Sunday, September 5, 2021

Back on Top

SF 6  LA 4

The Giants finally solved Walker Buehler, banging out six runs off him in the first three innings, and held on to win the finale in a tense and exciting ballgame in San Francisco. The Giants went with an opener and bullpen game for the second day in a row and this time it paid off. Dominic Leone had a crucially important shutdown 1st inning and Brandon Belt smoked a homer in the bottom half to set the tone. They kept the pressure on against the normally un-hittable Dodgers ace and broke through with a huge two-run triple from just-called up Steven Duggar. The 'pen attack actually faltered in the 2nd, with lefty Jose Alvarez giving up a run on a walk and two hits, but Zack Littell got a strike out and two pop-ups to end the threat. In the 3rd Jay Jackson put two on with two out but Jose Quintana got the next six outs despite some shaky stuff and a goofy strike zone. Just-called up Camilo Doval had to rescue him in the 5th but walked in a run before getting the whiff. He took care of the 6th, Tony Watson the 7th, and Tyler Rogers the 8th. Jake McGee took a 6-2 lead to the 9th and gave up a two-run homer to Albert Pujols but got the final three outs eventually and the Giants had a massive, massive victory.

Brandon Crawford had two hits including a double, he continues to be amazing, and both Mike Yastrzemski and Curt Casali did the same. Darin Ruf had an excellent two-strike stroke for an RBI single in the 2nd after Duggar's triple, that made it 4-1, two in the next inning made it 6-1 and Buehler was done after three. They should have added on in the 6th, loading the bases with one out, but didn't. And Kris Bryant's throwing error in the 9th put a man on for Pujols, it should have been an out. McGee got a break on a called third strike to Mookie Betts, but the umpire was inconsistent all day and burned both teams. The closer gave up three runs in two appearances and yet the Giants won both games!

The Giants are 87-50. They are one game up on the 86-51 Dodgers. The Rays also have an 86-51 record, they lead the AL East by 7-1/2 over the Yankees. There are 25 games left to play. The next three are in Colorado, but three actual starting pitchers are lined up: Kevin Gausman on Monday (1:10), Logan Webb on Tuesday (5:40), and Anthony DeSclafani Wednesday (12:10, all times Pacific).

Hang on. If you think it's been a thrilling ride so far, just wait.

Go Giants!

--M.C.

6 comments:

JC Parsons said...

Ok beating their complete ace like that is HUGE. That outing may cost him the Cy Young. They really can not feel like the better team when their ace got thrashed. HUGE. The perfect way to finish with them…if we face them again in the playoffs, this HUGE win will come up often.

I must say it is tough for me to heap praise on Casali like you do. He has some clutch hits, like tonite, but they always seem to follow 0 for 17 streaks. Also his framing skills are weak ( not fair being compared to the best of course ), he literally dropped a strike three that was a strike and another that looked good too. I think both walked in runs. A small thing, don’t mean to hate on Casali as much as love Buster’s skill. Inconsistent ump too.

M.C. O'Connor said...

As you say, he has to be compared to Buster. Bullpen games are hard on catchers, I would think. But the issue with the dropped third strikes is that they were strikes, dropped or not. The ump blew both of those calls. I realize catchers have to fake it with every catch and if they drop a ball umps suddenly forget the strike zone, but that's stupid. A strike is a strike.

I guess if you need a guy to pick on Casali will work. They are something like 22-4 with him starting, so there's that.

The Giants, if you haven't figured it out by now, are a 50-man team. Not a 26- or 28-man team. ALL the pieces matter. Duggar got the big hit, fer chrissakes. He was in Sacramento last week. So was Doval!

M.C. O'Connor said...

Jay Jackson goes back to AAA and Kervin Castro gets the call-up. He's only 22 but made the jump from Low-A ball in 2019 to Sacramento this year despite not playing at all last season.

He has 60 whiffs in 44 IP but the walks (22) are a little spooky. It was great to see Doval again (and I hope he can keep contributing) so it is exciting to see another young arm. Castro was a starter at Low-A but was used only in relief at AAA.

Those 60 strikeouts were from 183 batters. That's a lot of strikeouts!

M.C. O'Connor said...

According to Curt Casali's B-R Game Logs the Giants are 38-10 in his 48 starts (.792!!) and 46-20 overall in games in which he has appeared.

So when the Giants sit Posey, losing his bat, his leadership, and his catching skills, they are still a good team. Casali has given Kapler the luxury of resting his (arguably) best player. That's good for Buster, don't you think? And for the Giants, of course.

If the Giants find themselves in a post-season series you can bet Casali will get a start.

JC Parsons said...

I feel like I should apologize. This game does not deserve to be remembered by anything to do with a backup catcher, yet it looks like I provoked that. Sure didn’t mean to, guess I “had to pick on” someone.
I’m going to remember this one where the doggers showed their mortality. This series saw Bellinger and Muncie do nothing. When was the last time Muncie did nothing to us? They made big errors that directly lost a game. Their ace was soundly beaten by a pile of relievers. The doggers lost those games as much as we won them, and that is a very good thing.

M.C. O'Connor said...

It's OK, I'm sorry for piling on! I just feel like this team has a lot of important contributions coming from a lot of places, including backup catcher. That's what makes the team so appealing to me. Everyone gets a chance to be a hero on this team, and more than that, everyone has stepped up and delivered a big play at some point.