The Giants are having an historically terrible year. So it seems a good time to end this project and call it an archive.
Thank you for reading Giants Baseball Corner and engaging with me these seven years from August 2010 to August 2017. It has been a lot of fun.
This site‘s now my archive of the San Francisco Giants during their historic run to three World Series Championships in five years. It was an incredible time to be a Giant fan – filled with relief and joyous wonderment.
Every word, image or thought herein was produced by M.T. Karthik, your MC and host.
14 games back of Colorado, 3-7 in last ten games, road trip ended in Milwaukee with an extra innings win last night and home stand starts today against the surprising Minnesota Twins.
Since we last left you dear reader, Hunter Strickland decided to unilaterally employ the unwritten rules – on a two and a half year old personal grudge – and hit Bryce Harper square in the hip with a 98mph fastball in a two-run game we could have won.
A lot was written and said about it, but this piece by Jamal Collier at MLB is pretty succinct and without bias.
I was disappointed in Hunter, but since it happened I’ve cooled off. Maybe it was done at the exact right time – a ‘meaningless’ game in June with exacting precision to the hip – even Harper called the right way to do it.
I find the unwritten rules cool only when the whole team seems into it. I was with Buster on this one and I cannot believe the people who suggested he should have intervened. The guy just came back from a heater to the head!
But then last night, in a game that really felt like a turnaround game, Strickland came in for the first time since the incident and was scary and dominant. Made me wonder if maybe we need a guy like that.
The Giants picked up Sam Dyson from the Rangers, and while Brisbee’s not crazy about him, he details the thinking behind picking him up.
The last ten days have been promising for the G-men. We took 3 of 4 from the Nemesis at the Yard! It was great. Kershaw beat us and Cueto got a little hot under the collar, resulting in a bench-clearing kerfuffle, but it was great to #BeatLA again.
We had a 17-inning game that ended on a Buster Posey walkoff HR! Around the Foghorn’s Vince Cestone ruminates it could be the game that turns things around.
Stat Man Doug Bruzzone has two pieces on our pitchers and our hitting that are interesting.
Barry Bonds is Finally Getting a Plaque on the Giants Wall of Fame
Brisbee’s take has a complete list of those honored and this gem: “If you’re agitated by the Belt Wars, you have no idea what it was like to live through the Great Snow Conflicts.”
While Haft has some nice, clean history and stats of the greatest power hitter to ever play the game (the GPHOAT) up on the Giants site.
Pence went on the DL and the Giants called Mac Williamson up. But he hasn’t done much yet. Christian Arroyo has been the star of May thus far. The rookie was called up and immediately brought fireworks and a clutch bat that seemed to juice the team. He needs a nickname and I prefer Spanky, case he looks like Spanky from Our Gang, but I am old, so it looks like the memory-less Millennials are gonna settle on The Kid or Boss Baby.
The first month of the season was turbulent, chaotic and unpredictable.
MadBum ripped two home runs on Opening Day, the only pitcher in history to achieve such a feat, and we lost. We scored a bunch of runs in the next several games and lost, then we lost Skip for a coupla games and a buncha guys for more and we lost, and then we didn’t score many runs and lost.
That adds up to 17 losses and a 9-17 month of April good for dead last in the National League West. There was always some weird issue in addition to the ones we were expecting – namely LF and the bullpen – and it’s apparent nobody’s comfortable except Johnny Cueto.
BASG sighting! SB’s take on the off-field difficulties stacking up for the G-men is a good read and very relevant.
Christian Arroyo is the star of the week: here’s Kaila Cruz at AtF on the kid. Everybody’s looking for a nickname and I am cool with #BossBaby.
BASG also chimed in loudly in favor of the Arroyo call up and brought up how the Boss Baby and Michael Morse have brought back the fun, reminding us of some of our fun times in the recent past.
This is a team in transition from the World Series Championship Era (2010-2014), an era that’s deceptively long because Madison Bumgarner was almost single-handedly responsible for the last Championship, winning the WC play-in game and game seven at Kaufmann Stadium for us. The Nemesis has won the division four straight years while the Giants have just managed to stay in the playoffs twice via wildcard and #MadBum.
