Wednesday, September 23, 2020

                  W-L   GB

Cincinnati 28-28     Still 8 runs to the bad

Milwaukee 27-27     Hold the tiebreaker edge

GIANTS         27-27 ...     Win when the others lose

Philadelphia 27-29 1     Nats put a hurtin' on 'em

New York 25-30 2 1/2    Can't afford one more loss

Colorado        24-30 3     You can do the math

                

Yesterday

Giants defeated Colorado, 5-2.

Cincinnati lost to Milwaukee and Philadelphia was swept in a doubleheader at Washington.

New York defeated Tampa to stay alive.

Today

Giants host Colorado, third game of the series. 6:45 PDT at the O. Righthander Ryan Castellani starts for the Rockies; the Giants have not announced a starter. It's Logan Webb's turn in the rotation, but don't be surprised to see Trevor Cahill, who threw 19 pitches in two-thirds of an inning last night, take the mound.

Milwaukee and Cincinnati finish up their three-game set at the GABP, while Philadelphia concludes the series at Washington. New York is home against Tampa Bay, who will clinch the division with a win if the Yankees also lose. 

Last Night's Game

The Giants' truly uncanny pinch-hitting heroics came through again. With the score tied 2-2 in the seventh, Alex Dickerson batted for Daniel Robertson against righthander Jairo Diaz and belted his tenth homer to lead it off. Joey Bart followed with his second double of the game, and with one out Austin Slater, who was on base five times (two hits including a leadoff home run, three walks, two runs scored, and a stolen base), singled, Bart taking third. Brandon Belt pinch-hit for Wilmer Flores and ripped a 2-0 pitch past former Giant Kevin Pillar in center for a double to bring both runners around, and that was the ballgame. Tyler Rogers, who had blown starter Drew Smyly's fragile 2-1 lead in the top of the frame, got the win. Tony Watson and Sam Coonrod finished up, Coonrod earning his third save.

Weekday Update 

LA clinched the NL West (and the top seed) last night, and the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians clinched playoff spots... Philadelphia has lost four straight, but Miami has lost three in a row so that second-place NL East race is still hotly contested... St Louis continues to hold a one-game lead over the Reds and Brewers in the Central... Is Austin Slater a terrific ballplayer or what? .324/.442/1.033, albeit in 26 games, 13 walks in 71 AB, 8-for-9 stealing. Looking at Belt, Dickerson, and Flores too, there is no doubt the DH has been a huge boost to the Giants' offense. We expect there will be a strong push to adopt the universal DH after this season, and we think it will succeed, and we're not upset about it, as we would have been a decade ago. (Then again, Madison Bumgarner no longer plays for the Giants!)

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

                W-L     GB

Cincinnati 28-27     Hottest team in the race

Philadelphia 27-27     Miami still within reach

GIANTS         26-27 1/2     Can't afford another one

Milwaukee 26-27 1/2     In same boat as Giants

Colorado        24-29 2 1/2    Still in it if they can win

New York 24-30 3     May drop out if lose again

Yesterday

Giants lost to Colorado, 7-2.

Cincinnati defeated Milwaukee; they've won 8 of 10 and gained four games on the Giants and Phillies.

Philadelphia lost at Washington and New York lost at home to Tampa.

Today

Giants host the Rockies again at 6:45 PDT. Drew Smyly and Kyle Freeland in a battle of lefthanders. The Giants did well against Freeland in his two previous starts, though they lost both games late.

Milwaukee is at Cincinnati, Philadelphia has a doubleheader at Washington, and New York hosts Tampa Bay.

Last Night's Game

Johnny Cueto picked the worst possible time for his worst start of the year. He was roughed up for seven runs, all earned, in four-plus innings: 8 hits and 3 walks against 13 outs. Former Giant Kevin Pillar earned some payback by scoring the game's first run and launching a homer off Cueto in the third; he finished 2-for 5. The top three of the Giants' lineup was 6-for-12 with both RBIs but that was it; a particularly unhappy moment came when Gabe Kapler pinch-hit for Joey Bart in the eighth. Alex Dickerson, whose wife just had their first child, returned to the lineup with a 3-for-4 night including a double and a homer.  

