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M.T. Karthik

~ works, thoughts, events of 1977 – 2017

M.T. Karthik

Tag Archives: diamondbacks

Series Recap: Snakes Swept! (3-0)

02 Thursday May 2013

Posted by mtk in Series Recaps

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Tags

action, baseball, corner, diamondbacks, diego, Francisco, giants, mlb, San, series, snakes, sweep, woo

After opening on the road with a less than stellar performance in San Diego that resulted in a sweep of the Giants by the lowly Pads, Giants fans were eager for big wins in Phoenix to wrap up the road trip.

The Giants did not disappoint, with come-from-behind wins on the strength of clutch hitting, good pitching from Madison Bumgarner and decent outings for Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum.

The Giants found their stroke, and hit homers to win it. Hunter Pence, Brandon Belt, Pablo Sandoval and Angel Pagan all went long to ensure victory.

The trip to Arizona was a series of retribution. The snakes stole two out of three in late and extra innings at AT&T last month, so it was great to sweep them in their park. The Diamondbacks play a very similar game to ours. The two series with them reveal a tough match up. We will be fighting Arizona for the division, mark my words.

But right now it’s time for our nemesis, the Dodgers. Go Giants. Beat L.A.

mtk

Clutch-Fu Panda, Giants Take First Two in the Desert

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in Post Game Blasts

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Arizona, baseball, clutch, corner, diamondbacks, Francisco, fu, giants, homer, kung, mlb, pablo, panda, San, Sandoval, sf

Great game. Bumgarner made it a taut chess match til the late innings, and Pablo Sandoval took advantage of J.J. Putz.

Here’s the game winning, two-run homer by Clutch-Fu Panda

Giants Come Back on the Snakes in the 8th

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in Post Game Blasts

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Arizona, baseball, cain, diamondbacks, giants, matt, sf, win

The Giants five game losing streak ended with Matt Cain on the mound in Arizona, but sadly, The Big Horse got tagged for three home runs and gave up four runs and so has yet to earn his first win of the season.

Nick Noonan continues to show poise and ability at the plate. He pinch-hit lead off in the 8th and got aboard before two walks loaded the bases for Brandon Belt’s game-winning two-run single to bring him home. Belt also homered in the 2nd inning when the Giants got to their longtime nemesis Ian Kennedy, scoring three runs off him in the first two innings.

The Giants got another outstanding inning from Jean Machi in relief, who ended up getting his first win of the season. Sergio Romo picked up his 9th save.

GBC 13 – The Giants Go On The Road, Stay in Division

26 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in Commentary

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Arizona, baseball, diamondbacks, diego, division, giants, gorner, mlb, padres, road, San, san francisco, sf, trip, western

D’Backs Series Recap(1-2), Snakes Outlast Giant Gameplan

25 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in Series Recaps

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Arizona, AT&T, baseball, blog, Brandon, bunt, corner, Crawford, diamondbacks, Francisco, gbc, giants, important, mlb, park, play, quote, recap, sacrifice, San, series, sf, team, teams, winning

With pitching, crisp defense, just enough runs and by taking advantage of their opponents mistakes to win in the late innings … the  Diamondbacks beat the Giants at their game.

The Arizona Diamondbacks won two of three in extra innings against the Giants at AT&T Park with alert play after the 7th that the Giants lacked, showing fight, focus and effort.

Arizona’s Didi Gregorius, the Snakes’ rookie shortstop, energized his team with hustle. Twice, late in games, Gregorius took second base because a Giant outfielder was lackadaisical in throwing the ball back to the infield on a shallow base hit, and both times. Gregorius crossed the plate as the winning run.

Home runs were once again costly in this series as the Giants continually fell behind not on situational hits but the long ball. To their credit, the Giants kept coming back from 2-run deficits, but in the end the comebacks weren’t enough.

The Giants fought back to tie Game 1 on a Posey homer and win it on a Belt walk-off base hit in the ninth. They took Game 2 to extra innings on a Belt homer, but fell apart defensively to lose it in 10. Last night’s loss was a carbon copy in the 11th, except for the glaring statistic:

0 for 10 with runners in scoring position.

