to become a star hitter, for another.
Giants hitting coach Donnie Ecker had this to say, and it reveals a lot, I think, about how the team works with players:
“He has a very unique ability to simplify things, blended with a deep conviction in how he can be successful,” Ecker said. “When you take a guy with a deep conviction in anything, who values simplicity, and then weaponize that with proper data that has been scrubbed in the exact way the person best interprets information, you’ve now leveled up from binoculars to a sniper scope. That player goes from wide to narrow in his focus and can operate freely in that moment.
“Most of what an athlete usually needs is already inside them and we are all seeing that come out now.”
I don't think hitting coaches talked like that when I was a kid! The Giants may be a mess right now, but a lot of good things are happening. They are getting drowned out by the losses, of course, and the ugly innings, but that's not the whole picture. If the team can keep its head despite the brutal early results then things will start o get better.
Every fighter knows it is how you pick yourself up off the canvas after a knockdown that measures you. You might lose the match but you aren't a loser as long as you keep getting up and continuing the fight.
The Giants just need to keep fighting!
Here's the link.
https://theathletic.com/1988463/2020/08/11/sweet-spot-the-giants-donovan-solano-is-baseballs-surprise-hitting-wonder/
journeyman in 30s become star hitter
Marco Scoot 2.0!
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