Now That's the Morris I've Been Waiting For!!!

Wow, what a game! Complete game, was dominating in the middle of the game, with only his gopheritis marring his pitching performance: 9 IP, 3 hits, 0 walks, 5 strikeouts. And, of course, a Giants win, 4-1, to top it off, else I wouldn't be so happy.

What else that makes me happy is another dominating performance, in the parlance of PQS, which I have been tracking all season. Last year, in 14 starts after the ASG, he had only 4 dominating starts, only 1 5-PQS game, with 2 disaster starts for a 29%DOM/14%DIS. Already this season, he has 5 dominating starts, with 2 5-PQS games and 2 disaster starts for 56%DOM/22%DIS. DOM greater than 50% puts him in the elite pitcher range.

Another good sign was his last start, which I guess would be surprising since he gave up 5 runs that game. That actually was a 4-PQS game, his main problem, again, was the homerun ball, else he pitched a good game, with only 1 walk, but the big threshold that he passed is he got 6 strikeouts that game. Last season, after the ASG, he could not muster up a 6 strikeout game, a sign that he was tired, and his only 5 strikeout game came on his July 23rd start. The most strikeouts he could do was 4, which he achieved twice in the 12 starts after that July 23rd start.

This season, he has done much better. He already has had 2 4-strikeout games since the ASG this season plus the 6 strikeout game then yesterday's 5 strikeout game, both particularly good because it is coming later than earlier, meaning that he is still going strong, and if anything, his battery is re-charging a little after a bit of a dead period from basically the start of July until the August 20th start when he got his 6 strikeouts.

With Schmidt being Schmidt, for the most part, and the youngsters Lowry and Cain doing well, and Morris apparently coming back and showing the doubters that he was a good signing, we should be having a nice stretch of games going forward and perhaps take the lead again.

What we need now is some hitters to get hot, particularly Winn, who usually gets hot after the ASG but has been stone cold up to now. If he can get hot enough to make up for that cold spell and return to his usual post-ASG goodness, the Giants offense should be good enough to support the good pitching we are getting now.

Also, Bonds got to know that he is up against the wall (as I wrote about in my last post), he needs to start hitting homers at a higher rate to warrant getting signed by the Giants next season and, in the past, he has usually risen to the occassion. The good sign is that he physically seems to have been slowly improving throughout the season and appear to be in better shape now than at the beginning. And it has been starting to show up in his hitting this month, his BA is higher, he is striking out at a lower rate and his ISO is a healthy 221 this month, though it has been better this season.