The brightest positive from this series and really of the season is Brandon Crawford, who wrote in his blog that he has changed his stance and is “standing taller” – which is yielding great results. Here’s a three paragraph pullquote, because it’s great and emblematic of 25 Guys with one Common Goal:

“It’s great hitting home runs, believe me. I had four all last season and have three already this year. But to tell you the truth I take just as much pride in laying down a crucial sacrifice bunt, like the one last night in the ninth inning.

Sacrifice bunts might not get the scoreboard flashing and the water spouting, but they are noticed by your teammates. They know you did your job and that it was a key to winning the game. My job last night was to move Torres into scoring position, just as in the fourth game of the World Series it was to move Theriot into scoring position. In each situation, the next batter got a hit that scored the runner. If the runner is still at first, he doesn’t score.

OK, so laying down the sac bunt isn’t as much fun as getting the winning hit. You’re not in the newspaper the next day or on the highlights that night. But you know what you did. Last night, after everyone punched Belt in the ribs a few times, my teammates congratulated me on the bunt. I point this out to make the point that winning is a team effort. When you stop playing as a team, you stop winning.” – Brandon Crawford

Brandon went 4 for 9 (.444) with a double and a homer in the Arizona series. He has four home runs and remains the number one ranked SS in the majors in fWAR. Importantly Crawford knocked Ian Kennedy out of the game, allowing our current ace, Madison Bumgarner to outduel the D’backs starter who has given us the most trouble over the years.

The second takeaway has to be the redemptive hitting of Brandon Belt after intense scrutiny for his slumping bat. Bochy made a point to spend extra time and it paid huge dividends as Belt won one game from the bench and tied another to take it to extra innings.

Our bullpen performed admirably and indeed is starting to gel.

Uncharacteristically lackadaisical play and simple mistakes by Andres Torres, Angel Pagan, Santiago Casilla and Buster Posey cost us the tight losses.

The D’Backs were more focused in late and extra innings for two games. Reminded me that they beat the St. Louis Cardinals in 16 innings, in their rubber-match, third game of the season to ensure they won their opening series – coming from behind twice to do it. This past weekend at AT&T, they showed it wasn’t a fluke.

There is fight, effort and smart, crisp play happening under Gibson in Arizona. They’ve got good pitching and a decent bullpen (J.J. Putz got tagged, but is likely to settle down as the season wears on).

The Arizona Diamondbacks are whom the Giants will be fighting to win the division.

PreGame GBC – Rubber Match with Snakes feat. Kraig Debro

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in PreGame GBCs

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Tags

analysis, Arizona, AT&T, baseball, corner, critique, Debro, diamondbacks, Francisco, giants, Kraig, match, mlb, park, pregame, rubber, sf, snakes

Local TV personality Kraig Debro dropped in this morning with his supercool new camera mount. We shot today’s pregame GBC using iVideoStick, check it out:

nice to see Kraig – he’s my kind of Giant fan. Check out his cool camera mount/stabilizer … at iVideoStick.com.

Let’s Go Giants! Rough Up Kennedy! Beat The Snakes!

Beltdemption! Posey Homers, Brandon Belt Drives in Winning Run

22 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in Post Game Blasts, walkoffs

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Tags

9th, Arizona, base, belt, bottom, Brandon, diamondbacks, hit, inning, of, walkoff, win

Tonight Ryan Vogelsong got touched for two home runs that put the Giants behind twice and twice the Giants responded with just enough runs. The second time, the Giants tied the game on a two-run homer by Posey in the 8th. Then, they won it in the bottom of the 9th on a Brandon Belt walk-off base hit.

Victory felt inevitable. It was almost as though the game was following the Giants’ plan and the Diamondbacks only thought they were in the drivers seat. It’s a direct response by the team in the other dugout to react to the Giants pitching-powered, defensively-oriented play.

Often teams play – or at least try to play – to the Giants level of defense for five or six innings. Notice how many pitchers have their best games against the Giants? This results in copycat innings and tight ballgames and last night was a great example.

But it’s chess – the opening and the midgame may have very little to do with the endgame. The Giants are playing white and starting first, their opponents are playing black and playing keep-up.