Our attempts to stay in it while re-organizing have been a war of attrition. Since the last Championship team, we’ve lost: Pablo Sandoval and Matt Duffy at 3B; Affeldt, Casilla, Lopez, Romo and Petit from the ‘pen; Vogelsong, Zito, Lincecum, Hudson, Peavy from the starters (and Cain has been absent).
ESPN Sr. Writer David Schoenfeld expands on this thought very effectively in his piece from a couple of days ago, Spring Setbacks Thwart NL Contenders and thankfully he includes the woes of the nemesis for some pain relief.
The nemesis and the Rockies and D-Backs have been tooling to win and it’s unrealistic in the modern game to expect to just fall back into the lead. It’s almost impossible to repeat as a champion these days. (There hasn’t yet been a back-to-back WS Champ in the 21st Century).
That said, when they’re rolling we have a pretty great starting rotation. Matt Cain has looked considerably better lately and though Samardzija is struggling now, I feel it is sort of his m.o. to pick it up as the season goes on. Bum, Cueto and Moore are legit playoff starters.
Brandon Crawford, Joe Panik, Hunter Pence and Buster Posey are all playing well. Though the bats with RISP are still just so bad.
Eduardo Nuñez and Denard Span have good at-bats and the platoon of LF are trying to find an identity. The addition of Morse is a real shot-in-the-arm.
The bullpen is a hot mess, but Mark Melancon is an elite closer and he has the capacity to anchor this squad and hopefully they can pull it together.
I am just blathering because we just don’t look very good right now … I don’t know what else to say, so I will just say
Well the first fourteen games (four series) of the season are behind us and a couple of things are already clear.
The NL West is going to be a dogfight. The Rockies, Dodgers and D-backs all expect to be in the hunt.
The Giants are unsettled in left field and in the middle inning bullpen.
Though we’re 5-9 and tied for last in the division with the Padres, we’re only four back because everyone in the NL West is actively beating up on each other. I have a strong feeling that’s how it’s going to be all year.
To get the Negative Nelly out of the way first, Grant Cohn of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat is convinced after just 14 games that the Giants “dynasty is over,” and that we are not going to make the playoffs.
Me, I am not so sure. There’s a lot of baseball left to play.
Pluses and Minuses
Johnny Cueto is 3-0 while Madison Bumgarner has yet to win in three starts. Once again a Cy Young campaign for MadBum’s hamstrung early. sigh.
Our Gold Glovers Joe Panik and Brandon Crawford look awesome, but we lost Buster Posey to a fastball to the head. John Shea wrote this excellent piece on the after effects of getting hit in the head by a 90+mph baseball. It is reported that Posey may play in the series against Kansas City that starts tonight.
Nick Hundley has been really good in Posey’s absence, a stable veteran behind the plate who instills confidence in the position of backup C.
Nuñez ABs are fun to watch and he is a demon on the bases, but his play at third has been up and down. Let’s hope it’s early season stuff. I really like the guy.
Brandon Belt and Hunter Pence are looking good at the plate.
Matt Moore looks good for about 78- 85 pitches and then the drop off seems a little crazy. The fact Bochy doesn’t feel he can trust our ‘pen hurts in Moore’s starts.
But Mark Melancon turned around after his weak opening day showing and has looked considerably better.
Jeff Samardzija, like last year, is probably going to take a few starts to get going.
Matt Cain got a win! (Olney comments below)
LF has been a problem and it was compounded when Jarrett Parker made a great play only to crash into the wall and destroy his clavicle – gone eight to ten weeks.
Buster Olney had this to say about Matt The Big Horse and his win.
The Giants’ Matt Cain is facing a similar transition to the one that CC Sabathia has had to go through — adjusting to the reality that he cannot throw as hard as he used to and learning to mix his pitches differently. In Cain’s most recent start against Arizona, he did what catchers and pitchers refer to as pitching backward — by throwing breaking balls in counts in which pitchers typically throw fastballs and using his off-speed stuff to set up the less frequent use of his fastball. Cain allowed one run in five innings. Sabathia recalled an at-bat in which he pitched to Russell Martin a couple of years ago, when the left-hander had it in his mind that he would bust a fastball past his former teammate — but the best he could do was 90 mph, which Martin clubbed for a homer. Sabathia says now that he wishes he had started altering speeds with his pitches earlier in his career.
