A win! A win!

SF 8  ATL 5

Rookie Tristan Beck retired the first 12 Braves batters he faced. He's thrown four scoreless on two other occasions, both wins for the club, but those were in relief. Today he opened and cruised into the 5th with a 2-0 lead. Unfortunately a walk and a double spoiled the perfect game and the no-hitter. After a run scored Scott Alexander relieved and two more runs came in and suddenly it was 3-2 Atlanta. The Giants counter-punched, scoring four in the bottom half, and when the Braves tacked on two in the 6th the Giants responded with two more. Terrific bullpen work from The Brothers Rogers (Tyler in the 7th and Taylor in the 8th) kept it 8-5 until the 9th. Struggling closer Camilo Doval was summoned to seal the win and he was back to his dominant self and whiffed the first two batters. He had to work for the final out, getting dinged for a delay with an automatic ball, but he got the final out. It's been a while since we've seen a 1-2-3 save!

Rookie Patrick Bailey got the big hit, a bases-clearing double to re-take the lead for good. Rookie Casey Schmitt hit a homer. Rookie Luis Matos had a hit and scored a run and rookie Wade Meckler walked and scored. Grizzled vets J.D. Davis (2 RBI) and Austin Slater (2 H, 2 R) backed them up.

The Reds come to town for three. Monday night's game is at 6:45 PT. Rookie Kyle Harrison gets his first home start.

Go Giants!

--M.C.

The Texas Tromp Stomp

SF 9  TEX 2
Chadwick Tromp made his debut on Wednesday and struck out three times. Tonight he got two hits (including an RBI double) and two runs scored and also caught SIX different pitchers! It was a supreme bullpen effort, 5-1/3 innings with only two hits and no walks or runs and seven whiffs. And we can't forget the real game-changing blow in the 5th, a 3-run homer by Wilmer Flores that erased a 2-1 Rangers lead. It was all Giants after that. Darin Ruf was a beast, Mauricio Dubon seems to be finding his stroke, and Evan Longoria is obviously healthy. I note Brandon Belt sat against the lefty starter (Mike Minor). Dubon made a nifty play at short and then later made a couple of bad throws. It seems like the whole team is still figuring out how to play together. It's a challenge with all the shifts and the changes, although tonight Kap stuck with one crew, mostly. Steven Duggar subbed for Pence at the end, Hunter is still hitless for 2020.

The 'pen, after Logan Webb's 3-2/3, was Conner Menez (1-1/3), Shaun Anderson (1), Wandy Peralta (1), Tony Watson (1), and Sam Selman (1). Watson seemed to be back on track. Selman is up for the injured Sam Coonrod.

What a great win! Nine runs! Let's see some more of that.

Tomorrow's game is the same early start, 6:10 p.m. PDT. The Rangers have righty Jordan Lyles.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Giants Blast Past Padres

SF 7  SD 6
I was so wrong about this team! They CAN come back! They CAN hit the big home run! Wow, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around tonight's game. Let's see if we can hit the highlights: Johnny Cueto got hammered. Not much of a highlight--he threw 87 pitches to get 11 outs. Trailing 6-2 after four innings, the Giants used Tyler-power (Anderson and Rogers) to put up zeros from the 5th through the 9th. Meanwhile Alex Dickerson hit a solo homer in the 6th and Donovan Solano hit a three-run game-tying bomb in the 8th to set up Mike Yastrzemski to be the hero. Yaz had homered in the 3rd inning and he wasted no time in launching the game-winner leading off the bottom of the 9th. I did not think this team was capable of such a power surge and I did not think this team could fight back from an early deficit. It is especially gratifying to win a game in which the putative ace of the staff got knocked around. (Let's hope JohnnyC finds his mojo!) Not to mention the Padres threw their ace and he only lasted five innings.

What a great win! It was nice to see Brandon Crawford break out with three hits. He kept the rally going in the 8th before Solano's homer. That blast is the clutch-iest clutch hit of the young season. What a great win. Did I say that already?

The Giants have not announced a starter for tomorrow. The Padres are going with RH Dinelson Lamet who won his last start with five strong innings against the D-Backs on Saturday.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.


update: AmyG says Kevin Gausman is starting tomorrow.