They try to play our game as long as they can while we plow forward playing our game for 27 outs: just enough hits, just enough runs; keeping the score low on defense and looking for the chink in their armor – usually it’s the pen.

This requires us to stick to the game plan and execute while looking for the mistake we’ll take advantage of. Tonight, it came together ideally.

This morning Brandon Belt woke up having received tremendous criticism for his lack of hitting, and found himself benched, replaced once again at first base by Joaquin Arias. Before the game Belt was asked to take special batting practice, attended by Bruce Bochy, who actively engaged in coaching him. This made press.

Down 4 – 2 in the 8th and with Scutaro on first, Buster Posey blasted a home run to dead center, the deepest part of the park, to tie it up.

The newest member of the Giants’ bullpen Jean Machi started the 9th, then passed it off to Jose Mijares who handed it to Sergio Romo for the last out to prevent the Snakes from scoring again.

Then, as though Bochy had drawn it up, Andres Torres lead off the 9th with a first pitch single, Brandon Crawford advanced him on a perfect bunt, and Bochy put Belt in with a double switch – which put him in the batter’s box with a chance to win the game.

Belt’s one-out, game-winning, walk-off base hit was an epic smile-bringer.

Sergio Romo pitched one ball in the ninth and got the last D’back out. With that one pitch, thanks to Brandon Belt, he also got the win, his first of the season.

A great game for the Giants and a special night for Buster Posey and Brandon Belt.

GBC Recap – The Opening Series v. LA (2-1)

04 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in Series Recaps

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Tags

16, 2013, angeles, Arias, Arizona, baseball, Bumgarner, cain, Cardinals, Casilla, champion, chavez, classic, corner, diamondbacks, dodgers, Francisco, George, giants, gold, hunter, inning, Joaquin, Kershaw, Kontos, Lincecum, los, Louis, Madison, matt, mlb, opening, pablo, pence, platinum, ravine, recap, reliever, Romo, San, Sandoval, santiago, Sergio, series, solid, St., stellar, Tim, world

It took a perfect outing from one of the best lefties in baseball – including the first home run he ever hit in his life  – to mar what was otherwise an excellent opening series for the San Francisco Giants.

The Giants looked crisp off the mound and decent at the plate, hitting in rotation situationally and even manufacturing runs. The biggest issue at the plate is we are once again on pace to lead the league in hitting into double plays! But it’s early and that stuff will hopefully start to winnow out. Pitching – particularly Cain, Bumgarner and Romo – was stellar.

The Giants won the series 2-1 over their NL West division rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers to take an early season lead in what will likely be a fight for first place in the division with Arizona. The Diamondbacks made a statement in last night’s game – a scrappy, hard-fought, come-from-behind, 16-inning win over the St. Louis Cardinals to start their season 2-1 as well.

Pitching

Starting pitchers did not allow a single earned run.

Cain was, typically, Big Horse consistent and stable. Bumgarner was intensely precise and Lincecum used balls and walks liberally, but stayed on top of his game.

Madison Bumgarner’s performance was platinum. He had tight, controlled movement and dominated the Dodger lineup. It was great to see from the young, powerful Big Country Mad Bum.

Relief

Bruce Bochy showed smart sensitivity pulling Cain in the first game. Cain and Lincecum are the eldest on our very young staff, and both got pulled before the 7th. This is how to develop middle and late relief and to protect starters’ arms over the long season.

Over the course of the last two years Bochy has slowly shown an increasing willingness to use the bullpen rather than risk fatigue – either of arms in the long term or of minds on the mound in the short term – with our starting pitching. This has culminated in the masterful use of a committee of late relief and closers last year down the stretch.

It’s important because our most significant problem (as pointed out most clearly by Bay City Ball) is depth at Starting Pitching. If one of our big 5 goes down, we’d have to adapt fast.

That said, poor George Kontos …

Image

shake it off homes. freak swing by the opposing pitcher.

Before that Kontos had an excellent 7th inning and looked ready to work the middle and pass the ball over to one of our capable lefties before Romo. It was a shame it shook out like that. We believe in you George, it was a solid outing before the guy decided he wanted to make history in LA.