Buster Olney on ESPN
If you haven’t yet read the sweet, sweet quotes in AlPav’s look back at Madison Bumgarner’s relief appearance in Game seven of the 2014 WS in KC, do it now.
Opening day in Phoenix was a massive, thick-beamed wood rollercoaster ride built by Madison Bumgarner that went off the rails in such a familiar manner it felt sickening – or for the less dramatic and more experienced fans, like typical Giants baseball.
During the frustration, I got into a Twitter discussion over the use of the word ‘torture’ to describe Giants baseball.
We all fell in love with Mike Krukow’s term in 2010 because it felt like a pure assessment of the near-misses that made it up: the earthquake, the 100 win season fail, the Angels in ’02, Pudge in front of the plate.
But personally, the torture I felt for 30 years was washed away by the immense wave of relief I felt on November 1, 2010 when we finally won it all for the first time in SF.
Giants fan Ted G, 57, disagrees. For him, SF Giants baseball is uniquely agonizing across decades win or lose. He thinks Krukow’s phrase, “Giants Baseball … Torture,” is emblematic of our pathos as an organization and the struggles we eternally endure.
“The term torture has nothing to do with not winning. Totally about how they go about creating situations that are torture.” – Ted G, @TedSFGman
I can see that, but whatever remnants of the feeling of torture that may have remained for me were certainly washed away by winning the way we did in 2012 – my favorite of the championships. We had to retire Melky Cabrera. Pablo hit 3Hrs – two off Verlander – and Romo dared and won with an incredible fastball to end it with Miggy looking.
Madison going out there in 2014 and ripping it away from the Royals cemented my feeling that we have earned well-deserved titles, establishing a kind of dynasty in an era when the back-to-back World Series championship has disappeared.
There hasn’t been a back-to-back World Series Champion in the 21st century. So for me, this ain’t torture any more, it’s working the details.
But enough about torture, lets get to
The first GBC Reader of the year:
It was a rough game because of the blown saves, but being opening day on the road, it really shouldn’t matter that much in the face of what Madison Bumgarner accomplished: the first pitcher in the 140 years of this game to hit two home runs on opening day put himself in position to win twice before the bullpen’s struggles came to bear. It was epic and #TheLegendofMadBum continues to grow.
Brisbee noted that Bumgarner was also the first Giant to hit two dingers on Opening Day since Barry Lamar. And Grant’s coverage of the debacle it became is actually considerably temperate – I think fatherhood is mellowing him out.
MLB dot com Columnist Joe Posnanski has some really excellent things to say about Madison’s performance, really putting the scale of MadBum’s audacity in nice perspective. He includes Statcast data regarding the speed of these HRs that if you haven’t checked out yet, you gotta see.
Haft chose to focus on MadBum’s dominance on the mound. Man, did he look good.
I didn’t really have time to make this great, but hey, it’s the first one of the year. I’ll add some links later if I find more content.
I also apologized on Twitter for rage tweeting the value of Mark Melancon’s contract excessively yesterday. I am sorry. It was petty lashing out at the collapse and an irrelevant memory of last year that fueled my rage.
Which brings us to Jake Mastroianni’s piece about everyone who overreacted to the opening day loss.
With 48 games left to play, the San Francisco Giants hold a one game lead over the nemesis in the NL West and have returned home to the confines of AT&T nee´ Pac-Bell Park for a much needed ten game home stand.
Hunter Pence came home with a black eye. Buster Posey’s face was all busted up. We lost a 1-0 CG by Bumgarner and we pounced on and beat Strasbourg. Brandon Crawford had a seven-hit game! We won a 1-0 game for Samardzija. It was a crazy trip.
But now we are home and we’re up a game and there are four dozen left to play. Here at Giants Baseball Corner we changed the avatar of the Twitter account to the one we have used for the stretch run since 2012, our photo of the dugout sign that was featured in the Emmy-award winning Episode 7 of SFG Productions Orange October.
