Thursday, September 17, 2020

                W-L        GB

GIANTS         24-24     This is starting to look real

Philadelphia 24-24     Blew a 4-0 lead to Mets

St Louis         22-23 1/2     Fancy meeting y'all here

Milwaukee 23-26 1 1/2    DH split not what they needed

Colorado        22-26 2     Let's have a few more of these

New York 22-27 2 1/2    DeGrom's injury big concern

Yesterday

Giants defeated Seattle, 9-3.

Philadelphia lost to the Mets, Colorado lost to Oakland, and St Louis split a doubleheader with Milwaukee. That mainly benefited the Cincinnati Reds, who finished a four-game sweep of Pittsburgh and moved into second place in the Central despite their losing record. 

Today

Giants finish up with Seattle at Oracle Park, though it's officially a "road" game; as they did last night, the Giants will bat first in their own park. It's a daytime start at 1:10 PDT. Tyler Anderson faces Nick Margevicius in a battle of lefthanders, their second in a week. Anderson and the Giants got all the better of that first matchup.

Philadelphia has the Mets again at home. St Louis begins a series at Pittsburgh.

Colorado and Milwaukee are idle, as is Cincinnati.

Last Night's Game

After punching across single runs in the first and second innings, the Giants broke it open in the third on a monster two-run homer by Brandon Belt, followed by a solo shot down the left-field line from Evan Longoria. Mike Yastrzemski and Alex Dickerson drove in two more in the fourth; the Giants then loaded the bases and got one more on a passed ball. Staked to a 8-0 lead, Drew Smyly was unable to get the win, though he struck out 8 in less than 4 innings. With a run in, two on, and two out in the bottom of the fourth, Gabe Kapler pulled Smyly for Caleb Baragar-- who walked all three batters he faced, forcing in two runs. Thankfully, that was all, as Trevor Cahill came in for the third out and went on to pitch two scoreless innings, giving hope that he's recovered from his hip injury. Sam Coonrod and the Garcia "brothers" then finished the final three without incident. Brandon Crawford added a late homer. Giants pitchers walked eight men on the evening, but gave up only six hits. We're a tad concerned that Smyly wasn't left in to work his way out of it after only 78 pitches; Kapler's in-game pitching moves still produce their share of head-scratchers, at least from here.

Notes

Yes, it was weird playing as a "road" team in the home park, and the PA engineers attempted to embellish the Bizarro World ambience by piping in "crowd noise" when Seattle did something praiseworthy, while dead silence greeted Belt's 425-foot moonshot... LA defeated San Diego again to boost their lead back to three and a half. That probably does it...  The Giants website game summary notes, "After scoring only two runs... this past weekend, the Giants’ potent offense returned to form." This has to be a testimony to the Padres' pitching, which ranks second in the league in ERA... Donovan Solano is second in the NL in batting at .351, one point behind Atlanta's Freddie Freeman... The Oakland A's and Chicago Cubs' "magic number" is 5... With the wild-card competition all around them taking one step forward and one back, the Colorado series next week is looking more and more like the Giants' make-or-break opportunity.