Results tagged ‘ Wild Card ’
Feeling Black and (Dodger) Blue
It’s 7-1 Dodgers in the 7th inning and Bob Howry has (predictably) given up a couple runs after Merkin Valdez left with the bases loaded and nobody out.
I think it’s safe to tag this one as a loss.
Oh no, wait. 9-1 Dodgers.
Why is Bochy still using Bob Howry??? Get him off the team!!! He doesn’t contribute anything!!! He’s Tyler Walker all over again!!!
Okay, breathe.
It’s just hard to grasp what has happened to the Giants in the past couple weeks. Ever since they came off that amazing homestand where they swept the Rockies, they’ve been slowly spiraling downward, whereas it’s been the opposite with Colorado, who has been 9-1 since then.
Talk about cruel irony for the orange and black.
But while it is ironic, I wouldn’t say it was a horrible twist of fate or anything like that, because that would suggest that the Giants had a lot of bad luck. But if the Giants don’t make the Wild Card (and each day it’s looking more and more unlikely), it will be wholly their own fault.
Everyone knew going into offseason that our biggest need was hitting, yet the front office did nothing about it until the All Star Break when the Giants were unexpectedly in contention. Yes, Freddy Sanchez was a nice pick up, but what was stopping Sabean from making a move to pick up a solid hitter in the offseason? Why did he have to wait until halfway through the season? Besides not having a lot of power, this team as a whole is often terribly impatient at the plate (hence why Kuroda only had a pitch count of 62 going into the 7th inning tonight against, and it’s been well documented that they can’t play small ball through their lack of bunting skills.
Speaking of which, that reminds me of an interesting quote I heard earlier today. As I think I’ve mentioned before, this summer I’ve been working as an intern at KNBR. Today was my last day since I’ll be going back to college next weekend, and I worked a KNBR sponsored client batting practice at the ballpark. It was a pretty cool event that gave people an opportunity to hit and field at AT&T Park, and along with that they got to meet former Giants Vida Blue and Tito Fuentes. After the batting practice a Q&A session was held in the visitors’ dugout where guests got to ask Vida and Tito questions about their careers, although not many people asked questions; a lot of it was the two of them going off and telling their own stories, which was just as interesting and entertaining. Anyway, at one point Vida Blue brought up the Giants’ inability to do the little things and used Kevin Frandsen’s pop-up bunt in the eighth inning of a game against the Padres a few days ago as an example. He essentially said that you can’t do that because it’s Major League Baseball, and he joked, “Tito could’ve gone up and gotten it done.” While Vida was mixing humor into what he said here, you could tell he was still being serious, and I just found it interesting that he was pretty blunt about it.
On a side note, although I’m only nineteen and therefore wasn’t alive to see Fuentes and Blue when they played, I appreciated being around them today. They were both really friendly and outgoing and interacted with fans the entire time, with Fuentes giving people coming up to bat hitting tips and Blue throwing a short live pitching session to some of the clients. I also thought Vida was especially classy when he called for a moment of silence during the Q&A to honor the victims of 9/11.
I really don’t enjoy complaining about my baseball team; like I’ve said before, in the end no matter how critical I get of the Giants, they will still always be my favorite team. But lately they haven’t been giving us fans much to be happy about, and tonight was no exception. They got shut down by another not-so-great pitcher in Hiroki Kuroda, who at one point retired nineteen batters in a row. It seems like ever since the final game against the Rockies during the homestand, the momentum they kept rebuilding has finally run out. Tonight they had an opportunity to start building it back up again after a poor series against a poor team, but instead they got blown out by their archrival with one of their aces on the mound. Needless to say, this was the worst case scenario in terms of how to start the biggest six-game stretch of the year.
I really want to believe in this team. I’ll fully admit I was one of the people who had very, very little hope left after the 14-inning game in Colorado. Well, they proved me wrong and stormed back to tie the Rockies in the Wild Card the same week I thought they were done. But based on how the past few series’ have gone for the Giants, my hope is starting to fade.
I was going to end this entry with, “Oh well, at least the Rockies lost”, but no. They came back against the Padres and won 4-1.
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.
Insert Penny-Related Cliche Here
Eight innings pitched. Five hits, one walk, two strikeouts, no earned runs.
Welcome to the Giants, Brad Penny.
I know it’s only one start, but I think this proves the naysayers of this signing wrong, at least for the time being.
Although Bochy said he was only expecting five innings out of him, there was still pressure on Penny coming to a new team and having to make his first start in a hitter-friendly ballpark, especially since a loss would mean losing the series and losing ground in the Wild Card.
But Penny stepped up in a big way. He didn’t allow a single run in a ballpark built for a great lineup like Philadelphia has. And yes the Phillies have been struggling to produce runs lately, but they’re still the best offensive team in the National League.
