The Giants started their longest road trip of the season with an impressive comeback win against the Pirates. Starter Ross Stripling looked better but couldn't finish the 5th and left with the game tied 2-2. Sean Manaea finished the frame and the Giants took a 3-2 lead in the top of the 6th. Manaea unfortunately gave up two in the 6th and had to be bailed out by recent call-up Mauricio Llovera. In the top of the 7th a leadoff double by Wilmer Flores and a walk to J.D. Davis set up Patrick Bailey and he drove in two (an OF error helped) with a single. That made it 5-4 and after Bailey stole second Luis Matos drove him in with a single. That was enough. An outstanding two-inning performance by righty submariner Tyler Rogers kept it 6-4 into the 9th where Camilo Doval turned in an effortless 8-pitch save.
It's a fine win to start the second half of the baseball season. As I pointed out it is really the remaining 4/9 (44%) of the season but as we know these games get increasingly more important as the calendar turns. Tonight's win was the club's 50th. With the Dodgers winning and the Diamondbacks losing LA (52-38) takes the top spot by a game over AZ (52-40). The 50-41 Giants are 2-1/2 games back in third place.
All-Star Alex Cobb takes the hill tomorrow (4:05 PT) in Pittsburgh.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
p.s. I'll be away from my desk for about the length of this Giants road trip. I'll keep an eye on things but I won't be posting. So keep the comments flowing!
2 comments:
Dear Mark,
You have or will soon return from your trip. I hope it was a good one, as the Giants have been playing like shit lately. They started out a very promising road trip, winning the first 5 (I can't consider the 2 wins against the Rockies just before the break part of a streak). But now they have lost 6 in a row. An optimist might look at the road trip as nearly .500, but the Giants are not playing well in any facet of their game. Those are really two streaks, the winning one and the losing one in which they have looked like the worst team in baseball.
They have fallen apart and just at the worst time. In the first loss against Cincinnati they at least fought, losing 3 - 2, but since then, have been totally overmatched by some pretty feeble teams. Except for a 2 run outburst in the 3rd inning of Friday's game against the Nats, the Giants have managed exactly 1 run per game. Part of the problem has been their old nemesis, the untested rookie pitcher. Andrew Abbott of the Reds, he's a rookie. At least he can claim 5 wins, including his victory against the Giants. Jake Irvin of the Nats can only claim 3, 2 of which have been against the Giants. That's not just looking at the stats, watching the game you can tell they look totally clueless at the plate, swinging at pitches that aren't close and watching pitches sail into the strike zone. Sure, Wilbur and Joc have run into a couple, but today 4 hits, 0 / 1 with RISP; yesterday 6 hits, 0 / 6 with RISP; Saturday 5 hits and 0 / 10 with RISP. Yes, there are some injuries. But the players they have are not playing at a major league level.
And then there is the pitching. All these 6 games were lost within the first couple innings in the game. Of course, if you aren't batting, any early runs at all will make that happen. Stripling lost both of the bookend games, and probably pitched better than any of the other starters. Cobb lasted 4 1/3 innings, gave up 5; Wood lasted 4 and gave up 5; Webb lasted 1 1/3 innings, gave up 6 on the way to a 10 - 1 shellacking. Relief pitching has been the Giants strength this year but recently, it has been inconsequential, games were already over when relievers came in.
So why is it a bad time for this to happen? Because the trade deadline is the end of July, and any starting pitcher that has a veto power over trades is going to look at the Giants and say, "No, thank you" even if the rumors about SF being buyers at the deadline are true a week ago. Maybe a return to San Francisco with games against two other theoretically weak teams, the A's and Red Sox, will help. The Giants are still 7 games over .500 (that used to be 13 games over) and still in a wild card race but they are not breathing down LA's neck. Their place in the NL West is because the other teams, the dbacks and Padres, have also been losing. They still have to play over half their games against division rivals, even though the season is over 60% gone. And they have strength scheduled to return at some point. So they, as well as any other team, can still make significant moves within the division. But for the Giants to move anywhere but down, they need to play a lot better.
Welcome home. Maybe your attention to matters can help the team.
Zo
It certainly started well only to go off the rails rather quickly. That being said, I think this team can bounce back. They've shown that they can put together a good month or two. They need another one!
The hitters may be slumping but it all comes back to the starters. It has been hard for the Giants to run together a bunch of quality starts. I hear talk that they are interested in Justin Verlander. I don't know if potentially available players look at SF and think it's a lousy landing spot. After all, players want to be in the playoffs and the Giants have a legit shot.
Thanks for the detailed comment! I was able to follow a bit on my phone now and then so I knew the broad strokes, but I lacked the specifics.
I will post after tonight's game.
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