Results tagged ‘ Road Trip ’
Timmy, Giants Baffled by San Diego Padres
After Saturday’s momentum-swinging (or so us Giants fans hoped) victory over the San Diego Padres, many people billed Tim Lincecum’s Sunday afternoon rubber match start as crucial, perhaps even the most important of his young career considering the ramifications that winning a series against the division-leading Padres would hold. Fans were tentatively cautious that our ace could go out and return to his Cy Young form, or at least get through six solid-ish innings without getting hit too hard.
But instead the above picture of him walking off the mound for good in the 4th inning tells the story. It is Lincecum, the back-to-back Cy Young winner, the one nicknamed “The Franchise,” heading back to the dugout with his head down after giving up six runs without getting through even four innings.
It’s definitely a cause for concern now. I know that Timmy and us Giants fans hold him to such high standards since he has performed so extraordinarily his first full years in the big leagues. And when he’s had starts that for most pitchers would be good but not fantastic, everyone’s asked, “What’s wrong with Lincecum?”
But after a string of lousy starts; after giving up four runs in the first inning of his last start for the first time in his career, then coming out today in a game against our biggest rivals right now and pitching so poorly, it’s fair for Giants fans to definitely be worried about our star player.
Many people have called KNBR locally and written on local blogs to speculate what Lincecum’s issue must be, and the theories range from “he must be hurt” to “he needs time off” to “he’s smoking too much dope” and “he’s not smoking enough dope” (of course the latter two theories aren’t shocking, coming from San Francisco, where people sell “Let Tim Smoke” t-shirts outside our stadium). I kind of feel wrong to put a firm diagnosis on Lincecum when I know nothing about baseball mechanics compared to guys like his father and team pitching coach Dave Righetti.
But I guess like everyone else, it’s fair game to talk about it and wonder. He’s definitely not the same pitcher that wowed the baseball world the past two years, that had experts who claimed his size would lead to a physical breakdown baffled and awed over his delivery. His velocity is down, he’s allowing a ton more walks and he can’t dig himself out of big innings.
What I want to believe is that it’s all mental; that Lincecum is, in a way, pulling a Zito, feeling the mental pressure of becoming one of the faces of the franchise, of having a large contract. I want to think that all he needs is a side session with his dad and maybe a couple days off, and he’ll be back to good ole’ Timmy.
At the same time, however, I can’t help but fear for the worst. I know the team wouldn’t be running Timmy out there if he were seriously hurt; I’m just concerned that he is physically worn out and won’t be able to regain the velocity on his fastball or his dominance on the mound back at all, let alone down the stretch the next couple months. I hope that this is something that he can work on in the offseason; that he just needs a better workout regiment or something. If you go back to the Zito comparison, he improved after a summer spent working out with Brian Wilson, and now that he’s relaxed mentally and separated himself from his $126 million dollar contract he’s become a better pitcher.
But hell, I really don’t know. If any of you guys who might’ve come across my blog want to comment with your theories, have at it; all I can hope is that Lincecum can turn it around soon, or else we’ll be missing the key of our pitching staff in the most crucial part of the season.
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A few random notes from this series…
1. Jonathan Sanchez had to put up or shut up, and after his predictably poor performance against San Diego on Friday, it’s time to leave the bold predictions to the fans. I’m glad he’s passionate, but it wasn’t appropriate for him to declare we would sweep the Padres after a bad start in Atlanta and considering his Jekyll-and-Hyde style of pitching, as I like to call it.
2. I am done with Aaron Rowand. In my preseason blog entry I predicted that Rowand would have a better average this season and that he’d be a crucial part of how the Giants did this year; boy, it looks like I was wrong. It’s so frustrating watching him come to the plate (whether in crucial at-bats or not) and either strike out or hit into a double play. Would I like to see him turn it around and be one of the veterans to help carry the team into September (and possibly beyond)? Of course, but not if it means taking playing time away from Aubrey Huff, Andres Torres or even Jose Guillen (even though his defense is shoddy). If he can pinch hit late in the game and start to get hits when it counts, maybe I can reconsider this stance; however at this rate I don’t even want to see him in those situations.
3. I’m okay with the Jose Guillen trade. It’s like picking up Pat Burrell–the other team is paying most of his contract to go away, and we traded away a very low prospect to get a proven bat. I was initially concerned about the whole “clubhouse cancer” moniker, but I agree with the fact that he’ll be happy and cooperate as long as we keep playing well and have a chance for the playoffs.