Giants win!

SF 5  LA 4
It was torture, but the Giants prevailed this afternoon in LA. At one point on the broadcast Duane Kuiper said "I'm going to puke!" and that was exactly how I felt. The Giants youngsters--Logan Webb, Caleb Baragar, and Shaun Anderson--delivered seven strong innings against the formidable Dodgers linuep. Webb had command issues but showed tremendous concentration and determination and with a little help from his fielders kept the lid on for four innings. Webb also made a huge play himself, backing up at third base to nail Chris Taylor in the 4th to help defuse a possible big inning. Baragar made his debut today and got six massive outs in relief, looking quite poised in the process. He turned it over to Anderson who walked the first man he saw but whiffed the next three. Nicely done!

The lineup enjoyed a better day, scoring five runs over the first four innings to take a 5-1 lead into the 7th. Austin Slater walked (he had three on the day) and scored on Darin Ruf's hit in the 1st, Yaz doubled and scored on a wild pitch in the 2nd, Wilmer Flores homered in the 3rd, and Donovan Solano doubled in two in the 4th. Solano's egregious error in the 8th set up two runs for the Dodgers, but I have to put the blame on Tony Watson for that ugly inning. He's the veteran, he has to get the lefties out, especially after how well the rookies performed in front of him. Flores also looked shaky late in the game and almost threw a ball away. I don't need that! Trevor Gott gave up a solo shot to Will Smith in the 9th (aaaaghhhh!) but retired Max Muncy, Mookie Betts, and Cody Bellinger to close it out.

Hunter Pence got hit by a pitch and it looked bad but he stayed in. We'll see if he's hurt. Giants pitchers hit Muncy twice and Joc Pederson once. Maybe it was something in the air.

Regardless, THE GIANTS BEAT THE DODGERS!! First win of the season in the books!

Giants will see the lefty Julio Urias tomorrow at 7:08 p.m. PDT. It's TBD for the Giants, I suppose we'll be playing "pin the tail on the starter/opener" for a while. It seems like they aren't quite ready to stretch someone out. Should be interesting going forward.

Go Giants!

--M.C.

Perspective

In 2007 the Giants took Madison Bumgarner with the 10th overall pick in the June draft. Ben Kaspick posted on his twitter feed some screenshots of reactions (from the McCovey Chronicles blog) by Giants fans at that time:

You gotta love it. Here's more:

The moral of the story is that fans don't know jack! Perhaps it is better to say that I don't know jack and even "experts" are just guessing. The draft is a crap shoot and all you can hope for is that the guys doing the picking have worked hard and done their best. In a few years we'll know the results. Until then I'm happy to have new blood in the system.

Notables from the 2007 draft include #1 David Price, #2 Mike Moustakas, #5 Matt Wieters, #14 Jason Heyward, #27 Rick Porcello, #34 Todd Frazier, and #48 Josh Donaldson. There were 64 picks total if you include the supplemental round, and the Giants had FIVE more after the tenth (Bumgarner) pick. They were Tim Alderson (#22), Wendell Fairley (#29), Nick Noonan (#32), Jackson Williams (#43), and Charlie Culberson (#51). Those look like whiffs until you consider that Alderson was traded for Freddy Sanchez and Culberson was traded for Marco Scutaro.

MLB owners are assholes. Just in case you weren't sure which side of the labor divide I'm on!

--M.C.

Seven

The Giants had seven picks overall, six on the second day of the draft:

#49 Casey Schmitt, RH 3B from San Diego State,
#67 Nick Swiney, LHP from North Carolina State (a teammate of Patrick Bailey),
#68 Jimmy Glowenke, RH SS from Dallas Baptist (a Div II school with Div I baseball)
#85 Kyle Harrison, LHP from De La Salle High School in Concord,
#114 R.J. Dabovich, RHP from Arizona State,
#144 Ryan Murphy, RHP from LeMoyne College (a Div II Jesuit school in NY).

Those are the FNGs along with yesterday's 13th pick, switch-hitting catcher Patrick Bailey from NC State. I suppose we'll get lots of post-draft analysis by all the experts and we'll get to find out whether they did a good job or not! Or we can just wait a few years and see who makes the bigs!!