In a way George, we needed you to take that hit because a LOT of us really don’t want Matt Cain getting any more losses in tight games than he has to. The poor guy has suffered his entire career with win-loss records beleaguered by our inability to produce runs. You took those runs that night so Matty wouldn’t get them and the loss and we appreciate it.

Casilla’s wild pitch, Lincecum’s, others’ can be chalked up to the season being very young and we should be honest and expect more sloppy working it out in the first month or so.

In Casilla’s case especially, the guy is coming off winning the World Baseball Championship – The Dominicans ran the table! and he was overwrought and excellent in relief. (Haft has details on Casilla’s effort).

The guy has played more ball under pressure than most this year – Casilla gets a one month pass.

(DR vs. Japan would’ve been interesting)

TWEET

Casilla’sWP:coming off winning the WBC,beating PR to do it,more ball under pressure than most this year – Casilla gets a one month pass.

Sergio Romo was SOLID GOLD. and he tweeted throughout including one which read that his “goal” was 50 saves! That was exciting to read.

I hope you make it my man … That’s What’s Up!

Batting

Shutdown performance by Kershaw was followed by a solid job of hitting by the Giants in game 2, specifically by Joaquin Arias, but as YahooSports pointed out “The Giants scored their first run on three consecutive one-out hits, including Arias’ RBI single.”

Situational hitting and manufacturing runs was the story of the offense and this continued to game three when Crawford and Pagan joined in on the action. But the team added homers by Pablo and Pence! Thrilling stuff to see the offense coming together – power, contact, base-running (I’m excluding el caballero loco on that last one). Pagan leading off, Scutaro, Pablo and Posey behind him is going to work well.

The problem remains that too often the Giants destroyed opportunities by hitting into double plays. It is the beginning of the season and on any other team I wouldn’t bat an eye, but we have a historic problem that reaches back several years in this regard. Maybe bunt practice in order to take advantage of squeeze chances would help in other situations as well. If we aren’t going get a lot of hits, or score a lot of runs we have to at least keep runners on the paths and continue to manufacture runs as we have been doing the last year and change.

Defense

Infield

With Brandon Belt falling sick, Bochy had a chance to do more moving of the chess pieces. Arias on first and Sanchez behind the plate yielded and didn’t, had succeses and problems, but more I was happy to see this kind of constant moving about of players. I am of the mind we need a flexible team offensive scheme.

(Hec or Bus)ter at plate

Belt, Posey, Arias or Panda at first

Arias, Panda or Scutaro at third

Blanco or Torres in LF.

It’s flex-offense. I love Bochy for this team approach and have no problem with half a season going by with pieces moving in concert or individually to suit opponent, weather, interleague and etc. I have come around on this. Used to chew my nails to shreds over Bochy’s calls, now I see a logic in it. We can recreate units to suit. Cool.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Brandon Crawford also known as @bcraw35 continues to rock short. Golden Glove campaign [BCrawGG13] required.

Outfield

Hunter Pence still looks like a crazy-eyed wild man going after balls. I trust him … and yet … it makes me nuts to see Pence and Pagan still doing the chipmunk act from the old Looney Tunes cartoons .. “After you.” “No, After You. “No I insist.” (ball drops to the field). I know Pence has only been out there a few months for us, but he and Pagan have to work that out because problems we saw last year continue. Pagan manhandled CF again. LF hardly saw any action at all so the platoon was untested.

All told an excellent series for the Giants and a great way to launch Giants Baseball Corner. I will be posting Series Wrap-ups like this whether I post full series game for game or not. Feel free to comment, feedback etc. best is on TWITTER, in my opinion.

Sorry to everybody but particularly to Julian for over tweeting while getting GBC set up.

All are welcome here where we are focused on the relentless flow of the positive river.

Karthik

In First Place Out West

02 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by mtk in baseball, S.F.

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Tags

AT&T, diamondbacks, division, dodgers, first, flags, giants, mlb, padres, place, rockies, san francisco, sfg, west

M.T. Karthik

This blog archives early work of M.T. Karthik, who took every photograph and shot all the video here unless otherwise credited.

Performances and installations are posted by date of execution.

Writing appears in whatever form it was originally or, as in the case of poems or journal entries, retyped faithfully from print.

all of it is © M.T. Karthik

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