4. This next stretch of nine games is CRUCIAL. Three in Philadelphia, three in St. Louis and then three at home against the Reds. We NEED to have a .500 road trip, then come home and take two out of three from the Reds. After that we play two more series at home against the Diamondbacks and Rockies, the latter of which worries me a little more.
So let’s break down the remainder of August. If we have a 3-3 road trip, then come home and take 2/3 from the Reds, sweep Arizona and take 2/3 from the Rockies, that’s a 10-5 record to finish August. I’m probably being a little too optimistic to think we can win the series against the Reds, and maybe a .500 road trip is too hopeful, as well. But all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and remain very cautiously optimistic.
A Frustrating .500 Road Trip
I know the title of this entry might sound oxymoronic since generally a 3-3 road trip is lauded as decent, especially for a Giants team that has been anything but road warriors this year.
But when your pitching staff gives up only nine runs in six games to two teams that can definitely hit for power and the offense can barely do anything to support them, it’s frustrating as hell.
The series in Philadelphia was an especially bitter pill to swallow. We lost the first game 1-0 as our offense was unable to get anything done against Cole Hamels, who has been shaky this year for Philly but looked like the World Series MVP that he was in ’08 against the soft-hitting Gigantes. The Giants’ pitching staff (well, Brad Penny and Jeremy Affeldt) then combined to shut out the powerful Phillies offense the next night in a 4-0 victory.
So then came the rubber match of the series, which was wholly set up in the Giants’ favor with Lincecum on the mound against three-time Cy Young winner Pedro Martinez.
But oh man. Talk about ‘Party Like It’s 1999′ for Martinez.
He made the Giants look ridiculous and gave baseball fans flashbacks to a much younger, more dominant Pedro…so of course the Giants got Lincecum zilch run support. Well okay, one run often can be enough for Timmy, but unfortunately it wasn’t that night. He only gave up two runs and had 11 strikeouts but still got tagged with the loss because–say it with me–the offense failed again.
Oh, and a side note on that game before I move on to Milwaukee–Bochy, stop using Fred Lewis as a pinch-hitter!!! Why do you continue looking to him as a reliable guy to come up in an important situation??? The only unpredictable thing he did in that at-bat with two on and two out in Philly was that he grounded out instead of striking out. I don’t care what the situation is; throw the traditional righty-lefty match-up stuff out the window when it comes to Lewis. Unless he’s the last guy left on the bench or he’s got (in the words of Mike Krukow) serious, serious ownage on the opposing pitcher, I don’t want to see him.
The bottom line with the Philly series: I give the Giants pitching staff a lot of credit for holding the best lineup in the National League to only three runs in two games. But when you do that and still manage to lose the series, it pretty much erases that accomplishment.
Moving on from cheesesteaks to cheeseheads, where it was unfortunately more of the same. Yes, the Giants took the series from the Brew-crew, but that was to be expected for a team trying to make the playoffs. They still barely eeked out the first two wins by 3-2 finals, and today they had a chance at a sweep with a recently much better Jonathan Sanchez on the mound. Sanchez pitched well again today but ended up with a no-decision since the Giants couldn’t do much against Braden Looper. Their best opportunity came in the sixth inning with two on, nobody out and Aaron Rowand at the plate, but then came the triple play that pretty much summed up the Giants’ offense this road trip and the year overall. But hey, I’ll give them credit for finding a new, more dramatic way of not getting the job done with runners in scoring position.
So the game inched on into extra innings and I just had that sinking feeling in my stomach that it wasn’t going to end well. It started when Bochy brought out Bob Howry, which signaled ‘walk-off home run’ alarm bells in my head, especially when Prince Fielder came up. Turns out I was right, but a bit premature as Howry struck out Fielder and barely managed to get out of the inning without giving up the game-winning hit. But then when Juan Uribe popped up a bunt which Brewers catcher Jason Kendall caught, the bad feeling intensified. Granted, Kendall made a great catch…but still, a pop-up bunt for an out? Bad, bad bad. I won’t get too annoyed with Uribe about it, though since he’s been one of the best, most surprising guys in our lineup this year…but still, the entire team needs a huge workshop on bunting.
So then came the 12th inning with Merkin Valdez pitching for the G-Men, the guy who gave up the infamous walk-off grand slam to the Rockies in what has been informally dubbed The Game Which Cannot Be Spoken Of. And here comes Prince Fielder. Sure enough…
…the Giants got bowled over by the Prince, thus sending them back to the city by the Bay with a not-so-great .500 road trip and a loss that sends them two games back of the Colorado Rockies.
