Saturday, July 1, 2017

Game Wrap 7/1/2017: Giants 2 Pirates 1

Giants pitchers issued 10 walks but only allowed 1 run.  The Giants scored the winning run in the 11'th inning on a Wild Pitch by Daniel Hudson to give them their 5'th consecutive Win.  Key Lines:

Denard Span CF- Span's walk in the top of the 11'th with 1 out started the winning rally.

Buster Posey C- 1 for 4, BB.  BA= .340.  It was a WP on ball 4 to Buster Posey that allowed Span to score from 3B with the winning run.

Austin Slater LF- Slater made a terrific diving catch in LF and did not look slowed down by his sore hip.  His HR to dead CF just over the glove of a leaping Andrew McCutchen got the Giants even and gave them a chance to win in extra innings.  Everybody in the park, including Slater thought 'Cutch caught the ball, but when it disappeared from TV camera view, it was behind his glove, not in it.

Gotta admit, I was getting worried about Slater's penchant for going to RF and wondering if he was settling for being a slap hitter.  This HR definitely allayed those fears.  He's currently on a pace for 20 HR with 86 R and 86 RBI in 600 PA.  I think the Giants would take that from a full season of LF.

Jae-Gyun Hwang PH- 1 for 1, 2B.  BA= .250.  Hwang looks like he can hit MLB pitching.  Not sure about the D.  Ryder Jones looks like the superior defender at 3B.

Brandon Belt 1B- 0 for 5.  BA= .228.  Belt was victimized by a bizarre Instant Replay call that was definitely an unintended consequence of the rule, if it was the right call at all.  Belt reached first beating out the back end of a DP ball.  He took off on a Hit and Run play in which Brandon Crawford popped up to shallow CF.  Belt slid into the 2B while the ball was still in the air.  He got up and realized he needed to get back to first.  His foot was firmly on the bag but as he started back for first, his left foot came off on the 3B side of the bag and he did not re-touch.  He easily beat the throw to 1B but the Bucs appealed and it was ruled he did not properly touch 2B on his way back to 1B.  Yeah, I don't think that's what the replay rule was intended to do!

Matt Moore LHP- 5.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 6 BB, 5 K's.  ERA= 5.78.  The 6 walks are ugly, but I'll give Moore a break here.  The ump's K zone was atrocious and extremely inconsistent to my eye.  There was inconsistency on both sides, but I thought Moore got squeezed way more often.  I'll give Moore credit for not getting frustrated and battling through it.

Bullpen- 5.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 6 K's.  Again, I will point to the ump for an horrible strike zone as contributing to the 4 BB's.  Otherwise a stellar combined effort.  Sam Dyson got the Save, his first as a Giant.  He did allow a baserunner to reach 2B which caused some anxiety given his struggles in Texas.

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Jeff Samardzija tries for the Giants second series sweep in a row tomorrow facing RHP Trevor Williams, who I have never heard of before.

2 comments:

  1. I tuned in just before Slater hit his HR. Even more than Belt's the day before, you could see how park differences really matters. That ball barely cleared the wall. You take off the 11' difference in average carry on equally hit balls at AT&T and we lose that game.

    Now maybe the Pirates don't their home run, after all it cuts both ways, but when I watch games and some long fly-ball drops for an out (for weal or woe as it depends) the physics of baseball is always there and I'm thinking either -- 'thank heavens it's AT&T' when it's against us or 'damn AT&T' when it's against us. And yesterday was a definate 'Thank heavens they were on the road.'

    Also, that 11th was a masterpiece. They (mostly) put up really high quality bats and wore that Pirate reliever out (34 pitches in 1 inning) including the wild pitch on Posey's walk... Then Dyson came out and I was... Well, I was having Casilla flash-backs... :)

    I hope we sweep the Pirates. It'd be nice to get back-to-back sweeps and gain some respectability. Pass the Padres. I'm not worried about passing any other clubs. With the season being just past the half-way mark, it's be nearly a miracle to get into any contention even within the division (which is, right now, the WC race too...)

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    1. Sigh... It was supposed to say "thank heavens is't ATT when it's for us..."



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