Notes

Colorado is now 5-2 against the Giants on the season. If that isn't evened up by Thursday night, this may have been all in vain... Cueto has made three starts since his fine effort against Arizona on August 30, and the last two have been especially bad. Eight days of rest this time didn't appear to do him any good... Cincinnati trails St Louis by one percentage point for second place in the Central... Philly has been one game behind second-place Miami in the East for what seems like forever; both have lost their last two. Playing the last-place Nationals while the Marlins have the division-leading Braves should be a golden opportunity for the Phillies, but the Giants can tell them all about that kind of opportunity... Oakland became the first team to clinch a division title last night, and they did it by beating the Dodgers in LA. 

 

Monday, September 21, 2020

                  W-L     GB

Philadelphia 27-26     Trail Miami by one game

Cincinnati 27-27     Hold WC tiebreaker for now

GIANTS         26-26 …     8 division games left

Milwaukee 26-26 …     Open series with Reds

New York 24-29 2 1/2    On the edge of irrelevance

Colorado        23-29 3     Not irrelevant to Giants

Yesterday

Giants bombarded Oakland, 14-2.

Philadelphia lost to Toronto, 6-3.

Cincinnati defeated the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee defeated Kansas City.

New York was shut out by Atlanta and Colorado got a win against LA.

Today

Giants at home against Colorado, 6:45 PM PDT, the first of four big games. Johnny Cueto, on eight days' rest, faces German Marquez.  The Rockies are pretty much out of it, but they can do big damage to the Giants here. 

Philadelphia is at Washington, the first of four with a doubleheader tomorrow.

Cincinnati and Milwaukee play each other at the Great American Ballpark. It would help if the Brewers do well here, as we will discuss later. 

New York is at home against the Tampa Bay Rays, who are in the playoffs and trying to head off the charging Yankees for the AL East division. Tampa also has the best record in the AL and currently hold the top seed. 

Yesterday's Game

22 scoreless innings ended with a bang when Chadwick Tromp blasted a two-run homer off Mike Minor in the third, and the Giants then uncrated the big lumber in a hurry. Darin Ruf added a two-run shot one inning later, and in the sixth Brandon Crawford (.283, .835, have you noticed?) launched a grand slam off J.B. Wendelken. The Giants, letting loose some pent-up frustration, kept pilin' on with runs in each of the last three. Meanwhile, Tyler Anderson showed no sign of umpire fatigue as he pitched into the sixth, allowing four hits and getting his third win. Brandon Belt was on base four times (three walks) and scored twice, while Austin Slater had two hits and a walk and also scored twice. Ruf, who is a destroyer of left-handed pitching, had 4 RBI, was on base four times, and he also scored twice. How sweet it is to run down a Giants lineup that doesn't include Mike Yastrzemski and Alex Dickerson and still see a bunch of 900+ OPS.

The Rundown

The Giants' chances for a wild-card spot may come down, as they stand today, to tiebreakers with teams in other divisions. With no head-to-head competition, that tiebreaker is intradivisional record-- that is, how the Giants do against their own division versus how the Phillies, Reds, and Brewers do in theirs. 

As we noted above, the Giants' final eight games are all intradivisional. The Brewers also finish with eight division games-- the upcoming three against Cincinnati, and five, yes five, at St Louis to conclude the season. Philadelphia, though, plays only the upcoming four at Washington, and Cincinnati only has these three with Milwaukee. Both the Reds and Phillies finish with weekend road series against top AL teams (Minnesota and Tampa). As it stands today, the Giants' division record is 15-17. Philadelphia is 20-16; the worst they can do is .500.  The Reds are 19-18 and Milwaukee 16-16, with St Louis 19-16. The Cards are in Kansas City for three this week.  

San Diego became the second NL team to clinch a playoff spot this weekend. They still trail LA by four, though...  The Braves and Cubs have identical 31-22 records and three-game leads...  In the AL, the East and Central division top spots are decided (Tampa, New York, Chicago, Minnesota) but the orders have not been decided... Had Oakland beaten the Giants yesterday, they'd have clinched a tie for the AL West division... Cleveland is sure to be one AL wild-card; Houston will battle it out with Toronto for the other... The Indians' Shane Bieber (8-1, 1.74, 0.86) is the top pitcher in MLB statistically. Also near the top is San Diego's Zach Davies (7-3, 2.69, 1.01) who beat the Giants back on July 28 and will get another chance this coming weekend... Luke Voit of the Yankees has 21 homers in 49 games. Do the math... 21-year-old Juan Soto leads the majors in OPS, Mike Trout is 8th and Mike Yastrzemski 20th. The eternal, 40-year old Nelson Cruz is sixth, and on his way to another postseason, with Cooperstown visible in the distance.