I’m not going to go crazy with praise over one start from this guy. But like I said when the Giants signed him a couple days ago, it’s safe to say Brad Penny is a better option than Martinez, Sadowski or any other option we have in the minors right now (excluding Bumgarner, because I still think it’s too early to call him up). Plus he hates the Dodgers…come on, what’s not to like?
I’ve heard from some Giants fans that while the signing of Brad Penny is not bad, we should’ve gotten another bat instead of a pitcher. But I don’t see how getting a guy to fill in the hole in the rotation impedes us getting a hitter. I agree that we need another hitter down the stretch; I don’t think any Giants fan can argue we don’t. It makes me nervous putting all the pressure for getting hits on guys like Pablo, Bengie and Freddy Sanchez, especially since the latter two have been banged up lately. And even though Buster Posey has a reputation for being a good hitting catcher, we can’t expect him to immediately start producing now that he’s in the Majors; hell, a couple weeks ago Sabean was adamantly saying Posey wouldn’t be brought up this year.
So why not Jermaine Dye? I know I’m not exactly thinking out-of-the-box here, but it seems like an obvious, logical choice. The White Sox have waved the white flag and started their fire sale of veterans, and Dye is hitting .260 with 25 homers and 72 RBI’s. He’s a right-fielder so he could platoon in the outfield and when he’s not playing he could be a good bat off the bench.
But hey, I don’t feel like complaining tonight. Brad Penny just got his first win as a Giant, Buster’s in the bigs and Timmy’s on the mound tomorrow to close out the series.
Penny For Your Thoughts?
It’s 9-0 Diamondbacks in the ninth inning, and Kruk and Kuip are now covering a rock-paper-scissors match between two kids. At this point I would rather watch that than the game…but hey, I’m a masochist when it comes to this team, so I still have it on in the background.
Oh look, Bob Howry can pitch decently–when there’s no pressure on him.
Thanks Bobby.
No wait, he just gave up two doubles in a row. 11-0 Arizona. Finally. I was getting worried that Howry might suddenly become a dependable guy out of the bullpen.
Yeah, I’m bitter tonight. We’re getting absolutely whooped by a team that’s 15+ games under .500 when we had a chance to sweep them and gain ground on the Rockies in the NL Wild Card, since they lost to the Dodgers earlier today.
Can I say I’m that surprised? Not really. Joe Martinez was probably kept in too long but hey, the bullpen has been battered lately and it was evident from the get-go that we probably didn’t have another comeback in the bag tonight, especially as the runs started to pile up.
To me, this game makes it obvious that we need someone else in the five-hole of this rotation. One can argue that the Giants have more things to worry about than who the fifth guy in the starting rotation is (like their offense), but I still think it’s of concern. Sadowski and Martinez have both been feel-good stories coming onto this pitching staff and looked decent in their first couple starts, but both subsequently went downhill in their outings. Plus as I recall, both Sadowski and Martinez benefited in their first start or two from a rare outpouring of offense by the Giants that guaranteed wins for them in those starts.
So I’m of the opinion that the Giants should find a more reliable guy to plug into the five-hole. Yes it’s the fifth spot in the rotation, but every game counts going down the stretch if the Giants have any semblance of playoff aspirations left and we can’t afford to have Joe Martinez getting blown up in any game, whether it’s against a contending team or not. Who should the Giants’ fifth starter be? Well the first name on the tips of many Giants fans’ tongues is probably Madison Bumgarner. He’s been brilliant at the Double-A level with a 9-1 record and an ERA under 2.00–but the problem is that he’s only in Double-A right now. You can’t just have Bumgarner skip Triple-A and come immediately to the big leagues, no matter how much of a phenom he looks like right now. Even if the Giants might be making a playoff push here, I wouldn’t want to see his development hurt or him rushed too much for that sake. Promote him to Fresno soon and at least give him a couple starts, then if the Giants are still in it in mid to late September, maybe consider giving him a shot at his first Major League start.
Who else? Eh, maybe you can throw out a Kevin Pucetas at me, but he’s got an ERA over 4.00 and besides, the past two times the Giants have brought up a minor-leaguer to fill in the five-hole it hasn’t worked out too well.
The most intriguing option to me is Brad Penny, who was released by the Boston Red Sox yesterday and is garnering interest from many teams, including the San Francisco Giants. Has he struggled lately? Yes. For the year he’s gone 7-8 with a 5.61 ERA, and in August his record is 0-3 with an ERA of 8.31. But he is a veteran pitcher and would be benefited by pitching in AT&T Park. Plus as a former Dodger he’s familiar with the National League West and he would probably enjoy the opportunity to stick it to his old team since they didn’t part ways well. And hey, he’s out there for $1 million. If we’re paying Rich Aurilia one million dollars to be a benchwarmer so management doesn’t have to be the heavy and outright release him, can’t we pay Brad Penny that to quite possibly be the best #5 guy we’ve had all year?
