The San Francisco Giants have four wins against the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team that has lost only nine games. Last night the 3-4-5 hitters, Evan Longoria, Brandon Belt, and Donovan Solano, went 9-16 with 7 runs scored and 8 RBI while the rest of the lineup went 5-for-30 (three by Brandon Crawford) with 11 whiffs. The team was 3-for-22 with runners in scoring position! It was a crazy game: Giants used nine relievers after Johnny Cueto went four innings and overall the ten pitchers threw 199 pitches (122 strikes)!
It was more like a heavyweight boxing match with the Giants as the upstart contender and the Dodgers as the veteran champion. In fact, last night was merely the opening rounds of what promises to be a great three-game fight. In the opening frame, Max Muncy blasted a 3-run homer on a 3-0 pitch (I wonder if pitchers will stop grooving 3-0 pitches now that batters swing at them) but the Giants counter-punched with a 3-run homer of their own in the bottom half. That was the first of two for Brandon Belt, the other was a solo shot off Kenley Jansen that tied the game in the 9th! The Giants trailed in the 9th, 10th, and 11th but still won the game. Donovan Solano had just one hit but it was the game-winning two-run homer, only his second home run of the season.
Seven wins is a row. Kevin Gausman and Clayton Kershaw tonight at 6:45 p.m. PDT.
GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
6 comments:
Now that was fun! I’d like to see Giants starting pitching do a better job though. Great comeback and I’m liking the new found energy. Adios Hunter- you will always be Giant to me!
Go Giants!
Dodgers have a tough lineup and Cueto was not sharp. But the "never-say-quit" mentality prevailed! Let's hope Gausman can match zeros with Kershaw tonight.
According to Baggs this was the first game in Dodgers history that they blew 3 save opportunities (9th, 10th, 11th innings). Crazy, huh?
What do people think of the "magic runner" rule?
That's three save oppos in the same game!
Joey Bart had a bad game, 0-for-5 with 3 K including a DP and a throwing error. He also had issues with Cueto and the signs which caused a lot of step-offs. We know Cueto likes an easy rhythm! The big righty is the consummate professional, of course, and he had this to say (via Baggs at The Athletic):
Asked if the issue with signs caused Cueto’s rhythm to be disrupted, the right-hander offered a firm response.
“Look, I’m not going to blame him,” Cueto said through Spanish interpreter Erwin Higueros. “I’m not going to blame anybody. There is no excuse for what happened in the game or what I did, OK? He’s the future of the franchise. He’s young. We will work together. And we will get to know each other.
“I’m not easy to catch. I like to work fast. I like to do different things, and it was the first time working with him. So we will get through this. There’s nobody here at fault.”
As Kruk and Kuip said, Bellinger gets his special MVP strike zone. Belt, and Yaz, do not seem to command much respect. Great to see Longoria go to right field, and he and Belt both having a great game the same day. The giants will have to face Kershaw without their Kershaw killer, Slater. Hopefully someone else will fill his shoes. Good to see all these dodger relievers with sub 1.00 ERA's give up runs. Dodgers scored a couple of their late inning runs on bizarre plays. In Cueto's defense, he may have been out of the first inning, if Yaz would have caught that fly ball, although it was a difficult play. The dodgers at least did not have their best defensive game either. Stay hot Brandon Belt. Was on base 11 straight times when he finally struck out, even though the pitch on a 3-0 count was pretty much ball four.
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