Monday, May 1, 2023

Relief woes doom Giants

The Giants let both games in Mexico City slip away. They had an 8-5 lead in the 4th in Saturday's slugfest and still led 11-10 in the 7th but could not hold off the Padres and lost 16-11. Yesterday they led 4-0 in the 4th and 4-3 in the 8th before losing 6-4. Tyler Rogers, who has pitched really well this season, got tagged for both losses. He had help. Some poor baserunning cost the Giants yesterday, killing a rally. And the pitchers walked ten guys on Saturday, four in the final two frames, and those hurt. It was a disappointing outcome—they had a legit shot to win both games.

Logan Webb pitched well on Thursday but got tagged for a couple of runs in the 7th and that was enough. Miles Mikolas and the Cardinals threw a combined shutout and won 6-0.

The Giants travel to Houston to play three against the defending champions with Ross Stripling going tonight (5:10 PT). Time to dig deep!

Go Giants!

--M.C.

9 comments:

Zo said...

Disappointing losses, but you have to throw those games out, in a sense. They were so quirky, balls flying much deeper than the swings made them appear, players winded after a sprint to first, the speed of the turf. It really looked much different than Denver, as will happen quickly when you increase altitude over a mile. Yaz is out with a hammie strain, although as of this morning they have yet to put him on the IL. Crawford (he of the 481 ft home run) got tweaked. Again, Cobb looked brilliant, too bad he couldn't stick around longer. He was pissed he couldn't make it longer, too, in spite of the fact that he was obviously gassed after 5. In his last couple of starts he has been Maddux-like.

Zo said...

Not to mention some crazy umpire calls. Not only balls and strikes (they didn't have a box on tv, but some were obvious), but they allowed San Diego to challenge a foul tip call. Flem and Javy said that their tip sheets claim that a foul tip is not reviewable. Kapler argued, but to no avail, and it turned out that San Diego lost their challenge because of it. Weird.

SIR WILLLIAM said...

The S.F. Giants are playing 2 opponents at a time, the opposing team and the Umpires. Not to mention this damned clock rule now. #firetheclock

nomisnala said...

I do agree that most games this year the umpires have not been the giants friend. It has been a factor in a few games. Also the team has been snake bit. Injuries at just the wrong time. A ball just foul, for our hitters that if fair would have made a difference. Or a ball hit by the other team just out of reach that ends up being a cheap but key hit. Over the years the Padres have destroyed the giants in the 8th inning. The giants are also having a difficult time hitting other teams relievers in close games. Even if that reliever had not pitched well up to that point. The team seems to be better on paper than their record. Of interest how tall is Conforto, because he has had some ridiculously high pitches called strikes against him this year, and not just in one game but multiple times. In a few games lower pitches in the same width were called balls to taller players, and yet the pitch coming in higher has been called a strike to conforto. Saw one dodger cub game, with the Cubs having a small lead in the ninth. Dodgers often get back into games by taking the walk. In that ninth inning the Cubs were getting called strikes way off the plate, and the Dodgers and Dave Roberts were losing their minds. The giants are usually more cool headed about bad calls. The Cubs won that game, and although I love to see the Dodgers lose, I had to admit that the umpire took their legitimate chances away. Odd thing is it seems to happen to the giants more frequently. Enough about the umps. Not sure why that is. Umpires are human and they have their biases. Giants scheduled this week is a tough one, and they need to find some ways to come out victorious. The snake bite cannot last all year. Or can it?

M.C. O'Connor said...

Let's hope not!

The Giants need a run of good luck and friendly umps, that's for sure.

Anonymous said...

The Giants to be honest have had a tough schedule..but no excuses. The team until recently has not had a full strength squad…no excuse..now additionally a couple more guys are down.. to have all this..look at the division loss column..not bad at considering. A few tweaks here and there..and we’ll be good. Yaz not catching that ball was a result of Saturday’s game..he had to play back..and didn’t have enough time to make that catch. Overall..things will work out..

Zo said...

Yaz and Crawford are both on the 10 day IL. Their replacements are Wisely and some guy either from or named Cal.

nomisnala said...

What happened to Slater? He looked good for 8 at bats, and haven't seen him since. When the giants were playing bad teams, they had a large number of guys hurt. Then when they got about ninety percent healthy, they ran into a very tough schedule. Perhaps what the team needs is new trainers. (tongue in cheek), but way too many injuries. Manaea needs to sharpen his control. His velocity is up, but his control is not. Giants hitters are not taking walks. Funny how Villar who had been taking some pitches and earlier in the season, was called out a few times on very questionable pitches. Now he is swinging at bad pitches with 2 strikes. Problem is he is also taking pitches right down the middle. We know the guy can hit when he is right. We probably would have won a few more games if Crawford had been hitting. Wisely, currently is overmatched. We must have someone who is better at this time. Conforto so far is not quite conforto, but nobody on the team is getting more bad pitches called strikes on them than Conforto. Hjele, is not quite ready and should not be pitching in close games. Maybe two weeks ago, but now we are 28 games into the season, and experimenting at this time, is starting to hurt. Giants have to be happy with Wade, although with a 440 or so, OBP and batting leadoff, he has not scored that many runs, as he is not being driven in enough. Way too many strikeouts with runners in scoring position. One big plus this year that was unexpected by at least reading what the so called experts said, is the defensive play of Davis at third. All my reading in the off season said that he was a clunker at third. He looks more like Matt Williams so far. I do not want to jinx him though.

M.C. O'Connor said...

FanGraphs uses a K% stat which is just K/PA (times 100).

The Giants "lead" baseball at 27.5% and they also "lead" in raw total strikeouts with 298. The Dodgers strike out a lot too but they have 40 more walks and 30 more runs scored.