Kevin Gausman was brilliant again and shut down the Dodgers for six innings, yielding only two hits. The bullpen made a mess of things, giving up not one but two two-run homers in the last two frames, but it wasn't quite enough to spoil the party. And it was quite the party early against ultra-nemesis Clayton Kershaw. I often say that Kershaw is "the greatest pitcher in San Francisco Giants history" and if you look at his career stats against our beloved ballclub you might agree. Warning: not safe for children. Today was his 50th career start and the Giants jumped on him for five runs in the first four innings. The big blow was a two-out, two-run homer in the 1st from Mauricio Dubon. That's right, Mauricio Dubon. It was his second career blast against the super southpaw, his first was this game in 2019. He now has one more than Kelby Tomlinson! Austin Slater hit an opposite-field homer in the 3rd, his third career shot which ties him with Buster Posey. The other slugger against Kershaw? MadBum, with two.
Gausman threw only 72 pitches, 62 of them for strikes. He was absolutely dominant and he also drove in a run in the 4th with a two-out hit. He tweaked his hip making a play on a ground ball and that ended his day. Let's hope the injury is minor. The Giants had a chance to blow the game open, loading the bases with no outs against Joe Kelly in the 7th but failed to score. It was one of those moments you knew would come back to bite them, and it almost did. The best you can say about the Giants bullpen is "work in progress." This afternoon both Zack Littell and Jake McGee were victimized by Dodgers sluggers when they left fat pitches out in the middle of the zone. The relievers really need to execute better.
Here's the bottom line: THE GIANTS BEAT THE DODGERS THREE STRAIGHT IN LA!!!
That's awesome.
The Giants come home and play a two-game series against the Angels followed by a day off. Then the Cubs come to town for four. Tomorrow--Memorial Day--Johnny Cueto gets the ball at 1:05 Pacific.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
3 comments:
Littel threw 2 good pitches to Muncie. Both called balls. Then he came in with a better pitch to try to steal the 2-0 strike. Instead Muncie stole the pitch and parked it for a 400 plus foot home run. I don't know why they keep coughing up those nice down the middle fastballs to him. Gausman sure did not. Albert Pujols, who can hardly get out of his car these days without help, launched another long ball. Longoria hit two shots to the wall, but both were outs. But with the bases loaded and less than 2 outs, he struck out. He also bobbled a ball and was unable to turn an easy DP. Since he was able to just get the lead runner at second there was no error. That allowed more bums to come up and eventually led to Muncie batting in an inning where he should not have. The giants struggled with ground balls to the infield during the entire series. It was not just one player, but Solano, Crawford, Longoria, and Dubon. Giants made more errors in this series than they usually make in 2 to 3 weeks. McGee did not help himself by making an error to erase an easy out in the ninth. It almost cost him. It did end up costing him 2 runs, but he still nailed down his 12th save. It is amazing that the giants have a 623 winning percentage with their bullpen. A slightly better bullpen and that percentage would probably be higher than that held by the Padres. Note the Padres who have had a severely overworked bullpen, used Musgrove to pitch the final 5 innings today, and he did so pitching 5 innings of no hit ball. I do think that the dodgers winning the first game by going to a concept of a bullpen game, may have cost them in the final 3 games vs the giants. I am ok with that. The injuries just keep mounting. Baragar has gone on the IL. and we will have to wait and see about Gausman. The injuries this year from minor tweaks have been rather devastating. The giants are winning partially with smoke and mirrors. Also some good starting pitching and a lot of long balls.
Yeah, starting pitching and power hitting. That's what's been working. The fielding has been overall quite good but as you point out it was terrible in this series. Weird!
I don't know what the answer is for the bullpen. I suppose if they get to the trade deadline at the end of July and are still in the hunt I suspect they will be buyers and try to beef up the relief corps. But what do they do in the meantime? It seems like their only choice right now is to help the guys they have pitch better. Maybe a call-up or two will improve things. Sam Long, maybe?
Regardless, the Giants are 33-20!!
Sam Delaplane, RH reliever, was just picked up from Seattle for "cash considerations." He's never pitched above AAA but has big K numbers. He's 26 and is from San Jose. He was assigned to the River Cats.
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