I only have one wish left and that’s to see Bruce Bochy vs. Joe Maddon in the NLCS.
But I must be patient, be filled with fear and hope. I must focus on today. Win today.
Brandon Crawford had SEVEN HITS in a game! It was insane. He went 7 for 8! His batting average increased by 13 points in one night. It was boss. Doing what they do best, which is archiving, CSNBA and AlPav did a really cool bit covering two men to have seven hits in a game. While in Miami, they found the previous and they got them together. Was awesome.
Baggs has a nice piece on a turning point for the bullpen. Stricky looking better, with more pitches and some command. Casilla coming back with a vengeance from the humiliation of the balk. Derek Law putting up numbers.
Welcome gentle reader to The Giants Baseball Corner Reader, Issue 11, a compendium of links to stories and stuff about the Giants since the last GBC Reader.
BTW, You can always read all the Readers as a summation of the season to this point by clicking on the GBC Reader Category link to the right, and they all come up.
Steve Berman, Bay Area Sports Guy, hasn’t been writing much about the G-men this season, but the trade deadline brought this very nice analysis of what he figures the Giants did and why. Good piece.
AlPav has a nice get-to-know-ya with Will Smith, the Giants’ newest left-handed reliever. I am already on the record that anyone who makes an OBVIOUS pun about his name and the Hollywood actor who shares it, is boring me.
Brisbee still isn’t over the loss of Matt Duffy, which is kinda good because it inspired him to do one of his cool retro-looks at awesome Matt Duffy plays from his tenure with los Gigantes.
and the Rays decided to move Duffy to SS when he comes back up and their current SS was none to pleased to hear that news according to Baggs.
First off, Madison Bumgarner was the first pitcher in 40 years to intentionally bat in an American League park as future HoF manager Bruce Bochy elected to refuse the DH in Oakland versus the A’s. It was rad … and it continues #TheLegendofMadBum
While AlPav’s take includes legends Kruk and Kuip chatting the coolness.
Obviously the injuries to arguably better, or at least day-to-day bats like Pence and Panik and Tomlinson made this decision possible and for me it is an excellent compromise to the insane lunatics who were asking MadBum to hit in the Home Run Derby – which I hope never happens.
Berman dropped in to write about the G-men during the hot streak. And indeed it felt to a lot of us like June Swoon was out of the picture until those pesky Swingin’ A’s came to town.
I haven’t been writing much but I did go on radio to talk Giants with Adam the Bull.
I also went to an American League game for the first time since 2012 (A’s vs. Mariners then) and got to see Big Papi’s likely last hit in Texas as the Red Sox came to Dallas.
The Rangers beat the Crimson Hose in both games I went to, and they looked really good doing it. Shin-Soo Choo was very impressive. And a lot of the Rangers can hit. I saw Prince rip one down the line for a homer that was an awesome display of power.
It’s absurdly early in the season, so there’s no reason to panic – because the Giants have shown us what they’re capable of in flashes of brilliance with the lineup we’re currently fielding: we had come-from-behind wins and a home run parade to start the season.
Still, other than Johnny Cueto’s start, the last week has been a bummer. Infield errors lost us a MadBum start in Chavez Ravine and we eventually lost that series to the Nemesis, three games to one.
The last one was one that got away. Jeff Samardzija (the #Smarj) was looking great, but one mistake to the phenom Joc Pederson was all it took for the Nemesis to pull out the win. Our bats went silent against new Japanese Nemesis Maeda.
Then last night in Arizona we had the lead three times and couldn’t hold on, with Santiago Casilla failing to close – his second blown save in five chances – and the snakes winning in extras.
Injuries, especially to the relievers, are playing a role in this. Romo and Kontos are now down for 15-day DLs, and the one game we lost BCraw turned into error-filled madness in the infield that cost Bumgarner a win. But I would much rather be injured now than in August – last year was a drag.
I’m nothing if not petty about being hungry for acknowledgment from our community when I’m out ahead of something – it’s a terrible result of my insecurity. So like a petulant child I’ve been YELLING on Twitter that all last July and August I was calling for the Starting Pitcher to hit in the 8-slot.