Welcome aboard, newbies. GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Welcome, Javier!

The newest (and youngest) member of the Giants is Javier Alexander Francisco Estrella. He's a 16-year old shortstop from the Dominican Republic. Here's the rule governing eligibility:

Foreign-born players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico, Panama, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and other countries are free agents. They may sign with any Major League club during the international signing period, which begins July 2 and runs through mid-June the next year. To be eligible to sign a contract, a player must be 16 years old at the time of signing and turn 17 years old by either 1) September 1 or 2) the end of his first professional season, whichever is later. Players also must register with the MLB Scouting Bureau.

That's from Cot's Contracts, a site all baseball fans should be familiar with! Note that this does not cover Japanese players, the NPB has a special arrangement ("posting system") that determines if a player can sign with MLB. Residents of the USA (and its territories like Puerto Rico) and Canada are subject to the draft. They have to be high school graduates, too.

I'm not sure why kids from foreign countries have more freedom than kids from the States, but that's our system! I think it is stupid. There should be the same rules for everyone. In fact, I would get rid of the draft entirely, and make all ballplayers free agents as soon as they stop playing amateur ball. Ideally they would not be able to sign contracts until they were legal adults, but I guess that's what agents, scouts, and parents are for. (Not to mention the notorious buscones.) Some wag called all that jockeying in foreign countries to find baseball talent a "field of schemes." Indeed.

Regardless, the Giants have a new international prospect. He's been compared to Fernando Tatis, Jr. That fellow made the majors last season with the Padres at age 20 and kicked ass.

Interestingly, MLB has considered skipping the 2020 amateur draft. After all, no one is playing ball so scouting isn't happening and if you can't scout you can't evaluate talent. What a great time to get rid of this anachronism.

--M.C.

More cuts

The Giants sent Joey Bart (and infielder Chisthian Adames) to minor-league camp. Giants fans might be disappointed but it seems like they want Bart to have a little more seasoning. Kapler was explicit about what he wanted Bart to work on and FZ said that having Bart in the bigs this year was "a reasonable goal for him and us." They don't want him to sit. They want him to play, not be a backup. It's the right call.

RHP Enderson Franco and OF Joe McCarthy were optioned to AAA Sacramento. Aramis Garcia was put on the 60-day Injured List--he had hip surgery last month.

The Giants picked up another player off waivers, this time Jose Siri, he will report to minor-league camp and start the season at AA Richmond. He's a RH center fielder from the Dominican Republic who turns 25 in July. He was signed as a 17-year old by the Reds but never cracked a big-league roster. He was picked up by the Mariners earlier in the off-season and then released.

Johnny Cueto did not have a good outing today (9 H, 5 R in 1-2/3 IP). Oh, and you must watch Yapson Gomez! He's a lefty reliever with a crazy windup. I believe he's a minor-league free agent--he's not on the NRI list. Let's hope they find a spot for him in the system.

--M.C.

Five

The Giants have four pieces of a five-man starting rotation: Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto, Kevin Gausman, and Drew Smyly. Smardj made a nice comeback last season after a lost-to-injury 2018. He is a free agent next year. Johnny Cueto lost two seasons (2018 and 2019) to injury and has not been himself since a stellar 2016 campaign. He is coming off TJS and a lot of hopes are riding on his recovery. He is signed for this year and next. FNGs Gausman and Smyly were picked up in the off-season. Gausman signed a one-year deal for $9M. Lefty Smyly signed a one-year deal for $4M.

The fifth spot was supposedly Tyler Beede's to lose. Unfortunately the young flamethrower is now out with an injury. Reports say a sprained ulnar collateral ligament as well as a flexor strain. The UCL is the Tommy John Surgery spot so it is ominous news. It's very unfortunate as it seemed like Beede was finally putting his game together right at the end of last season.

That means Andrew Suarez, Logan Webb, Conner Menez, and Dereck Rodriguez have a shot at the rotation spot. All four have two options remaining. Enderson Franco, with three options, is also in the mix. Non-roster invitees Trevor Cahill and Tyson Ross will also get a look. Tyler Anderson is recovering from knee surgery and most likely won't be available until June. The southpaw was picked up off waivers from Colorado and signed a one-year $1.8M deal with the Giants in December.

