River Cats are AAA Champions!

SAC 4  COL 0
The Sacramento River Cats, the Giants Pacific Coast League affiliate, won the AAA national title tonight with a win over the Columbus (Ohio) Clippers. The Clippers are the International League affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. So, a bit of good news for the Giants organization. It's a remarkable accomplishment when you consider the roster turnover. The B-R page lists 65 players for the River Cats this year.

Current Sacramento manager Dave Brundage led the Richmond Braves to the AAA championship game in 2007, and that team lost to the River Cats! Brundage is from Oregon and played for the OSU Beavers before turning pro. He never made the bigs but did play in nearly 800 minor league games over ten seasons. At age 54 he has 22 years of managerial experience, 14 at AAA.

The Salem-Keizer Volcanoes of the Northwest League (A-), the Augusta Green Jackets of the South Atlantic League (A), the San Jose Giants of the California League (A+), and even the Orange Giants of the Arizona League (rookie ball) made the playoffs this season. Not bad!

In other news, the major league club played a game in Boston at Fenway Park. Mike Yastrzemski hit a homer with grandpa Carl in attendance, which was pretty cool. The game lasted 15 innings. The Giants looked good early, then they looked bad and let the Red Sox back in the game in the 6th, but hung on to scratch out a run and take a 6-5 lead in the 13th which was around midnight Eastern Time. The ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth Giants pitchers, Sam Selman, Burch Smith, Wandy Peralta, and Kyle Barraclough could not get the job done and the Sox tied it up and sent it to the 14th inning. But Dereck Rodriguez, the lucky thirteenth pitcher, got the next six outs, and the Giants finally finished it off 7-6. D-Rod gets the win, but shouldn't he get the save as well? If you are going to pass out credit, I think you should go all the way!

Next year we won't likely see thirteen-pitcher games (Boston used eleven guys) as the September rosters will only be increased to 28 players instead of 40.

Jeff Samardzija tomorrow. GO GIANTS!

--M.C.


p.s. Number 1999 for Boch. First SF Giants win--ever--in Fenway.

Sactown Ball

Raley Field lived up to the hype, it's a terrific venue for baseball. We sat on the lawn in right-center which was in the sun to start--how the fielders could see the ball was beyond me--but once it went down the evening was cool and pleasant. It was me, M.C., and my lovely bride, along with JC and his father-in-law Steve. Thanks again, my man, for scoring the tickets! The place was packed with crazed Giants fans eager for 2016 to get rolling. I understand the River Cats have a solid local fan base but those poor folks were overwhelmed by the orange-and-black brigades. We figured it was a win-win kind of event, if the youngsters showed some game against the big boys that just means the organization is stocked with talent! The best part of the outfield lawn is the proximity to the bullpens. We got to see Matt Cain's throwing session and Johnny Cueto's warmup. We were so close you could hear the ball "whizz" and the snap in the catcher's mitt was like a gunshot. Very cool.

 

Johnny Cueto is going to be a hell of a lot of fun to watch. He picked off three guys! I'm not sure the minor-leaguers were ready for his action. Some of the plays were awfully close, I imagine replay at the major-league level might have overturned one or two calls, but the baserunners really did look lost. He did his shimmy, his shake, his pause-and-throw, and his quick pitch. We will have to come up with names for all the moves. He also drove in a run! Shortstop Hak-Ju Lee smoked a line drive homer off Johnny to give the local partisans a thrill, and he flashed a cannon arm in the field as well. He was a former "can't miss" prospect in Chicago and Tampa Bay but his career was sidetracked by an injury in 2013 and he never got his groove back. He's only 25 and obviously talented, but San Francisco is not looking for a shortstop any time soon.

Speaking of Brandon Crawford, he hit a homer, as did Brandon Belt, and Buster Posey launched a goddamn moonshot to center with that easy, slo-mo swing of his. Trevor Brown had a couple of hits, as did Ehire Adrianza. Kelby Tomlinson started at second and I believe was the only one to play the entire game. Sergio Romo got the biggest response of any of the guys in the 'pen and he looked like he had some good stuff going. Despite the 8-4 lead Santiago Casilla closed it out. Funny, the Giants were the home team. Just goes to show the difference between the bigs and the rest--even the local lads had to be visitors in their own park! Good story about the game in the Bee. Check out the time-lapse video at the end.

