Giants Edge Angels 3-2

San Francisco Giants Edge Los Angeles Angels 3-2

Matt Cain pitched three scoreless innings, Pablo Sandoval knocked in two runs, and the San Francisco Giants went on to defeat the California Angels, 3-2 today, at Scottsdale Stadium under warm, cloudy skies.  Additionally, Michael Morse contributed in a style, to which we would like to become accustomed, by doubling home Hunter Pence in the fifth.  

The Angels started Jered Weaver, who went four innings, giving up two runs on four hits, with a pair of walks and a pair of strikeouts.  In the second consecutive victory to end in a 3-2 score, the Giants pieced together fine pitching, timely offense and a good showing by key starters, as well as backups, to go above .500 for the first time in the Cactus League play thus far, with a record of 4-3.

The Giants had a total of nine base hits, two apiece for Pablo and Mark Minicozzi, while Giants pitchers allowed six hits, as Matt Cain, Javier Lopez and Jose De Paula combined to face only two batters over the minimum during the first six innings.  Altogether, Giants pitchers struck out seven while walking two with two double plays in support of them.  Gregor Blanco (.200 this spring), slated to be the go-to back-up as the fourth outfielder, had a hit and knocked in two, while Minicozzi (.556 for the spring) helped his cause by maintaining his torrid hitting with two singles.  

Albert Pujols, trying to come back after season-ending surgery last August, had a single and a walk in three plate appearances.  Though the Angels had only six hits, two were doubles and one was a triple off Jason Berken, who replaced De Paula at the start of the seventh.  Berken was responsible for both Angels runs while Heath Hembree got the save by facing the minimum in the ninth. 

The game was played in an efficient two hours and thirty-nine minutes, Giants starters have now all successively begun their Cactus League games with zeroes, and Giants back-up positions are beginning to take better form with just over three weeks still to go.  One could not ask for, nor expect, that Giants pitching would be so efficient, but one would not be surprised either.  Business as usual is the name of the game.  Next up tomorrow are the Cincinnati Reds, with the game beginning at 12:05.

Timmy: At the Intersection of Up and Down

Timmy: At the Intersection of Up and Down

You know Tim Lincecum has reached the ultimate heights in Celebrity-Ville when you see him referred to as Timmy, and everyone knows who you’re talking about.  It’s kind of like another pitcher, who pitched in an earlier era, Sandy [Koufax].  The resemblance pretty much ends there, as Sandy was a southpaw and pitched for the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers his entire career, but they both experienced control issues that overshadowed their brilliance for extended periods of time while winning multiple Cy Young awards.  Now Timmy is at the intersection of up versus down, and he’s been heavily affected by gravity for a couple of seasons now.  

What does Timmy need to do to regain that intimidating presence, the one where feared batters flail away as that pitch tails away and down?  Where down is a good thing?  Timmy needs to make the inevitable transition from dominant to devious, which he has been dabbling in, and he needs to do it this season.  To accomplish this, Timmy has about 17 things to do.  I’m joking!  I wouldn’t presume to tell Tim Lincecum what he should do.  I might run five strategies up the flagpole, though, and see if he salutes any, but that’s as far as it goes.  

You see, Timmy’s delivery is about as straightforward as Lombard Street.  He has more moving parts than a Swiss watch, so if some component is out of synch, he’s likely to go into a time warp.  He has already mastered several of the specialty pitches that keep batters off-balance, but Timmy has to learn that even the slightest variation on a theme produces movement on the ball, and leaves the batter guessing.  Tim Hudson has a lot of experience which means he has a lot of secrets.  So first off, Timmy needs to be a listener.

Now listening is all well and good, but it means nothing if you have a set mind.  What Timmy needs to do is be open to suggestions, to consider them, mull them over and then experiment.  He does not have to jump when Hudson says so, and it’s wise to hedge your bets, but you just don’t want to hold on to your cards when the stakes get too high, unless you’re certain.  Hudson’s never had a sub-500 win/loss record for a season, and he’s the winningest pitcher in the bigs with 205 victories.  Timmy has to recognize that there are others besides his dad/mentor who can guide him in his transition.  

Thirdly, Timmy is as laid back as the Great Lebowski, but walking batters does not lead to tranquility; Timmy needs to regain control.  It’s a confidence thing and we’re all aware that when the spotlight known as the world series focuses in on Timmy, it’s lights out for the opposing batters.  He needs to gain control in spring training and take that with him into April, and maybe that glaring statistic about holding runners on, will lose its intensity.  Fewer walks equate to fewer base stealing attempts.  