Speaking of the Rockies…can they just lose already?! The New York Mets and Arizona Diamondbacks did us no favors this past week except when the Mets beat’em on the night where Lincecum took the hard-luck loss in Philly. Colorado’s schedule continues to look pretty soft for the remainder of the year; tomorrow they open a four-game series at home against the Cincinnati Reds before going on the road to play the Padres, us and the Diamondbacks. Besides the series against us, the only other time they’ll play a team above .500 the rest of the month is when they play the Cardinals at home; then in October they close out the regular season by going to LA. Meanwhile, the Giants have to face the Dodgers and Rockies back-to-back thiscoming homestand, then go on the road to Los Angeles and Arizona. They close out September at home against the Cubs and Diamondbacks (man, lots of Arizona in the span of a week), then end the regular season in San Diego.
So overall I think the Rockies have the softer schedule; however, San Francisco has a couple advantages in that a. they play three more games at home over the remainder of the season than the Rockies do and b. they have an easier last week on paper in that they play the Cubs, D-Backs and Padres while the Rockies play the Cardinals, Brewers and Dodgers. But I guess the question is whether or not the latter point will matter once we hit the end of the month. The Giants’ offense seriously needs to step up in order to stay in contention, and whether or not that happens will determine if they make the playoffs. It’s not about the starting pitching; they’ve shown time and time again that they can be relied upon. Does the realization that the Giants’ Wild Card hopes rest on this lineup make me queasy? Definitely. I think the keys to this offense stepping up rely on three components: veterans like Aaron Rowand and Bengie Molina, Pablo Sandoval getting hot again, and the return of Freddy Sanchez off his DL stint. If all these ingredients come together for the Giants in a positive way and the pitching staff does what they’ve done all year, then we’ve definitely got a shot.
On a side note, as I’ve been writing this entry and others I realize I may come off as really cynical, harsh and pessimistic about the Giants…and I guess the truth is I am. But it’s kind of like if you have a friend who you know is smart but constantly slacks off in school by cutting class often and not doing his homework: you get really angry with them and may come off as mean by doing so, but in the end it’s because you care about them and know they have a lot of potential. That’s how I am with this baseball team; I can love them one day and hate them the next, can praise a player one day and scream profanities at the TV when they strike out again the next day, but it’s not fickleness–it’s because I have my heart 100% invested in this team and want them to succeed. This is the team I started watching in the 2002 World Series and didn’t turn away from even after Game 6, that I’ve stuck by ever since the good times and the many bad ones from recent woeful years. I’m not one of the bandwagon fans who left with Barry Bonds and his home run chase after the 2007 season, and I’m not one of the bandwagon fans that will start showing up if (big if) the Giants make the playoffs. Even after the horrible loss in Colorado a couple weeks ago I didn’t start tuning out their games, even though I did feel like our playoff hopes had been dashed. So no matter how this season ends, I’ll still find myself quickly counting down the days til they return.
I’ll be out at the ballpark tomorrow and am looking forward to seeing Brad Penny’s AT&T Park debut as a Giant. No better way to spend a holiday afternoon than out at the yard, in my opinion.
Show Me Whatcha Got/Reflections on Wednesday’s Game
Before I get into talking about this make-or-break road trip for the Giants, I have to reflect on yesterday’s Giants-Dodgers game.
Ugly? Yes. Makes you think of umpire conspiracies? Yes. But it was the most exciting Giants game of the year (Sanchez’s no-hitter notwithstanding) and one of the best games I’ve ever been to.
There were just so many elements factoring into the game to make it interesting before it even started. An afternoon game with Lincecum on the mound and the Giants trying to avoid a sweep at the hands of their archrivals before leaving for a grueling road trip. The previous game was an ugly one, a blowout for Los Angeles in a pivotal game for the Giants to win. The night before that was not as bad of a loss but still left a bitter taste in the mouths of the orange and black thanks to two bad calls by the first base umpire. All those storylines made for an interesting afternoon from the onset and altogether spelled out one thing: must-win.
The ultimate box score–a 4-2 win for the Giants and a no-decision for Tim Lincecum after pitching 8 2/3 innings–was no surprise. But when you add in all the other occurences it made for a chaotic game that was not particularly well played, but extremely entertaining and an instant classic.
