The Giants went to the ninth inning last night staring into the face of one of their more disheartening losses of the season. The offense, which has clearly been a huge concern, seemed even worse than usual. The Padres led 1-0 and Madison Bumgarner was on the hook for the loss once again. Heath Bell came charging in from the bullpen sporting a record of 26 Saves in 27 opportunities. Huff, Ross and Crawford, who were slated to face him, had just 1 Walk in 9 Plate Appearances between and didn't seem like a group that would make Bell even break a sweat. Huff took a questionable called strike(I started watching the game late, but it looked like the ump had a generous strike zone for both sides), then fouled a pitch into the ground to the right. Just like that, 0-2! I, of course expected the next pitch to be either up at his eyes or down in the dirt and he'd swing and miss. The Padres' catcher pounded the plate with his glove. It would be in the dirt, except.......he hung it! It wasn't belt high, but it wasn't in the dirt either and Huffy jumped all over it. The next problem is that Huffy has been jumping on these all season and they've all been hooking foul. This one hooked too, but no before it had passed just inside the foul pole for a game saving, game tying home run! Take THAT, Mat Latos! The stadium, which was filled with Orange and Black, erupted like it was a home game at AT&T Park! The bullpen held the Pesky ones at bay for 3 more frames before the Giants mounted a sustained rally in the top of the 12'th inning to finally come away with a win they probably shouldn't have gotten. Key Lines:
Pablo Sandoval- 2 for 5, BB. BA= .305. Pablo ran his hitting streak to 22 games, 4 short of Jack Clark's franchise record.
Aubrey Huff- 2 for 6, HR(9). BA= .238. Is this another blip or the start of a breakout for The Huffster?
Eli Whiteside- 3 for 4, 2B, S. BA= .248. Whitey is turning into the little catcher who could(even though he's not so little). Is he enabling the Giants to think of bigger deadline deals than simply upgrading catcher?
Madison Bumgarner- 6 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 3.74. Another QS without a W, but I'm sure Bum will take it.
Bullpen- 6 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 6 K's. Ramirez and Casilla were lights out for 2 innings each. Romo absolutely abused the 3 Padre hitters he faced. He could definitely be the closer on a lot of teams and maybe should be for the Giants. Wilson sat down when the Giants lead got to more than 3 runs, but Lopez coudn't close it out so Willie came in and got the 2 out Save, #27 on the season.
With the Win, the Giants extended their NL West lead over the idle D'Backs to 3.5 games. The Rockies beat the BrewCrew 12-3 to remain in 3'rd place, 8.5 games back. The Dodgers were idle and slipped to 11.5 games behind and the Pathetic Pesky Padres lost their 6'th in a row to drop 13 games behind in the division cellar.
A well rested Tim Lincecum takes the mound tonight facing Dustin Moseley as the Giants try to extend their NL West lead once again.
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Hot Tip: Nice little write up on Giants farmhand Skyler Stromsmoe in fangraphs.com. Look it up! Link to the site over on the left.
ReplyDeleteWas at the game last night and boy do those Padre fans know how to leave in the 6th inning. If I had to guess I'd say that Giants fans, although a noisy bunch, filled about a third of the stadium. By the 7th/8th I'd say they filled half. By the end of the game Orange and Black was easily 80% of the stadium.
ReplyDeleteThe strike zone seemed really erratic to me, but Bum stood strong. Pablo took some pitches in the 12th that he would have struck out on last year.
Also, saw a graphic on the big screen: Nate and Pablo are 1/2 in hits for National League players in the month of July. At least the two of them can't be blocked into the anemic offense people talk about in SF.
Looks like the Giants are going to be aggressive enough to bring up Hector Sanchez now. I think he can hit, but is his defense going to be a downer? Hope this isn't an Aubrey Huff in RF kind of experiment.
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