It’s no secret that Timmy has been known to rank dead last in stolen base efficiency.  Is it because he does have such confidence?  That’s not confident-that’s cocky.  A lot of folks think that because Timmy does not have a game-face like The Mad Hungarian, as they used to call Al Hrabosky, back in the seventies,  and that Timmy’s game-face looks more like your grinning Uncle Bob, so that means it carries over to his game.   Laid back doesn’t cut it on the mound.  It’s laziness and the Timmy I know and respect is not lazy.  So fourth on the flagpole is beef up the security, lad, before you lose the farm.

Finally, Timmy needs to abandon the northern part of home plate and think South.  Keep your pitches low, Timmy, and revel in the fact that free-swingers Pablo Sandoval and Hunter Pence are on your team.  The idea is to try an induce ground balls.  Tim Hudson is a disciple of the low pitch and he’s had a lot of success.  I know, weird, huh.

Maybe Timmy will be all ears and take in what is offered in the way of advice, or maybe he will grow his hair out again and block it  out.  Or maybe he will listen, grow his hair out and pitch the Giants to the playoffs again.  He’s a talented fellow and I’m sure a little multi-tasking is within his grasp, so it all could result in another Cy Young trophy residing within the same grasp. After all, Sandy had three.

  

Giants Rattle D-Backs, 5-3

Giants Rattle D-Backs, 5-3

Tim Hudson made a sparkling spring debut, and Buster Posey, Angel Pagan, Joaquin Arias and Juan Perez had two hits apiece, as the San Francisco Giants defeated the Arizona DiamondBacks today 5-3, at Scottsdale Stadium under warm, sunny skies.  Hudson faced the minimum of six batters, and the Giants scored four runs in the fifth to hand the win to Kameron Loe, who pitched the fourth and fifth innings.  The DiamondBacks scored twice in the fifth and once more in the ninth, off Jean Machi, who got the save.

Javier Lopez allowed a single in the third, but the Giants’s second double play of the game kept Lopez facing the minimum three batters.  Loe, replacing Lopez to pitch the fourth, found out how rewarding it is to have major league defense. First Perez made a fine play to cut off Prado’s hit and keep it to a single, and then Pagan made a Mays-like basket catch of Paul Goldschmidt’s deep fly ball, whirling to throw the ball back in, thus keeping again Prado at first.  Chavez ended the inning by grounding out to second.

With Loe still pitching, Mark Trumbo doubled to lead off the top of the fifth and scored on Miguel Montero single’s single to center field, before Didi Gregorius flied out for the first out.  Loe then plunked A.J. Pollock with a pitch and walked Cliff Pennington to load the bases.  After Gerardo Parra flied out to Perez in left, with Montero scoring, the D-Backs called for a double steal. Pollock got a great jump to third, so Buster never hesitated, gunning out Pennington instead at second.

The Giants came right back in the bottom of the fifth, scoring four runs by combining a double by Juan Perez and singles by Pagan, Posey, and pinch-hitter Sanchez, who knocked in two.  After Adam Russell replaced Brad Ziegler, Arias singled to keep the rally going, but Sanchez was thrown out by Parra’s throw to Chavez at third.

Hudson’s only blemish during his two innings, was a ball hit to the right side, which Brandon Belt fielded, but led the hustling Hudson too much to make the play.  The throw was not that far off the mark, and had it been the regular season, there is a good chance that Hudson would have made the play, but this is only spring training and Hudson has to go easy.

Later in the broadcast, in hashing it over, Dave Fleming mentioned that when asked about it in the dugout, Hudson responded that he “...would have felt like Wes Welker with a linebacker coming right at me...” and so elected to let it go.  It was a veteran move from a guy who does not have to prove that he knows how to field his position.

The Giants played good defense, with only the miscue by Belt in the second, and they had a dozen base hits to to go along with their five runs.  Considering the DiamondBacks are going to be rattling around near the top of the division all season, today’s victory was a fine start.  

Shutouts Are Us

Shutouts Are Us

I do love a civilized debate, especially when the deck is stacked in my favor.  Therefore, when I read Jason Burke’s article “Why the Oakland A’s Will Be Better Than the SF Giants in 2014,” I said, “Deal Me In.”  This should be as easy as taking eight out of nine of our last World Series games.  The Oakland A’s are, in fact, not a better team than the San Francisco Giants; quite the contrary, the Giants are definitively the superior club and here are five reasons why.

