Friday, September 18, 2020

                  W-L     GB
GIANTS         25-24     Now comes a sterner test
Philadelphia 24-25     Mets make excellent spoilers
St Louis         22-24 1/2     Bucs held 'em to 2 hits
Milwaukee 23-26 1     Still very much alive
New York 23-27 1 1/2    Trail Miami by 3
Colorado         22-27 2     Dodgers clinch playoffs

Yesterday

Giants defeated Seattle, 6-4, sweeping the 4-game season series.

Philadelphia lost again to New York at home.

St Louis lost at Pittsburgh.

Colorado lost at home to LA.

Milwaukee was idle.

Today

Giants across the Bay at Oakland; 6:40 PDT start at the Coliseum. Logan Webb gets his first start in ten days, against righthander Chris Bassitt and his 2.92 ERA.

Philadelphia and St Louis both have "home/road swap" doubleheaders; Philly at home against Toronto and St Louis at PNC Park against the Pirates. It's catch-up time for those teams whose early schedules were spoiled by COVID-19 concerns.

Milwaukee's at home against Kansas City, Colorado has the Dodgers all weekend, and New York hosts the division-leading Braves.

Yesterday's Game

Well, it sure started out bad. Tyler Anderson had a personal war with umpire Edwin Moscoso's strike zone, while opposite number Nick Margevicius seemed to have no issue. Usually a pitcher will get extra mad when he believes he's being "squeezed" and the other guy ain't. Anderson only walked one, but fell behind all the time and was knocked around for four runs and four hits in the second, which wiped out Darin Ruf's homer in the top of the frame. When more of the same continued in the third, Anderson started barking, and soon was ejected by Moscoso, which set off a string of language worthy of the movie "Major League." Meanwhile, Mike Yastrzemski had limped off with a calf strain and was replaced by the newest Giant, rookie Luis Alexander Basabe. It was 4-1 and it didn't look good at all.  But this team is relentless, and the comeback started in the sixth when Basabe and Wilmer Flores led off with singles. Out went Margevicius, and in came Joey Gerber to walk Alex Dickerson and give up an RBI single to Evan Longoria and a sacrifice fly to Brandon Crawford. That made it close, and in the seventh, Mauricio Dubon led off with a walk. With two out, our new friend Basabe also walked, and Flores belted a triple to the deepest part of center field, giving the Giants the lead. Dickerson added an insurance run with a single, and it was up to the bullpen-- Tony Watson, Tyler Rogers, and Sam Selman, who opened the ninth by hitting the leadoff man but still earned his first save. And let's not overlook lefty Wandy Peralta, who came in cold to replace Anderson and pitched three scoreless. A pity he didn't get the win, but that's the way it goes.

The Brutal Stretch

The Giants now have 11 games over the next 10 days with no more time off.  Five wins would leave them at 30-30. That ought to do it. It won't be easy... We continue to think the midweek series with Colorado will be the most critical, regardless of whether the Rockies are still contenders by then... It was a a month ago that the Giants hit rock bottom, swept at home in three games by Oakland, dropping their record to 8-15. Let's not forget, though, that in the first two games of that series the Giants solidly outplayed the A's, taking leads of 7-2 and 6-3 into the ninth only to blow each game. So let's not run to Panic Beach just yet...  Mike Yastrzemski gets a MRI today, and let's hope it is just a strain... His replacement, Basabe, is 24, a native of Venezuela, has a twin brother with an almost-identical name playing for Arizona, and has been on base three time in his five plate appearances with three runs scored.   

September 18, 1970 was fifty years ago today, the day Jimi Hendrix died in London at age 27. We were not well acquainted with sudden death at age 14, and the news came as a real shock, a slap in the face; our initial reaction was disbelief: "Not Hendrix. He can't die."  We were still pretty well insulated from the harshness of the adult world, and completely unaware of the dangerous, treacherous "rock star" lifestyle; our naive belief was that these demigods walked on air, immune from mortal risk. But we'd also been studying music for six years and we already knew Jimi Hendrix was touched by musical genius. You couldn't help but hear it; his searing, emotional, and, yes, intensely patriotic deconstruction of the "Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock remains a masterpiece today and was no less so then.  We'd rather listen to the man make music than fix where he stands among the greats, but many call him the greatest of electric guitarists, and we've no reason to dispute it. What makes this moment today especially sad is considering how far, how immeasurably far, he might have taken his genius beyond such considerations if he had had fifty more years to do so. 

 

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