Sounds like a good idea to me.
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”
The Long-Awaited Bat
Well, it’s the moment Giants fans like me have been waiting for.
We’ve been complaining for years about our subpar offense and the hesitance of the front office to ever make a significant move around July 31, but Sabean finally put his ‘doing our do-diligence’ attitude aside and pulled the trigger on a trade that sends a spark to our dull lineup.
It’s more understandable in the past couple years that Sabean didn’t make any deals around the trade deadline besides small ones to shed some salary (a la Matt Morris for Rajai Davis) because we didn’t have a contending team. Last year at the All Star Break we were 15 games under .500; this year we were 10 games over. So when everyone started to realize just how stellar our pitching staff is and that we do have a shot at contention a year or two earlier than expected, fans like myself started clamoring for a deal to be made, especially for a legitimate hitter. Really we should have signed someone in the offseason, but I’m not going to go back and get pissed about that now. Because now it’s July 29, the Giants are leading the Wild Card, AND WE HAVE FREDDY SANCHEZ.
I’ll admit I had a couple negative reactions to the trade initially. The first one was when I heard they traded Tim Alderson for Sanchez. I’d been following the trade rumors on mlbtraderumors.com and heard at first that it was going to be Sanchez for John Bowker, Kevin Frandsen and Jesus Guzman. Guess you can’t pull the wool over the eyes of Pirates management as easily as I thought, because the Giants gave up a legitimate prospect for Sanchez. Now I realize Alderson is just that–a prospect. And is it better than giving up Bumgarner? Of course. But just because Alderson hasn’t been touted nearly as much as Bumgarner doesn’t mean he isn’t a good pitcher. He’s the #4 overall prospect in the Giants’ farm system and had a 3.47 ERA in Double AA this year. I know the old saying that you have to give talent to get talent (I think I used it in one of my previous blog entries, in fact) and I know that we were dealing from a big strength, but it still stung a little to hear that Alderson was dealt. But you know what? We needed offense desperately, much more so than we needed to hold on to another pitching prospect, so I can’t complain. Also, the trade for Alderson indicates that the front office is wholly serious about making a run for the playoffs, and I’m pretty happy about that.
With Freddy Sanchez, we get a solid hitter. He’s not a power hitter (he has six home runs this year), but he’s hitting .296 and has a high on-base percentage. He’s a huge upgrade at second base, especially considering it’s been a rotating position for the Giants this year. He’s a four-time All Star and has been one of the faces of the Pittsburgh Pirates for the past six years, so he likely has some leadership qualities, too. Overall, I don’t think this is a pickup that Giants fans can or should gripe about. Yes we gave up a good pitching prospect, but we got a good, Major League proven hitter in return, and we needed that a lot more than an unproven pitcher.
First Entry!
…so I’ve been meaning to create an MLB blog for awhile; I guess the Giants 6-3 win over the Cardinals inspired me. Basically I really like to write and I talk about Giants baseball A LOT, so I figured combining the two would make a lot of sense. If anyone has any feedback or just wants to talk baseball, let me know!
Now let me take a minute to opine (that’s the word I’m looking for, right? Like commending?) on my San Francisco Giants. I would say I’m probably giddy. I know it’s only July 1 so there’s a lot of baseball left to be played, but I think Giants fans deserve to be excited. As I was trying to explain to my mom (who isn’t really a sports fan but whom I’ve influenced to get into Giants baseball), this is the first time we’ve really had hope since 2004, when we were in the race with the Dodgers right up to the end, when Steve Finley crushed our aspirations for the playoffs with a clutch grand slam.
I don’t think even the most optimistic Giants fans believed the team would be this good this year, and if they did they were probably ridiculed for having pie-in-the-sky hopes. I mean, they’re still not a great team; the pitching is phenomenal, but they could definitely use another bat, even though they’ve been hitting well lately. But nobody thought that on July 1, the Giants would be eight games above .500 and leading the National League Wild Card. Does the Wild Card matter in July? No, so I can see why a lot of people might still be skeptical and saying, “Wake me up in September.” But because of the low expectations myself and many other people had for the Giants in 2009, I can’t help but be really excited by our record and the fact that we have a mere shot at the postseason.
I’m going to try not to get ahead of myself since we haven’t even reached the All Star Break yet. But I can’t help but grin a little when I see the standings…
mlblogsheartinsf55
Recent Comments