The A’s have been good enough to make the playoffs the past two seasons, but have lacked that which is necessary to drive the peg home.  The Giants have won World Series Championships two of the past four seasons.  Why bring up 2010, when only the past two seasons are under the periscope?  The answer is because there are nine players on the current Giants’ squad, who have been on both of those two world class rides, since you have described AT&T as an amusement park.  Three of those players are starting pitchers.  Our starters have thrown four shutouts during the last two world series.  Enough said. 

Secondly, your contention that the Giants have not “added enough to their roster to significantly improve” is simply incorrect.  The Giants’ left fielders last year combined for five home runs.  Last season, during the month of April alone, Michael Morse hit nine home runs.  That is “significant” improvement.  Barry Zito never won a start on the road last season.  By your own admission, “Huddy [sigh] is a solid pitcher and they are lucky to have him.”  Again, that is “significant” improvement.

Thirdly, I do not know that the Giants considered Mike Kickham to be their “most qualified pitcher” when they brought him up last season.  It’s a moot point.  I think Edwin Escobar will be more likely to get the nod than Kickham.  All Escobar did was produce a 2.67 ERA with a 9K/9 and 4.15 K/BB, after a mid-season promotion to AA.  With the acquisition of southpaw David Huff, projected to be the Yankees’ fifth starter before they acquired Masahiro Tanaka from Japan’s Rakuten Golden Eagles, the Giants feel they have strengthened their pitching staff considerably.

Meanwhile, what have the A’s done to improve their pitching?  I mean of course, besides losing the 28 victories that Bartolo Colon has supplied them with the past two seasons.  Depending on whom you talk to, the A’s have seven guys trying to fill five pitching slots.  All five Giants starters are All-Stars, with a dozen appearances among them at the mid-summer classic.  That even sounds gaudy to me.  

Finally, the Giants are the better team because they have Bruce Bochy.  Bob Melvin has done an excellent job-no doubt about it-just not quite good enough.  In Bochy, the Giants have a master at the helm, to ensure the ship delivers.  

This year the star ride at the amusement park, otherwise known as AT&T, will be a playoff run culminating in yet another Crown, while the A’s tally up their win totals for the last three years and say, “Yep, we got the most wins.”

Just Being Neighborly

Just Being Neighborly

Larry Baer raised a few eyebrows Wednesday, by hinting that the Giants may be willing to be downright neighborly to the Oakland A’s, by sharing AT&T Park for a spell, should the A’s get a new stadium project off the ground.  Just think of it as two good neighbors, chatting over the back fence.  Considering that the Giants protested loudly when the A’s tried recently to encroach on the Giants’ territorial rights, by relocating to San Jose, this comes as a surprise to me.

I like the idea even if it would be a logistical nightmare to implement.  I see no reason why the Giants and the A’s can’t be friends, at least officially.  I know why it’s easy to remain distant; I am, after all, I Giants fan.  And it’s not just 1989, though it could be.  No, losing to the A’s in the Big Show is just one of the reasons I do not like the A’s.  Hey, I hate green and yellow, I hate the fact that they seem to go postal winning meaningless spring games, and well, there’s that Series.

That being said, I do like the rivalry, I do think the A’s play a mean brand of baseball, and a lot of my personal friends are A’s fans, though I forgive them one and all.  They can’t help the way their moms dress them in the morning.  So therefore, I want the A’s to get a new stadium so that we can go head-to-head again on the greatest playing field of them all.

So, if the Giants and the A’s want to share a yard for a season or so, as the Mets and Yankees did back in 1974-75, then that’s all right with me.  Maybe if the two clubs had been getting along in 1989, the baseball gods would have done us all a favor and let us have a couple measly weeks in October, without having to get in the act by causing a gall-darn earthquake, and knocking us right off our game.  After all, who can be expected to play ball when the ground won’t stop shaking?

Another Day at the Office-A recap of the Giants/Brewers game, 2-28-14

Another Day at the Office

A San Francisco Giants split-squad defeated the Milwaukee Brewers today, 4-3, in Scottsdale, in a game that featured several bright spots for the Giants, and few telling negatives.  Both Madison Bumgarner and Ryan Vogelsong pitched two scoreless innings apiece, each facing one batter over the minimum, while Ehire Adrianza continued his bid to snare an infield spot on the opening day roster, by hitting a triple in the third and going on to score on Angel Pagan’s sacrifice fly. 

Going into the bottom of the seventh, it was an uncharacteristically tight contest for a spring training game.  With only one walk surrendered by each side, it was a veritable pitching duel, with the Brewers sending four pitchers through their outings, while the Giants paraded five through their paces.  However, when Jose De La Torre started out the seventh, he walked Chris Dominguez, hit Mac Williamson with a pitch, and walked Mark Minicozzi, who got on base all three times he was up, including a solo home run to start the Giants’ scoring.  With the bases now loaded, Adrianza reached first on a fielding error by second baseman Eugenio Velez, with Dominguez scoring.  Gregor Blanco then flied out to center field, while Williamson scored the final Giants run.  