With five starters that makes an eight-man bullpen. There is a lot more uncertainty there and I will give it a few days before I attempt a roster breakdown.

--M.C.

Thirteen

With a 26-man roster for 2020 I expect the Giants to carry 13 pitchers and 13 position players. By my reckoning there are ten position players who are locks to make the team thus leaving three openings to be filled.

The old guard will man the infield: Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Evan Longoria, and Buster Posey. FNG Wilmer Flores will surely be one of the infielders. In his seven-year ML-career he has logged at least 1,000 innings at all four non-catching spots (1B, 2B, 3B, SS). He's right-handed with a league-average bat (.742 OPS, 102 OPS+, 101 wRC+, .318 wOBA) but raked lefties (.337/.367.615) last season. Expect to see a lot of Flores and in multiple roles. Another infield spot will most likely go to Mauricio Dubon. He was primarily a SS in the minors and has played 2B as well but the word is he will see time in the outfield, too. Obviously Buster will need a backup and I've no idea (Rob Brantly? Tyler Heineman? a free agent like Russell Martin?) who that will be.

That's seven guys. In the outfield I expect to see Mike Yastrzemski, Alex Dickerson, and Hunter Pence. That's the ten spots. Steven Duggar has two options left and unfortunately has yet to hit well at the major league level, so I'm not assuming he makes the team. Pablo Sandoval would likely take one of the three remaining spots but I'm not sure if he will be healthy by Opening Day. That means Donovan Solano or Yolmer Sanchez could stick as a utility player with two OF spots (Chris Shaw? Austin Slater? Jaylin Davis? Billy Hamilton?) still up for grabs.

One relatively unknown youngster that has opened a few eyes is 3B Sean Roby. He turns 22 in July and has not yet advanced past A-ball but is 5-for-7 this spring with 2 walks, 2 doubles, 3 runs scored, and 6 RBI. The 2018 12th-round pick from Arizona Western College has never been highly regarded as a prospect but still has plenty of time to develop his game. He might crack AA this year.

I'll take a look at the 13 pitchers later.

--M.C.

Jaylin Jack

SF 2  COL 1
Jaylin Davis is in the bigs because he can hit homers. He hit a heapin' pile of 'em at AAA this season, and the expectation is that he'll hit a few in the show. It took 13 games and 33 ABs but he finally got the big fly and it won the game in the 9th for the Giants. It was another anemic offensive display by the home squad, but the pitching was very tough and that kept it close and that gave the good guys a chance. Jaylin Davis is 25 years old and is from North Carolina and has over 1800 PAs in the minor leagues, mostly in the Twins system. He killed it (1.112 OPS) at Rochester (International League, AAA) and at Sacramento (1.105 OPS) and earned his call-up. Let's hope we see more good stuff from Davis--that was only his fourth hit! He was acquired in the Sam Dyson trade. His walk-off winner tonight made history: only twice before had a first career homer decided a ballgame.

Tyler Beede goes tomorrow afternoon, 12:45 Pacific.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Webb-based solution

SF 4  STL 1
The Giants close out a 3-3 road trip with a tidy win over the Braves. Rookie Logan Webb threw the best start of his very young career, yielding only two hits and fanning seven in six solid frames. The only run came on a ground out by Freddie Freeman, driving in Adeiny Hechevarria who had tripled. Even that was a bit of bad luck as Kevin Pillar had that one in his glove up against the wall in center but could not hold on. A fine effort by the 22-year old from Rocklin who had only one start at the AAA-level in his relatively brief stint in the minors (80 G, 60 GS, 320-1/3 IP over six seasons). Webb was picked right out of high school in the 4th-round of the 2014 draft and played rookie ball as a 17-year old. Other picks from that draft were Tyler Beede (1st round), Aramis Garcia (2nd round), Sam Coonrod (5th round), and Austin Slater (8th round). Stanford alum Slater leads that group with 1.3 bWAR (171 games) in the bigs.