When you add it all together, you’ve got a dominant start by Lincecum that went awry when he was one strike to Andre Eithier shy of another complete game. You’ve got not one but two Giants managers being ejected from the game (Bochy and Wotus, his back-up) after two more bad calls by the first base umpire, leaving it up to Tim Flannery. (By the way, as a side note–you took Schierholz out for Rowand? Really? Lefty-righty matchup or not, every fan sitting with me in the bleachers knew it was going to end in a double play). There’s the great slide into home plate by Eugenio Velez that Russell Martin didn’t like too much, which ultimately led to Pablo Pandoval getting hit and a dugout-clearing jawing match with Renteria leading the charge.
Finally, after all that, you’ve got the most improbable person going from goat to hero for the Giants when Juan Uribe hits the walk-off home run to end it in the 10th after Wilson came in to relieve Lincecum. Right before it happened I turned to my brother sitting next to me and said, “Well, if Uribe can get the game-winning hit here, all will be forgiven” and there it was. He had a big error in the 9th and left seven men on base in the game all by himself, and then he winds up on home plate with the foghorn sounding and his teammates jumping up and down on top of him. It was a crazy capper to a crazy game and it left me leaving the ballpark saying over and over, “Did that really just happen?!” It was just one of the most electrifying games I’ve ever been to. I was screaming the whole time (I often yell during important points in the game, but I was going all-out yesterday) to the point where my head and heart were pounding and my throat stung. It was one of those games where you knew they had to win, and not just in the sense that it was an important game in terms of avoiding the sweep and building momentum for the road trip but also in terms of it being a sort of destiny. I know that might sound corny, but there’s really no other way of saying it.
But after waxing poetic about Wednesday’s game, it’s time to look at the bigger picture. In the end, this was still a near disastrous homestand for the Giants. Going into it, I figured the Giants had a pretty good chance of sweeping the Reds and that they could possibly take two out of three from the Dodgers. They wound up losing the series to Cincinnati and to the Dodgers to make a 2-4 homestand, and now they have to go on their longest road trip of the year and play the New York Mets, the Reds again and the Colorado Rockies who are torching the universe and constantly on the Giants’ heels atop the NL Wild Card. To me, the Giants need to be able to take the series’ from the Mets and Reds and at least split with Colorado in order for them to still be considered contenders when they come back to play Arizona on August 25 in San Francisco. I know the Giants have all those road woes, but I don’t feel that those are high expectations. Yes it’s great that the Giants have been so dominant at home this year, but it’s not enough. I’ve quoted Damon Bruce on this before and I will again because I think it rings true: the team you are at home is the team you want to be and could be, but the team you are on the road is who you are. So in order for the excitement surrounding this team to continue and for them to be taken as serious playoff contenders, the Giants need to start improving who they are. This is an immensely pivotal road trip, and I seriously hope they come back still intact. After the unexpected excitement and hope for this season, I wouldn’t want it to end in August.
So going out on a classic Eminem lyric:
“You’ve only got one shot, do not miss your chance to blow/This opportunity only comes once in a lifetime”
Reality Check and the Possibilities of Now
I haven’t been keeping up with my blog that well (i.e. at all) since I started it three weeks ago when I was flying high on my San Francisco Giants and the fact that they were playing the best baseball since I became a serious fan of the team.
Well, didn’t take long for that dream bubble to get popped.
Maybe that’s a little harsh. All hope is certainly not lost; there are more than two months left of the regular season. However, a dismal 1-5 start to the second half is definitely enough to have Giants fans like myself questioning the success of the first half and wondering if it was too good to be true.
Yes, it is a road trip and the Giants haven’t been a good road team in years, with this year being no exception as they are 19-29 away from home. But I don’t feel like that can be used as an excuse, especially with this road trip in particular. A team that considers themselves a contender should be able to win a series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, regardless of whether it’s at home or away and regardless of the fact that the team is just coming back from the All Star Break. The Atlanta Braves are a little tougher, but the Giants should have been able to at least split the four-game series; now they’re going into tomorrow counting on Barry Zito to bring out his better half and their offense to get at least a couple runs to support him to avoid the sweep.
