Sunday, August 22, 2010

Game Wrap 08-22-2010: Cardinals 9 Giants 0

Well, that was ugly! In yesterday's preview of today's game, I pointed out Jaime Garcia's 4.08 ERA over his last 10 starts and speculated that the Giants might have an easier time with him than his rumored replacement Kyle Lohse. Well, so much for that idea! No matter how well Lohse might have pitched against the Giants, he would have had a hard time bettering Garcia's performance today in one of the more dominating performances by any pitcher against the Giants this year. Suddenly, this Giants team is looking and playing like an old team. Oh, maybe that's because most of the players on the field today WERE OLD!! Key lines:

Barry Zito- 3.2 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 2 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 3.75. Just a horrific performance by Zito today. In fairness to him, the ump was squeezing him badly, and the Giants sent some statuary out behind him disguised as fielders. The result was a very ugly batting practice session for the Cards.

Jaime Garcia- 9 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K's, GO/AO= 15/4. Just total dominance from Garcia as he needed just 89 pitches to complete the full 9 innings. He faced just 28 batters. I drafted this guy for my fantasy team, the Savvy Vets, in the final round of my fantasy draft. He's been pure gold for my team ever since. It's looking like it might come down to choosing between him and Matt Cain for my pitching keeper. Man, Garcia just made that choice a lot harder today!

That's it! There were no offensive performances by Giants hitters worthy of mention as they got no runners past first base and sent just 28 batters to the plate in the game.

WIth the Loss, the Giants fall back to 6 games behind the NL West leading San Diego Padres who beat the BrewCrew 7-3 while the Card moved into a tie with the Giants for 2'nd in the Wild Card standings likely 2 games behind the Phillies who are leading the Nats 6-0 late in their game.

Matt Cain takes the hill tomorrow night in AT&T park facing Edinson Volquez and the Cincinnati Reds who are leading the NL Central by 3 games over the Cardinals, which should tell you something about how tough this 3 game series will be.

The Giants have apparently acquired OF David Ross from the Florida Marlins on waivers. It appears that the Giants may not have anticipated this outcome when they placed a claim on Ross which was reportedly made to block him from being traded to the Padres. When the Giants claimed him and then did not want to trade for him, the Marlins may have called their bluff and simply let him go, shedding the pro-rated remainder of his contract and transferring that to the Giants along with Ross's roster spot. The Giants are not going to make an announcement of a corresponding roster move until tomorrow. Ross would make the 6'th pure OF on the team. Out of Torres, Rowand, Burrell, Guillen and Nate, Nate would seem to be the guy on the bubble which is really a shame if the Giants really didn't want Ross. Of course, they could release Ross, but then the Padres could pick him up for virtually nothing, a much worse outcome than if the Giants had not claimed him and the Pads had been forced to trade him or pay his full prorated $1 M salary. What a mess! It's understandable why the Giants wanted to block Ross from going to SD, but I'll have to give Brian Sabean a razzberry on this one.

Addendum: Baggs seems to think the Giants will most likely put someone on the DL until rosters expand in a little over a week. I guess that isn't so bad. Cody Ross is a much better player than Nate in the short term. He even has a year of arbitration left. He'd be worth offering arb to. If he accepts, you get a pretty good player for 1 year. If he declines and signs elsewhere, you get a draft pick.

6 comments:

  1. Unless they are bale to 60-day someone, they will still need to DFA someone since they are already full on the 40-man. I would guess Hinshaw's time has come...

    Although the Giants got kinda stung here, I have a hard time blaming them. The Pads need an OF in the worst way, and Ross seemed perfect for them. It did not work out, but I think the risk was worth it to prevent him from going to SD...

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  2. Yeah, not sure what Hinshaw is doing on the 40 man roster. The Giants didn't have enough confidence in him to call him up when they were down to zero LHP's in the bullpen. The more I thought about it, the better I liked getting Ross. I think everybody would love to see Rowand be the guy to go and have Ross offer Ross arbitration or even sign him to a 3 or 4 year deal. Unfortunately, as Baggs pointed out, Rowand isn't going anywhere.

    I was wrong in the post about the Giants getting a draft pick for Ross. If he has another year before he's eligible for FA, then he can't sign with someone else. He can either go through the arbitration process or agree to a contract. It does set up some interesting trade possibilities though.

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  3. Wow! Just wow! The Giants have DFA'd Matt Downs while Alex Hinshaw stays on the 40 man roster. Man, do they have an obsession with lefty relievers or what?

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  4. I like Downs, but I like Downs like I liked Denker. He was a nice producer, but you knew he wasn't going anywhere, and the org has two high 2B prospect ready to play AAA and even push MLB, as well as having an expensive 2B at the MLB level.

    Downs wasn't going anywhere with the giants.

    Still not sure why Hinshaw is still around, though...

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  5. I guess in the overall scheme of things, there are a lot more second basemen than lefty relievers. The Giants may have felt that Downs was more likely to pass through waivers than Hinshaw.

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  6. I think it's a case of knowing what Downs is capable of and that he's reached it, while Hinshaw, like some lefties, don't figure it out until later and his plus plus K-rate is saliva-inducing, if only he can cut out the walks.

    I was thinking Hinshaw too, but Downs makes sense too, we don't absolutely need him, we have Burriss and even Bond if need be, and Noonan, if he continues to develop, could take Downs' place as offensive-minded MI next season.

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