I was tweeting we should do it well before Maddon did so successfully when the Cubs swept us out of Wrigley, taking four games last August on their way to the DS.
I mention this to say that our flavor here at GBC is basically avant-garde.
We propose all kinds of things, some of which aren’t popular (like when we wanted to start Peavy against Pittsburgh in ’14, for fear of not being able to use MadBum twice or even thrice in the division series) and some of which become implemented to success (like in 2010 when we pushed Bochy to let the new guy Javier Lopez share some of Affeldt’s outings), and some of which get implemented to failure …
but generally we are looking ahead.
So I LOVE this move by Bochy and am thrilled we’re starting the season with this as a protocol, from which to develop the concept against competition all year long. I hope we stick with it long enough to get a decent sample-size.
I am SUPER-FREAKING-EXCITED to finally see Madison Bumgarner hit in the 8-slot on Opening Day and to see Peavy in that position in the opener against The Nemesis at the yard this year! Peavy moves over runners against Kershaw? Yes, please.
The Giants play a day/night double today with Peavy on the mound taking on Mat Latos (now throwing for the White Sox) in the day game and Ty Blach, a 6’2″ and 200lb, 25-year old, pitching the night game against De La Rosa of the Snakes. But let’s get to the Reader:
“With every starting position player on the field for the first time this spring, the Giants beat the Padres 15-6 and scored 10 runs in the first two innings. When manager Bruce Bochy started pulling starters in the top of the fifth the Giants had 12 runs on 13 hits.
“There’s always some electricity the first time everybody gets out there together,” Buster Posey said. “It was nice to score some runs like we did. Hopefully it’s a sign of good things.””
Jeff Samardzija is riding out the idea that Cactus League is for working shit out. It definitely worries me a little, but it’s true these games don’t mean anything. Anyway, Here’s Haft on the Shark’s attitude given his poor outings in terms of results.
Hey everyone, excited for the season and I’m going to try a new type of post this year that I’m calling The GBC Reader, which I hope will serve as a link archive of current stories and topics of interest, because I feel like there’s a TON of coverage already of our Giants that’s a little redundant.
So instead of just repeating what Marty or Hank or Haft or Brisbee or AlPav or Baggs or KNBR or CSNBayArea has already, I’m going to drop these every three or four days or every week or ten days …let’s just say “as necessary,” to collect interesting pieces in one place – hence, a reader … like these:
Johnny Cueto on the first pitch of a night game against Oakland, got drilled in the forehead, which was pretty scary, but he got up and was all right. He stayed in the game and was diagnosed with a contusion, but not a concussion … here is a comprehensive piece by Haft on the matter.
Here’s Steve Berman’s current projection of the Opening Day Lineup, which speaks to the strength of play by Gorkys Hernandez this Spring and other interesting tidbits.
Brisbee, predicting a lot of playing time for Chris Heston has some in-depth on the young hurler who became the first Giant rookie to throw a no-hitter (vs. the Mets last year).
At age 51 and as batting coach for Miami, Barry Bonds aka The Greatest Power Hitter to Ever Swing a Baseball Bat, defeated a bunch of Marlins – including Giancarlo Stanton – in a HR hitting contest. Brisbee, of course, gushed, but I really like the video clip at the top of this piece on CSNBayArea in which Barry speaks frankly about how he knows he is a Hall of Famer and the fraternity of people, like me and everyone here at GBC, who know it, too. Love you, Barry Lamar.
All righty, that’s GBC Reader No. 1, for ya then … don’t all rush to read it at once.
First off, before doing an assessment of the G-men at the break, I want to chime in and agree with Alex Pavlovic’s view, made most clear by Grant Brisbee, that all, repeat every single replay review at AT&T Park should be broadcast live to the crowd over and over and from every angle and in highest def slo-mo, while the challenge is ensuing.
This is silicon valley. We should have the best possible view of every single play and all of these should be made available immediately, live to the fans. YES, “ON THE BIG BOARD!”
To which I would add two comments:
1. I love Brisbee’s thought. There should be, superimposed upon the screen as the fans watch the play in question, a “Review Porcupine” – an animated character that replaces the cursor for example, so it can be manipulated by an operator – I’d nominate Grant Brisbee – live, during the game at the park.
