A stirring Giants comeback in the 8'th inning turned this game into a war of attrition that the Giants eventually lost in the bottom of the 15'th inning. Key lines:
Andres Torres- 4 for 6, BB, SB(16), Assist(Seth Smith at home). BA= .285. It was almost like this was a battle of leadoff hitters as Torres reached base 5 times and Rockies leadoff hitter Dexter Fowler reached 7 times. Unfortunately, Fowler's last on-base was the game clincher.
Travis Ishikawa- 2 for 4. Hopefully Travis earned himself some more starts after the last two games.
Nate Schierholtz- 1 for 4, HR(2). BA= .267. The PH HR got the Giants their first run and ignited the 3 run rally that enabled them to extend it to extra innings, but Nate failed to deliver in subsequent AB's. Still, Rowand's AB's in extra innings were truly awful and Nate should be getting more starts as he is the LH speed guy Sabean was saying the Giants need more of.
Matt Cain- 7 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 4 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 2.98. I guess you can't really deny the Cy Young winner from the last two seasons an All-Star birth, but Cain has pitched better than Timmy. Still, as the 4 BB's show, there is still room for improvement with Cainer.
Bullpen(8 pitchers)- 7.1 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 11 BB, 8 K's. All in all, Giants pitchers issued 15 walks, 5 of which were IBB's, 4 of the IBB's were in the last two innings after leadoff triples. Mota got out of it in the 14'th, but you had to know it wasn't going to happen again the very next inning.
The Bochy-hating wing of the Giants blogosphere is livid at the way Bochy managed this game. Probably the most suspect move came in the 8'th inning when he pinch ran Eli Whiteside for Buster Posey after Buster had singled Sandoval to 3B with 2 outs. Bochy's rationale apparently was that he thought Whiteside had a better chance to score from first on a ball hit into the gap.
Now, that's a head scratching move, to be sure. Maybe Whiteside is a slightly faster runner than Posey. Maybe he has a few extra years of experience running the bases, although both runners would be going with the crack of the bat with two outs. How likely is it that a ball is going to be hit in the gap at that point vs the game going to extra innings and Bochy needing the better hitter in future innings? Seems like the latter is a bit more likely, but I guess it's debatable. The only possible explanation I can think of is maybe Posey is nursing a minor injury that the Giants don't want the rest of the league to know about and Bochy is taking one for the team with his explanation.
The key point at which the move might have made the difference in the game was in the 13'th inning when Aubrey Huff led off with a triple and Burrell struck out in the next AB. Whiteside came up and struck out too in the spot Posey would have batted had he stayed in the game. Whether Posey would have gotten the run home in that spot is quite speculative. Posey seems less likely to K in that situation, but he hadn't been tearing the cover off the ball before his single and Rogers was throwing very nasty stuff.
I thought Bochy managed the pitching and defense about as well as it can be managed. Ultimately, he was outgunned in the bullpen. It's likely that Bochy was just as frustrated with the Giants failure to execute on offense as any of us fans, knew he was outgunned in the bullpen and believed he had to win the game in the 8'th inning or ultimately lose it. Barring some sort of minor injury to Posey that he's hiding, I don't think pinch running for Posey was the right move. On the other hand, it is very unlikely that it cost the Giants the game. This game was lost by the Giants players failing to execute, particularly on offense.
The loss was costly as the top 3 teams in the NL West all won dropping the Giants 7.5 games behind the division leading Padres. LA beat the D'Backs 3-1 to stay 3.5 games off the pace while Colorado stayed 5 games back. The Padres edged the Astros 3-2 to continue their remarkable run.
The Giants now go to Milwaukee after a very debilitating game with Jonathan Sanchez taking the hill against Prince Fielder and the BrewCrew. Prince started the year slowly but has heated it up lately. It will be the Giant's pitching vs the BrewCrew's hitting in this one with the remainder of the Giants' season hanging in the balance.
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ReplyDeleteBruce Bochy’s odd decision to pinch run Eli Whiteside for Buster Posey seems to be the hot topic back home. It’s covered in the game story.
I paraphrased Bochy, but didn’t use his exact quote. Here it is: “Yeah. More speed. A ball in the gap, he’s going to score. He runs well. And that almost happened.”
Here’s another point against the decision that wasn’t mentioned in that space: The Giants only have a four-man bench because they’re temporarily going with a 13-man staff.
So for the negligible benefit (if any) of Whiteside’s speed over Posey’s, Bochy not only had to watch Whiteside look overmatched in two later situations where he could’ve won the game, but Bochy also used a quarter of his bench to make that move.
And let’s also not forget that Whiteside made a throwing error to second base. Earlier in the game, Posey threw two seeds to second base to catch runners.
When I don’t understand a manager’s move, I don’t necessarily assume he’s right. But I’ll wonder if I’m missing some vital piece of information. For example, when Posey sat last week, turns out, it was because they wanted to showcase Bengie Molina for a trade.
So what was happening here? Was Posey hurt? Nope, we checked. Bochy insisted Posey was fine.
So maybe there just isn’t that much to figure out here. Quite simply, many folks will feel that Bochy cost the Giants this game, and they’ll have a case.
no...posey is not injured. yes, bochy thinks that whiteside has more speed. no, bochy wasnt worried about his bench being depleted.
lets not forget that when he brought in nate, he sent huff to first, removing ti...so that rowand could stay in the lineup.
lets not forget that when he brought in uribe, he took out pands...so that rentaria could stay in the lineup.
rowand and rentaria went a combined 1-12 in the game
no...we shouldnt be upset in the least about bochy's moves...they made alot of sense
oh...and ti was 2 for 4 when he was lifted...and the panda had just smacked a ball that if it were not for the wind knocking it down, would have been a sure dinger...and was only caught because fowlwer is a darn good of.
"Bochy....had to watch Whiteside look overmatched in two later situations where he could have won the game."
ReplyDeleteThat's hindsight. I'm not saying Whiteside is as good a hitter as Buster, but Whiteside has had some big hits in those kinds of situations for Bochy and the Giants. Esmail Rogers pretty much overmatched everybody he faced except Aubrey Huff.
"Let's not forget Whiteside made the throwing error..."
Now that's REALLY hindsight. Whiteside has been a good defensive catcher for the Giants.
I won't defend leaving Rowand in the game, or playing him at all. I'm not sure what the Giants should do with Rowand, but it's pretty much come to the point where his contract is lost money anyway and he's hurting the team by his mere presence on it. That's an issue Sabean will have to address soon if the season tanks which it appears to be doing right now.
Renteria is hitting over .300, at least he was before this game, and he has a bit more range that Uribe at SS. You could make a case for doing it differently, but it's not an impeachable offense.
Once again, Bochy strength is not game management, although I do think you have to balance his curious substitutions and double switches(He's brought Travis in on double switches many times, so I don't think it's anything against Travis. The man just loves his double switches!) with his management of the pitching staff which I believe he gets as much out of as a manager possibly can including this game.
There are about a hundred reasons why the Giants lost this game. At least 97 of them are the players failing to execute(Hammel's dominance of the hitters through 7 innings, 10 non-intentional BB's, Dexter Fowler, etc) Maybe 1 or 2 are Bochy's managing, aided by a ton of speculation and hindsight. The rest is dumb luck.
If, and when, the players stop playing hard for Bochy, or if, and when, he's clearly refusing to implement an organizational "go young" philosophy, then he should be fired. I don't see that happening right yet.
I'll amend my comment above about Rowand to say that his situation needs to be addressed by the organization irrespective of whether the season tanks or not. Rowand is not going to contribute to a pennant run whether the Giants are in it or not.
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