The Brewers made it interesting in the ninth, when they scored two off of George Kontos, the big hit, a run-scoring triple off the bat of Hector Gomez, with Matt Pagnozzi adding an RBI single.  Kevin Mattison popped out to end the threat, so ultimately, Kontos was able to dig himself out of his own predicament.

One of the highlights was the entry of Brett Bochy into the game in the fifth.  I find the theatrics of having a father/son tandem in the yard to be one of the most interesting subplots to this spring training.  Of course this is not Brett’s first big league camp, and that makes it even juicier.  How will this dynamic play out over the next couple of seasons?  How would Bochy Sr. handle his own kid?  Brett did provide one electric moment, but it was only a delivery of his that Caleb Gindl launched over the wall, hitting the screen which prevented it from leaving the building and landing in the next time zone practice field.

Another stellar point for me was hearing Jon Miller describe Madison Bumgarner’s pitches.  Unlike Sergio Romo on Wednesday, who stuck to fastballs and change-ups, avoiding his signature slider, Bumgarner was throwing cut fast balls, off-speed stuff, and breaking pitches, which tells me that he is ahead of his game.  Along the same lines, Ryan Vogelsong gave up an opening triple to Jeff Bianchi, and then proceeded to get out of the inning without further damage.

In terms of position battles, Tony Abreu went 0 for 3, hitting into a double play, while Ehire Adranza went 1 for 3, with a triple and a run-producing grounder.  Neither Tyler Colven, Gregor Blanco, nor Roger Kieschnick garnered a base hit among them.

It was actually an entertaining game with even a little tension at the end, especially when you consider it was a split-squad affair.

Pablo: Cause and Effect

Pablo: Cause and Effect

Pablo Sandoval flitted into camp this spring, a mere shadow of his former self, and got Giants fans flapping their jaws about the possibility of a contract extension, particularly if the grand event could take place before the season began.  After all, if the Giants management could take care of this piece of business in a timely manner, it would avoid the feeding frenzy at the trough, when Pablo actually tries his luck with the open market after season’s end.  If you do not think there are other teams out there that would love to sport the marketing angle of The Panda, then you have never watched a game, televised from AT&T Park.  Those aren’t Teddy Bear masks those fans are wearing.

Pablo has steadfastly refused to divulge the magic number, insisting that the media will be privy to this information when he officially weighs in at the end of spring training.  Judging from the smiling face of Bruce Bochy, though, I’d say the boss doesn’t really care.  Pablo, always quick and sure-handed at third, has a snappier first step and seems bound and determined to keep up his conditioning regimen.

To this effect, he has brought his trainer up from Venezuela, and maintains that he will continue to stay in shape, anticipating that there are those who will have long memories.   After sitting the 2010 World Series, Sandoval went on a similar tear, and came into spring training equally motivated.  Unfortunately, when the wheels came off the training cart, Pablo was right there to help himself.  Now he insists that it’s not his contract that he cares about, but his team.

Bochy doesn’t care about the politics of a contract extension; he cares about fielding a third baseman who does not resemble a beached whale.  It’s Brian Sabean who does not want to get grounded by a weight issue.  He knows that Pablo’s offensive production soared after he came into camp so light in 2011, that he hit .315, with 23 home runs.  Like the rest of us, he then watched as Pablo ponied up for only 26 dingers in the next two season combined.  Additionally, of the 138 games he started in 2013, he was removed for defensive purposes in the late innings, forty times.  Ach tung, Chucko!

So what’s it all add up to?  Do we really want to give up on the guy who hit three home runs in the opening game of the 2012 World Series, to beat the “best pitcher on the planet?”  When Justin Verlander went down, he took the Tigers with him.  The ship lost its sail, the Big Cat lost its roar, whatever.  And it was the Panda that accomplished this.  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s as simple as attaching a weight clause to his contract.  If he exceeds the prescribed number of pounds, then he sits, just like in the Series.

However, I firmly believe that the Giants should take care of business, and do it quickly.  After all, we saw how frustrated Pablo was during the 2010 World Series. This is obviously a case of cause and effect.  If he sees the connection between lingering at the dinner table and sitting on the bench, then we’re in business. If not, then the weight clause kicks in and he’ll be following Kruk’s advice to “grab some pine, Meat.”  

And that’s a real shame because bats aren’t made out of pine.