The porcupine would clearly point out to fans, to those watching at home and to the secret cabal in the star chamber in New York that decides the fate of games now, what exactly has taken place on the field of play in our park.
and
2. If you aren’t going to do that, at least just use the time to show everyone that cool footage of pre-quake Market Street, San Francisco in 1905 that was dug up, like we did during the Turn-Back-the-Century Game:
AT THE ALL STAR BREAK, IT’S A ROLLER COASTER RIDE
At the All-Star Break the San Francisco Giants’ season feels like we spent six weeks climbing this long, sweetly-delicious first hill of a roller-coaster, rising higher and higher until we were the best in baseball for more than ten days … only to then go flying down the first drop of this ride in the last three weeks of June.
And now we ricket-along clickety-click through the last of the first half, through the guts of this giant ride, bumping along.
We got smoked by the current best team in baseball a few times – who happen to be our brothers and cross-Bay rivals in Oakland. So for me, there’s hurt pride by those losses, but not as much as anger that we now play so many damn Inter-League games that everybody is telling us the DH in the NL is inevitable. (I reiterate – why doesn’t the AL drop the DH and let’s try that for a season and see how much fun we have?)
But I digress.
I’d say the health of team is good: Belt and Casilla were major losses for those six weeks in which we fell so hard and fast.
Michael Morse is not a first baseman. He isn’t comfortable there and after valiant – but often cockamamie – effort, the difficulties affected his batting. He was a BEAST during the front end of the season; doing everything we asked and more at the plate … and what did we do? Well, Bochy experimented again and shattered his rhythm.
Mind you, the injury to Belt forced his hand, and Bochy has a grasp of the helm and knows how long the season is. If he felt he wanted Morse to get the innings in, in case it’s necessary later in the year, I buy it. I didn’t four years ago as much, but nowadays I, like everybody else, just shrug and say, “Well, you know he has won us two championships in the last four years.”
But with the imminent induction of Tony La Russa into the Hall of Fame, it’s a good time to stare at Bochy during times like that.(reminds me of that insane attempt to put Cody Ross in left in August of ’10)
Morse was a mess at first, folks. Love this guy. Love Michael Morse. But his tall, gangly form and lack of experience at the position cost us numerous times. It was a relief to see basic plays completed to satisfaction. Let’s let him get comfortable again back out in left. He was immediately pretty comfortable out there, and now we’ve gone and messed with that rhythm, too. I feel his bat is most important for our team.
This line is here just to say, “Way to go El Tiburon Blanco!” Gregor’s work in substitution is reliable. He’s earning that fourth OF spot covering for Pagan and Morse. The Morse/Blanco platoon in left is the combination we have been looking for. It’s the platoon Torres/Blanco or Melky/Blanco could never have been.
Anyway, Belt is back. And so is Casilla. And Affeldt looks great. I like how when Sergio Romo started to falter we addressed it by using Relief by Committee on the fly.
Pablo is slowly getting back his numbers and has been his usual, exceptional self at third. The errant throws stopped as soon as he began hitting. It has been really nice to see.
Brandon Crawford is a puzzle. Excellent in the field, suddenly hitting well against lefties, now he struggles against righties and remains inconsistent at the plate.
After a great opening in substitution for Scutaro, Brandon Hicks’ numbers did drop off as expected from a rookie. The recent rest helps him, but obviously also costs us. The other role players, Colvin, Perez, Adrianza and Duvall have all had moments of brilliance, but simply don’t have the talent to keep the team afloat during a stretch like we had in June without the pop of the bat of Brandon Belt.
Yes, I said, the pop of the bat of Brandon Belt.
The pitchers deserve credit. It’s hitting that’s been the problem during the slump. Put Morse back in left and let him get his groove back. Move Belt up the lineup.
Finally, the biggest single individual upon whom success of the Giants can be associated is Angel Pagan; our leadoff man, center fielder and energizer. The loss of Pagan during the slump cannot be underestimated.