That's right, we had a grand time! Rockin' the tie dye, brah! Here's a pre-game look at the field:

If you are in Sac this summer you should catch a River Cats game. Can't wait for Monday!

GO GIANTS!!

--M.C.

Rosterbations

There will be no Mac Williamson or Jarrett Parker on the roster to open the season as both were optioned to AAA-Sacramento. A flurry of cuts saw the likes of Gorkys Hernandez, Braulio Lara, and Conor Gillaspie headed for the minor-league camp. No surprises, really, the Giants big-league roster is a tough one to latch on to. There's a good chance Trevor Brown will be the Opening Day backup backstop as Andrew Susac will likely start the season on the DL. (SIR sez Brown is her new fave FNG.) The youngster from UCLA was awarded the "Barney Nugent" as the top performer this spring.

The Giants are going with 13 pitchers instead of a fifth outfielder. Gregor Blanco remains the only real jardinero off the bench, the other two spots will be infielders Kelby Tomlinson and Ehire Adrianza. Blanco will of course see much more playing time than most bench-warmers, he's versatile enough to cover all the spots and the three starters (Pagan, Span, and Pence) are coming off injury-marred seasons. El Tiburón had his best year with the bat in 2015 and his fourth straight 2-fWAR season with the Giants.

Right-hander Cory Gearrin is the new face in the bullpen other than lefty Josh Osich. Gearrin is a former Braves prospect and had Tommy John surgery in 2014. We saw a little of the side-armer in September. Osich has big shoes to fill with the departure of Jeremy Affeldt. The former Oregon State Beavers multi-sport star had TJS in 2010. He's never lacked for big-league stuff, the questions have all been about command and continued health. Osich made 35 appearances (120 TBF in 28-2/3 IP) after his call-up in July.

We'll be in Sacramento at Raley Field on Wednesday night for the Giants-River Cats exhibition. I'm excited, I've been told it's an excellent venue for baseball. Not to mention the tickets were a hot item--thanks to my man JC for pulling off that coup! I want to get a Sactown cap. Which one do you like? I hope to have pictures and a post afterwards.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Sactown Tim

I have to confess that I "followed" tonight's glorious victory while sitting in Sec.113 at Raley's Field.  Isn't modern technology wonderful?  As Tim Lincecum continued his very solid start to this season by tossing 6 scoreless innings and 8 strikeouts, the RiverCats (featuring the rehabing Hunter Pence) defeated the Albuquerque Isotopes.  Two nifty victories at the same time!  All captured in one post!  What a deal! 

First, the game I actually saw:   The RiverCats got two early runs ( the second one on a Pence sac fly ) and never really looked back as Ty Blach kept the Isotopes from ever mounting a threat.  He didn't over power them but still racked up several K's.  He looked very good.  Cordier struck out the side late in the game and looked very nasty doing it.  Adam Duvall put a lovely swing on a breaking ball and got yet another home run.  He looks like he is ready for another shot.  Of course, the reason we were there was Pence.  Sac fly, ground out and strike out into a double play.  No highlights but it was still wonderful to see his crazy on deck swing.  Golly, I love that guy. What's not to love?

Next, the game I probably should have been watching:  Tim Lincecum's solid pitching and Casey McGehee's grand slam propelled the Giants back into the win column with a convincing 6-0 thumping of the visiting Marlins.  The Freak wasn't as smooth as his last outing ( he needed 107 pitches

to make it through 6 innings ) but he sure wasn't easy to hit ( only a double and 2 singles ).  Timmeh has a nice trend going and if he can keep it up this could be quite the season indeed.  After the game he said the key to this year is repeatable mechanics.  Hell, I'll drink to that!

A couple other flashy things in the box score tonight:  A three inning save by Petit.  I love those and I love that guy.  Buster got on base FIVE times, the last three by walks.  He also caught Tim again and I bet we see a lot more of that.  Brandon Belt got 4 hits and has his average over .300.   He is red hot right now.  Keep it going Baby Giraffe!

All told it was a marvelous baseball night in the state capitol.  There were even fireworks! Too cool.