Dallas Keuchel kept a lid on the Giants until the 6th when doubles by Evan Longoria and Joey Rickard made it 3-0, and Longo added another RBI hit in the 7th off Luke Jackson. All in all, a quality outing by the ballclub who come home for the final six games of the season. At 75-81 there is still a chance (very slim, I admit) for a .500 finish. Boch is 1050-1050 in orange-and-black, perhaps he'll walk away with a winning record if the Giants can play good ball at home, something they have not done this season.

Madison Bumgarner goes Tuesday and is also scheduled to pitch in the finale on Sunday.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

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.

An ugly win is still a win!

SF 2  MIA 1
The Giants put on a display of offensive ineptitude again today but they managed to prevail over the equally-pathetic Marlins. Good work from the bullpen saved the home squad from embarrassment, with Tyler Rogers getting three outs on ten pitches, and Will Smith returning to close it out. Mauricio Dubon gave the Giants early hope with a solo shot, but an Evan Longoria throwing error led to the tying run against hard-luck reliever Burch Smith. The winning rally featured singles by Yaz and Belt who both moved up on a wild pitch. After a walk to Longo and a whiff from Vogt reliever Ryan Stanek threw another wild pitch and Yaz scampered home. It's a win, I'll take it, but damn it is a discouraging thing to watch. The Giants have scored 254 runs at home in 75 games (3.39 rpg) and that's why they are 33-42 there. Johnny Cueto pitched well again (5 IP, 0 R) and that feels good.

It is a blessed travel day tomorrow and--another blessing--the boys go on the road, this time to Boston. They'll have to hit better there. Logan Webb gets the ball on Tuesday at 4:10 p.m. Pacific.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

SF 1 LA 0

It took seven pitchers to get the shutout, but the Giants 1-0 victory over the Dodgers tonight in LA has to be one of the most satisfying wins of the season. Eking out a run in the 1st on a bases-loaded Kevin Pillar ground out, the Giants made it stand up against the best offense in the NL. The Dodgers have 253 homers in 143 games, an average of 1.77 per game or roughly seven homers every four games. Not tonight!

In the 5th inning starter Tyler Beede, who had looked great through four, loaded the bases with two outs and had to face Cody Bellinger. In a pennant race there's a good chance he gets pulled (76 pitches), especially with his youth and recent history. Bring in a LOOGY there and go after the putative MVP. But this is a rebuilding team and there is an opportunity to develop a young pitcher, so Boch left in Beede to face Bellinger. Four pitches later he got a fly out to left field and walked off with five of the best innings of his rocky rookie campaign.

With Reyes Moronta on the IL, Tony Watson recovering, and Will Smith unavailable, it took a fresh bullpen approach for the late innings. Shaun Anderson, a closer in college, threw a scoreless 6th with two strikeouts. Tyler Rogers got two outs in the 7th and Andrew Suarez closed the inning and got the first out of the 8th. There was a tense moment when Sam Coonrod hit Justin Turner with a pitch but Fernando Abad induced a double play from Bellinger to finish the 8th. In the 9th Jandel Gustave gave us tooth-gnashing moments with a walk and a scary line out but Kike Hernandez obliged with a double play grounder and the Giants had their win. You have to love the creative use of the pitching staff, and the fact that they executed--in new roles--against a very tough opponent. It was torture, of course, I would have preferred a 10-0 lead, but it all worked out. That's back-to-back one-run wins!

Bruce Bochy has the most wins (107) of any visiting manager in Dodger Stadium. That's only the fifth time this season the Dodgers have been shut out.

Dereck Rodriguez gets the start tomorrow afternoon at 1:10 PDT.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.


p.s. Johnny Cueto starts Tuesday night at home against the Pirates.

Dubon Leads Giants

SF 5  LA 4
The Giants survived a three-homer game from A.J. Pollock, all solo shots, and hung on to win in Dodger Stadium. Closer Will Smith struck out LA phenom Will Smith to end it. It was an agonizing 9th, in contrast to the brisk work from Tyler Rogers in the 7th and Fernando Abad and Jandel Gustave in the 8th. Jeff Samardzija delivered a solid six (5 H, 3 R) to keep the Giants close against Clayton Kershaw. I often joke that Kershaw is the greatest pitcher in San Francisco Giants history. We have all watched his exceptional dominance against our favorite team, but they prevailed over him this time. They worked counts and ran up his pitch total in the first few innings but were unable to capitalize on some big chances. Finally after a 12-pitch walk to Kevin Pillar to open the 5th Dave Roberts came out for his super southpaw and the Giants were able to crack it open against reliever Dylan Floro. The big hits were from Yaz, pinch-hitting for Joey Rickard, and young Dubon.