If we have Morse, Pagan and Pence in the outfield, Sandoval, Crawford, Scutaro/Hicks and Belt/Posey infield and Buster and Hector behind the plate, there should be at least three or four runs a game, minimum. Guys gotta start hitting.
We need to win games with our bats like we were doing in the beginning of the year.
That is what has to happen after the break. I like our chances. It’s just us and the Dodgers out West and if we keep up with them we could have a decent shot at one of the Wild Cards.
But I gotta say, it’s like being halfway through the ride on a roller coaster and my stomach still hasn’t settled from that first drop.
man, haven’t written anything here since last year.
all right well
it’s 2014 and the Giants started with massive hitting and have now slumped hard into a drought of epic proportions.
Matt Cain and Tim Hudson and Madison Bumgarner all gave great performances this week and the G-men could do nothing with the bats to get the wins. sigh.
Gotta wake up the bats so I am waking up the blog.
Argh. It was like looking at us back in 2009 again. The bright side was Timmy’s performance, and last night we tried to stream the game live in Giants Baseball Corner,
all of which were for nought as we could do nothing to get a runner across the plate. Our one run in the game came off a single by Pagan, a stolen base, a hit and a Wild Pitch!
This one was winnable. I was hoping to sweep these guys … and sadly … we just couldn’t get it done.
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.
Here in San Francisco we’re struggling to win baseball games at home down the stretch and I’m convinced it’s because our fans, led by Comcast, are far too distracted by things that have nothing to do with the game – even while the game is being played!
We’re distracted and our team needs us to be focused.
This was never true at Candlestick, where it was cold, windy and miserable most of the time. You were there because you loved the Giants and watched every pitch.
If we want to win home games, fans have to focus on every pitch. It’s called watching the live action and all long-time fans do it. You chat between pitches, but when the pitcher sets, you do too and you turn to face the plate.
These days, because of the incredible number of distractions from the scoreboard and overtly non-baseball production of the media, I see fans bringing children under six or seven who have no interest in the game, who are there solely because a parent is making them be there.
These parents bring their kids as an entertainment for the children, which would be cool if they kept them abreast of what was happening, taught them to score the game and etc. But they don’t spend the requisite time making them watch, and indeed focus intently on, the action when it is live.
I saw two young girls facing each other in the seats in front of me talking to each other for an entire inning in the Lower Box. Their Dad was sitting beside them on his cel-phone the entire game, just chatting away and looking all around the park! They could’ve been beaned so easily by a foul ball.
I also see lots of tourists in our crowd – people here for our fabulous Indian Summer – it’s the high season after all. But these fans are hardly as loud or supportive as our own home-grown fans, which is why we have to lead them.
I watch Comcast spend more time following people goofing around or wearing funny hats or the Delorean hovercraft in McCovey Cove than the game itself; listen to Kruk and Kuip (normally solid baseball analysts) making inane social commentary about Gamer babes and Amy G pushing soccer Mom culture and I think all of this is creating social media fans not baseball fans and it’s definitely created the distracted attitude at the game.
ENOUGH. Fans have to get involved.
Two examples:
Mat Latos was on the mound for the Reds earlier this year and he was tearing us apart. It was the bottom of the third at AT&T Park, midweek, daygame. It felt like a morgue. As soon as Latos strode to the mound I yelled, loudly, “Hey Mat! Oh My God! You have a no-hitter going! … Woah! Don’t think about it man!”
It freaked out my whole section and some tittered nervously.
On the next pitch Angel Pagan singled to right.
This was calculated. Watch the action, see what would help, plan your comment, wait for a quiet moment and throw it out into the field of play.
Second example was against the Nats when Timmy faced the Phenom and Melky was suspended – crazy game. But we were within striking distance at the end when Pablo popped up to the infield and ran hard for first. The crowd above the first base line shouted and screamed and went nuts forcing the second baseman to drop the pop-up, an error that allowed Panda to get on. It was awesome. Fruitless, but awesome.
The guys need you. Get involved in every play. If you brought kids, teach them to do the same. Pay attention and root for our guys. They can hear you.
You need to pump Zeets up. You need to encourage Pence and Blanco to be more patient at the plate. You need to push the Dodgers into mistakes.
