The Giants batted around in the 2nd inning against Patrick Corbin, plating seven runs and giving the relief corps a big cushion to work with. Sam Long started opened and faced eight batters in his two scoreless frames and he was followed by FNG Jakob Junis who made his SF debut. The veteran righty has a load of starting experience on his résumé and he delivered five scoreless, working quickly and efficiently allowing three hits and whiffing four. The Giants have two starters on the IL (Alex Cobb and Anthony DeSclafani) and will need a lot of arms to patch the holes. The bats have been a little thin lately so it was great to see some well-struck balls from Mike Yastrzemski, Darin Ruf, Brandon Crawford, Thairo Estrada, and Austin Slater. Maikel Franco hit a homer off Yunior Marte for Washington's lone run.
All of that was very exciting but my favorite moment in the game was Mauricio Dubón gunning down super-stud Juan Soto at third base to end the 3rd inning. Soto blasted one to RF that was probably a homer that got slowed up by the wind and it hit the top of the fence and bounded away from Yaz. Dubón was trailing the play and picked up the loose ball and made a perfect one hop throw to Wilmer Flores. The Nats challenged of course but truth and justice (finally) prevailed. Believe it or not but that was Soto's 500th career hit. He's 23.
The Giants, as is their wont, played hard, aggressive baseball until the final out and that pissed off SS Alcides Escobar and a few of his mates and they chirped and chirped at the visiting dugout. Good lord, do we really have to listen to that crap? THERE ARE NEVER ENOUGH RUNS. You don't take your foot off the gas! "Mercy rules" are for amateur ball! I've seen plenty of teams come back from seemingly insurmountable deficits. This is big-boy baseball. No one likes to lose, especially professionals, but expecting teams to "back off" with big leads is thoroughly unprofessional. It takes all 27 outs to end the game and the best players in the world should not expect other players to "go easy." To their credit the Giants did not take the bait and kept their collective cool.
Alex Wood tomorrow in a day game (10:05 a.m. Pacific).
Go Giants!
--M.C.
4 comments:
What ever happened to there is no crying in baseball
Dubón's throw, if you haven't seen it.
Kapler had the perfect response to Escobar et al. He said that running up by six was because they respected the Nat's lineup and their ability to score runs. Buy it or not, and agree or not, it was the perfect response.
Agreed. Today the Giants are up 5-0 in the 5th but the Nats score two and bring Juan Soto to the plate with a man on. Anything can happen. The Giants dodged that bullet, but it shows that no lead is safe. Let's hope they can make it two in a row.
Escobar and Robles, the biggest complainers, have both been struggling and the Nats have been a weak team so far. It's easy to see that they were venting their frustrations.
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