The Giants swept the inept D-backs, who are now thoroughly mired in the cellar of the NL West. However, we were just as close to that as well before sweeping them. Now we face D-Rox.
Game 1: Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Lincecum
I still believe in Lincecum, unlike those people who booed him in our own home park (as I noted before, shame on you all!). Still, Ubaldo has a 0.88 ERA, very Gibson-esque. Lincecum said he had a good outing and so this should be an even battle that will go to the best pitcher of the night.
Game 2: Jason Hammel vs. Zito
Zito has had some tough outings as well lately, but Hammel has a 6.93 ERA overall and 8.80 ERA on the road. Should be a Giants win.
Game 3: Jeff Francis vs. Matt Cain
Francis came off the DL and has been great, the pitcher they hoped he would be at the start of the season but then went on the DL, after missing all of last season. Cain not only has a similar ERA to Francis (2.50 vs. Francis' 2.89) but comes off two superb outings, including the complete game one-hitter in his last start, which was masterful. I would have to call it even but leaning towards the Giants because Cain seems to be on.
Giants Thoughts
Buster Posey has been great so far. The Giants brought him up to face a pitcher he dominated in the minors early this season, then he handled a pretty good pitcher in Kennedy. Now here is his biggest challenge of the season so far, and Bochy said that he is not catching a case of the Ubal-flu, that he will be in the lineup. After two games like that, I think it would have been counter-productive to keep him out, plus could have affected his confidence, mainly in that Bochy didn't show confidence in him so he would have viewed Bochy as lacking confidence (he seems supremely confident in himself). Instead, he can view Bochy as a believer.
Part of me wanted him to fail, because then all the people who were clamoring for him wouldn't think that they were geniuses. Life does not work that way, none of them knew what Posey would do, nobody knows. Yes, he did well in AAA, but the MLE for that puts him around 800 OPS, which is OK, really average in the majors, and way below average for a 1B. But on our team, 800 OPS is good.
But I'm a Giants fan through and through, so that thought passed quickly and I wanted to see him kick ass. I almost got to see the game on TV at the restaurant, had a huge screen TV next to our tables and the game had just started, but with about a dozen of those TV's in the restaurant, they had lost track of all the remotes, and so people are stuck watching whatever it was on. Made me wish I had brought a remote with me.
The three game sweep sets us up nicely for the Colorado series. We were battling the D-backs to stay out of the cellar and did that pretty convincingly. Now we are battling Colorado to stay out of 4th place and we have the opportunity, playing at home, to do that to them as well, though probably not a sweep with Ubaldo first.
The offense has come through once it got home. It has basically tracked Pablo Sandoval's progression this month, going from horrible and working its way back to OK again. Part of it was getting away from pitcher's parks like Oakland. Posey also helped.
Andres Torres has been amazing. I admit I was wrong about him being useful, but I remain doubtful that he can keep this up the whole season. Still, most competitive teams have these players who you normally don't rely on who suddenly produce for that one magical year and it all just works out for him that season. Hopefully Torres is that guy for us this season. We would not be in contention without him.
And that just keeps with the theme that I noted for the Giants before: risk mitigation. Sabean has gotten all these different parts, none of them sure to deliver something all the time, the big boppers or whatever, but he has enough guys who can play multiple positions that when one is scuffling, another one could start and pick up the team. Bowker led to Schierholtz led to Torres.
Winning this series is key, as always, because not only is it an NL West fellow contender, but we are neck and neck with them right now in the standings. Winning the series would put some distance between us and them. Sweeping them would be great, as Lincecum outdueling their uber-ace in Ubaldo would probably be a pretty good shot in the gut to them and send them reeling a bit. But I would be satisfied with a series win.
Go Giants!
Forgot to mention that the Giants signed Pat the Bat Burrell to a minor league contract and he played with Fresno yesterday, 2-5 with a HR.
ReplyDeleteThey get 2-4 weeks to evaluate him and if he don't get the call, he can leave and try to hook up with another team.
If he were to join the team, I would have to think that Bowker would go to AAA and get more playing time to get his bat back.
Though there is also a chance that Ishikawa would get DFAed, but I still don't see that happening because he would make perfect sense for next season's planned usage of Posey at 1B when he's not catching. And his defense is so good at 1B which the Giants loved so much they kept JT Snow around all that time when he couldn't figure out how to hit in SF (he was pretty good on the road).
Hey OGC,
ReplyDeleteToo bad you missed the game on TV yesterday. Other than Torres and Posey, the big story to me was the Giants defense. A bit hard to tell it it was great D or bad baserunning by the D'Backs, but the Giants, led by Nate Schierholtz and Freddy Sanchez made a whole series of perfect throws....heck, even Bengie got into the act teaming with Freddy on a perfect throw/catch/tag to nail Mark Reynolds trying to steal. I would estimate that the Giants defensive throwing saved a minimum of 2-3 runs and thus the game.