Speaking of Mauricio, he doubled and homered off Kershaw, his homer tying the game in the 4th. His single in the 5th off Floro scored the final two runs that proved to be the difference. I like watching him in the field, he is very smooth and he makes everything look easy. Looks like he has a great arm as well. Big night for the rookie. Giants need infielders who can hit, let's hope he can be a fixture on the 2020 club.

That's only the 19th loss at home for the Dodgers this season. Tyler Beede goes tomorrow night at 6:10 Pacific. GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Dubon goes long

STL 3  SF 1
My dream of a .500 finish for the Giants is slipping away. There are 25 games left, if they can win a dozen I suppose I'll take that as progress. Speaking of progress, Mauricio Dubon had two hits including his first career double and his first career homer. That's pretty cool. I'm thinking a lot about 2020 these days!

--M.C.

p.s. The Giants were 11-15 in April with a minus-20 run difference (91 RS, 111 RA) and 10-16 in May with a really ugly minus-63 (112, 175). In August they were 11-15 with only a minus-10 (125, 135). They had three one-run losses and three two-run losses.

Good things on a bad night

SD 4  SF 1
The Giants lost and Reyes Moronta went down--literally--with a shoulder injury. But there are usually some silver linings, and last night one of them was Logan Webb. He threw five shutout innings and didn't give up a run until there were two outs in the 6th. It was a fine effort (one walk, seven whiffs) by the youngster who hit 97 on the radar gun. He has scary-looking stuff and it is exciting to watch him emerge.Tyler Rogers also pitched well in relief (four outs on 14 pitches). Outfielder Joey Rickard had two hits. Austin Slater hit a homer.

Those things all matter. Something that matters a lot less, but is a silver lining in a way, is that Jon Miller, on the radio, mentioned The Athletic and quoted an article by Grant Brisbee. Miller, as you know, embraces modernity with the enthusiasm of an eight-year old forced to kiss his great aunt. It's nice to know that he uses the internet, maybe he'll even try Baseball-Reference or, god forbid, FanGraphs*.

The Giants could use a winning streak!

--M.C.


*Must-watch FanGraphs plug from Daniel Murphy. It's only a few seconds, so check it out. It's scary when the players are better informed than the media covering them.

Dubon Debut

SD 5  SF 3
Middle infielder Mauricio Dubon made his Giants debut last night and collected his first fielding chance and first hit. (He was 0-for-2 for Milwaukee earlier this season.) He also flashed some leather taking a hit away and turning a double play pivot.  Dubon will likely get most of his work at second base but he is primarily a shortstop, having logged 4000 innings there in his minors career.

Otherwise there wasn't much to get excited about last night. Dereck Rodriguez continues to struggle and the offense continues to avoid the big, run-scoring hit.

Bumgarner tonight, 7:15 Pacific.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Home field disadvantage

AZ 6  SF 4
AZ 3  SF 2
The Diamondbacks take two from the Giants who can't seem to hit at Oracle Park. The team played poorly overall with some egregious baserunning in both games as well as some disappointing relief appearances. Day off tomorrow and then the Padres come to town for four. Let's hope the bats wake up real soon.

Roster moves of note: Scooter Gennet was cut loose and Mauricio Dubon was called up. They must think highly of him as they've churned through two accomplished major-leaguers to get to this point. Donovan Solano is covering the keystone well but I expect the youngster to get a long look. Trevor Gott, unfortunately, had to go on the IL with an elbow issue. IF Abiatal Avelino was sent back down and OF Joey Rickard was recalled. Right-handed funky delivery-guy Tyler Rogers was promoted to the bigs for the first time and pitched a 1-2-3 inning in his debut.

Johnny Cueto is getting close to a return. He makes another rehab start this weekend in Sacramento.

--M.C.