Monday, May 30, 2011

Game Wrap 5/30/2011: Giants 7 Cards 3

The Giants gave Madison Bumgarner some rare run support with a lineup that drew an outcry from the Bochy Haters of the blogosphere(yeah, I'm lookin' at you, Bacci), and the big fella cruised to just his second win of the season despite a good ERA of 3.66. Key LInes:

Andres Torres- 2 for 4, 2B, HR(2), S. BA= .261. Torres had been slumping, but the dinger came with 3 men on base and broke open what had been a close game up to that point.

Miguel Tejada- 2 for 5. BA= .217. Tejada is not my idea of a classic 2-hole hitter, but he got the job done today.

Aubrey Huff- 0 for 4, BB, SB(3). BA= .219. Huff is in a prolonged slump, but I agree with Bochy here. The Giants aren't going anywhere whithout Huff and you've just got to stick with him until be comes out of it or the Giants drop out of it, whichever comes first. I think he's going to warm up soon.

Cody Ross- 1 for 4, HR(4), BB. BA= .234. Another guy who hasn't been hitting. He's always been a streaky hitter. Let's hope he starting a new hot streak now.

Aaron Rowand- 1 for 2, 2B, BB. BA= .250. Even I was not with Bochy on this one and even this one worked out today.

Brandon Crawford- 1 for 3, BB, SB(1). BA= .250. I say Crawford is the Giants shortstop until he proves he can't handle it.

Madison Bumgarner- 1 for 2, 2B, BB. Bumgarner is an offensive threat with a bat in his hands. I guess he decided if nobody else was hitting he better bring his own offense with him.

Madison Bumgarner- 7 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 3.66. Bum was able to cruise after Torres gave him a 5 run cushion.

Sergio Romo- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 1.65. Still seems like something must not be right between Romo and Bochy. This wasn't quite mop up duty, but it came pretty close. Romo should be the 8'th inning guy, period.

Kyle McClellan(Cards)- 4 IP, 7 H, 7 R, 2 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 3.86. There was an enormous outcry over on Extra Baggs when he posted the Giants lineup for the day. One of the many criticisms was this looked like a lineup you'd put out against a LHP, but McClellen is a RHP. What the denizens of the blogosphere had failed to notice was the McClellen has a reverse L-R split and has been much more effective against LH batters. Call it a sample size anomaly if you will, but it sure worked for Bochy in this game. I have to confess I wasn't wild about the lineup when I saw it, but then again, there was no lineup that Bochy could have put out there that looked good. That's just the way it is when you only have one guy hitting on the entire team. Ironically, Freddy Sanchez, the only guy who has been hitting, went 0 for 5 in this one! Anyway, as bad as this team has been struggling, I'm going to give props to Bochy for noticing the reverse split on McClellan and having the courage to go with it. It worked!

The Win enabled the Giants to keep pace, 0.5 games behind the Dangerous D'Backs who crushed the Florida Marlins 15-4 behind a barrage of HR, 2 by Kelly Johnson. The Desperate Dodgers also kept pace with a 7-1 win over the Reeling Rockies. The Dodgers remained 5.5 games behind the D'Backs while the Rockies slipped to 4.5 games behind. The Pesky Padres edged the Braves 3-2 in 10 innings to remain 7 games behind in last place in the NL West.

Ryan Vogelsong tries to keep the magic going against the Cards and Chris Carpenter, who has struggled this year, tomorrow evening.

6 comments:

  1. I took in the Ariz/Fla game. They have one of the best bullpens statistically. They have some really good offensive players. I like a couple of the starters but I think that is their weakness. I hope the Giants keep D'Backs' number. I can see them doing some serious damage.

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  2. come on doc...miggs in the two spot? rowand playing? huff not sitting for at least one game?

    ok...bochy is a genius at using his guys and in some aspects of motivation

    but the lineup looked nuts

    crawford has really nice hands and a very strong arm...if he can hit around 250, with a tiny bit of pop....miggs to the bench and then the dfa pile...eat the money

    huff needs a mental health day...and needs a lock on the beer fridge door

    madbum is amazing...barring injury, what is he gonna be like in 5 years?

    freddie needs a break...hopefully on wednesday

    the snakes are this year's friars...and like the friars, they dont have the caishe or trade chips in order to significantly improve...they will fade come sept

    one more day to find out if bums can make payroll and what kroons decision is....gonna hang on twitter wednesday morning

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  3. I can accept a mental health day for Huff, and definitely a lock on the beer fridge. For some reason, Huff reminds me of those mentally challenged guys in the beer ads who ditch their seemingly nice attractive girlfriends to go drink beer with their buddies...or ALONE! I mean, whattheheck is that guy in the "bar exam" ad thinking? Oh, and as long as we're on the subject of beer, whattheheck is a "Banquet Beer" anyway? Banquet Beer? Howtheheck did they ever come up with that and what does it mean? Banquet Beer?

    Yes, the lineup looked nuts, but not so nuts when you take into consideration McClellan's reversed splits and some of the individual splits. Come back with the small sample size argument and I will concede a point, but it worked for Bochy this time.

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  4. Okay, I will bring it up.

    Is Whiteside going to be able to handle the rash of stolen bases that teams seem to be loading on the Giants since Posey???

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  5. Actually, Ross's bad April is masking a good May: .257/.368/.473/.841, 4 HR in 74 AB, and that's with a .278 BABIP, vs. career .304 BABIP and .310 BABIP for prior 3 seasons. He's doing fine, I wouldn't worry about him.

    I really like Crawford so far for his defense, the offense has been a bonus to me. He struck out a lot in the minors, so I'm afraid he's going to Bocock his way off the roster at some point, so I would rather ride this wave and keep Tejada around, who has been hitting better this month, and really, he's still avoiding strikeouts well, so it appears that a poor BABIP and slugging is the cause of his current malaise. I'm OK with dropping him after June if he's still hitting this poorly, but would keep him around for now before committing to Crawford.

    Huff has actually been hitting better this month than last, though still not to the levels we were hoping. His OK strikeout rate suggests that it is a matter of low BABIP that is hurting his batting line. And I agree, the Giants will succeed or fail based on what Huff does, so the Giants should give him the chance to figure it out and lead us, like he did last season.

    Personally, I think he has been struggling mentally with the extra burden of being THE power guy in the lineup, with Sandoval, Burrell, and Posey out of the lineup. I think that has led to the bump in strikeouts this month for him. He needs to work within his boundaries and that would bring out his hitting.

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  6. Anon,

    I hadn't noticed the rash of SB's by other teams but if that becomes a persistant problem, I would think it would force a trade for Pudge or else a callup for Jackson Williams who is supposed to be an excellent defensive catcher.

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