The whole home-away record comparison reminds me of a good point I heard KNBR host Damon Bruce say tonight. He said something to the effect of, “A team playing at home is what they could be, but a team on the road is what they are” because all the positive variables encompassed in the ‘comforts of home’ are removed once they go on the road. I hope that the Giants team that has showed up the past several games isn’t their true identity; it definitely doesn’t help that several key players (such as Molina, Rowand and Sandoval) are slumping. We’ve been counting on Rowand to hit well in the lead-off spot for awhile and now he’s a little banged up and slumping besides. Bengie is starting to turn around a little; I think until the eighth inning tonight he had the Giants’ only two hits against Jurjins. Sandoval is 1-for-26 on this road trip, however, and as Duane Kuiper said, “So goes Pablo, so go the Giants.” He is the face of the 2009 Giants with his bright personality, youthfulness and sweet swing that developed faster than anyone anticipated, so I don’t think it’s any coincidence that his luck at the plate and that of the team as a whole go hand-in-hand.
What this ugly start of the second half has showcased is that while the Giants have been a lot better than anyone expected this year, that alone may not be enough to get them to the playoffs, let alone far in them. We can’t continue putting the weight of the world on Lincecum and Cain to give up zero runs and on Panda to hit any ball that gets thrown his way. Tonight showed that especially–Lincecum had an unusually imperfect night with his second shortest outing of the season and four earned runs, and he ended up with a loss even though four runs isn’t an insurmountable deficit for most teams to overcome. The fact that the Giants’ record is so poor when they are not leading from the onset is a huge indicator that they need another bat in this lineup.
No offense to Lincecum, but I felt like he was towing the company line when he said the team shouldn’t add anyone else for fear of disrupting chemistry; however, at the same time I realize it’s not like he could really say, “Yes, trade someone and get me more run support!” I don’t think it would hurt team chemistry if they made a trade; rather, if they added a bat to their lineup I believe it would take pressure off guys like Bengie and Pablo to rake it and off Cain and Lincecum for feeling like they have to be near-perfect in every single start if they want a chance to win. It would also reinforce the idea that the Giants are a contending team and have a chance to make it to the postseason, which one would think would boost team moral, not hurt it.
Now I realize the cautious approach the front office is taking in not wanting to trade high-end prospects like Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner. Although they are unproven at the Major League level, I think they should be almost completely untouchable unless the Giants get an insane offer (i.e. if the San Diego Padres called and dangled Adrien Gonzalez). But since that seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, I would argue against trading our golden prospects. However, at the same time Brian Sabean can’t hesitate to pull the trigger for an offer that involves any minor league player; as the saying goes, you have to give talent to get talent. Maybe if you trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates you can pull the wool over their eyes and not give away much (a la the Matt Morris-Rajai Davis swap that helped get his hefty contract off our books), but that probably isn’t going to work with other teams.
This road trip has been reminiscient of the last time the Giants played this poorly, which was in May when Brian Sabean acknowledged the team needed to obtain a bat after we got swept in San Diego and lost two out of three to the Mariners. We’re 1-5 on this road trip again, and even if we can avoid getting swept in Atlanta tomorrow it’s not over yet; rather it’s off to the Mile High City to face one of the hottest teams in all of baseball, the Colorado Rockies. So my point is this: if Sabean said we needed a bat in May after a poor road trip against mediocre teams, how about now when we just did the same thing two months later?
I think the vast majority of Giants fans realize we cannot just stand pat with this team at the trading deadline like we have in recent years. Giants fans haven’t been able to hope like this since 2004, when Steve Finley crushed our postseason chances with a grand slam on one of the last days of the regular season. Think about it–that’s half a decade of saying, “Well, maybe next year” before the year was even through. Before this season started everyone in the baseball world was already writing off this year for the Giants and circling 2010 on the calendar. But much to everyone’s surprise, next year has arrived early, and Giants fans shouldn’t be deprived of the chance to fully take advantage of the possibilities of now. If the Giants could add a solid bat and the Big Money-Little Money combo can get going again, they have a shot at contention. And if they could make it to the playoffs, they couldn’t be written off right away, not in a short series with the one-two punch of Lincecum and Cain.
It seems that every year in the Major League Baseball postseason there is always an improbable upset. In 2007 it was the Colorado Rockies winning 20 of their last 21 games and riding their hot streak all the way to the World Series. Last year it was the Dodgers beating the Cubs in the first round of the playoffs and making it all the way to the NLCS. I know I’m getting way ahead of myself, but what if the Giants could be that team? The bottom line is that we’ll never know unless the front office realizes the golden opportunity they have with this season and goes out and gets a legitimate hitter to boost this offense so we at least have a shot at duplicating the success of the first half.
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