Sunday, September 20, 2020

                  W-L     GB

Philadelphia 27-25     Making their move

Cincinnati 26-27     Trail Cards by 1

GIANTS         25-26 …     6-18 against winning teams

Milwaukee 25-26 …     Trail Reds by .001

New York 24-28 1 1/2    Need a 6-2 finish

Colorado        22-29 3     Still can be spoilers

Yesterday

Giants lost again at Oakland by the same score, 6-0, though it was a much closer game. Yes, we know-- that doesn't count.

Philadelphia defeated Toronto, 3-1; the Phillies have hit their stride.

Cincinnati lost at home to the Chicago White Sox, snapping their six-game winning streak and dropping them into third, behind the St Louis Cardinals, who once again beat the Pirates.

Milwaukee shut out Kansas City, 5-0, for their third straight win.

New York defeated Atlanta and Colorado lost again to LA and Clayton Kershaw.

Today

Giants finish up at Oakland; 1:10 PDT at the Coliseum. Tyler Anderson is back after pitching two innings two days ago. He faces lefty Mike Minor, whom the Giants tore up when he was with Texas back on July 31.

They're all at home today: Philadelphia finishes up with Toronto, the Reds get the red-hot White Sox, Milwaukee has the Royals, and the Mets host Atlanta. Colorado finishes up with LA before coming to San Francisco.

Last Night's Game

Kevin Gausman sure did his part. Six one-hit one-run innings later, he was out of the game trailing 1-0, and ultimately was saddled with the loss.  While the Sams-- Selman and Coonrod-- gave up extra runs late in the game, that wasn't the story. The story is once again the Giants' suddenly-anemic lineup: six singles, no walks, one GIDP, and no runs, a scoreless streak that has now reached 20 innings. Unlike Giants playoff teams of recent past, they didn't "pounce" on the A's bullpem once starter Jesus Luzardo was out of the game. The reason behind all this may be simplicity itself: the "good" teams, such as San Diego and Oakland, tend to have good pitching, and the "bad" teams, such as Arizona and Seattle, don't. The Giants are 19-8 against those "bad" teams, and as we see above, 6-18 against the "good" ones. If form follows, we are looking at a 29-31 finish, and who knows whether that will be "good" enough? 

Saturday, September 19, 2020

                W-L    GB

Philadelphia 26-25     The Big Sweep

St Louis         24-24     Pirates playoff tonic?

GIANTS         25-25     Tiebreakers leave us out

Milwaukee 24-26 1     3-team Central logjam

New York 23-28 2 1/2    Blown out by Braves

Colorado        22-28 3     Like Mets, gave up 15 runs

Yesterday

Giants lost at Oakland, 6-0, and lost the wild-card lead.

Philadelphia swept a doubleheader from Toronto and moved past the Giants by half a game.

St Louis swept a doubleheader from Pittsburgh and moved past the Giants on tiebreakers.

Milwaukee defeated Kansas City. 

New York and Colorado were blown out by division leaders Atlanta and LA.

Today

Giants and A's at the Coliseum; 1:10 PM PDT afternoon start. Kevin Gausman, who pitched well against Oakland a month ago, takes the baton. Lefty Jesus Luzardo starts for the A's; the Giants roughed him up pretty good last month, in one of those games they blew in the ninth. 

Philadelphia has Toronto again at home.  St Louis is at PNC Park against the Doormats-- er, Pirates.

Milwaukee hosts the Royals again, the Mets have the Braves at home, and Colorado has LA at home. 

Last Night's Game

Where have you gone, Mike Yastrzemski? Well, not to the IL, thank goodness, but to a day-to-day status. Perhaps like the similarly gimpy Austin Slater, he can return soon as DH-- but probably not today against the southpaw. In any case, the Giants sure missed Yaz in this one, as they were held to three hits by Chris Battin, whose seven strong innings clinched a playoff berth for the A's. Logan Webb again put up a lousy start; we credit the Giants for valuing his (and the team's) future and sticking with him even in the pressure cooker of a playoff race. Looking for positives, we see five shutout innings from the recently-recalled Andrew Suarez and Shaun Anderson, as well as Caleb "No Walks Tonight" Baragar.

Tightening Up

As we can see above, it's right crowded around the .500 mark in this race now.  Cincinnati, winners of six straight, have finally reached .500 and have a tenuous hold on second place in the Central, ahead of the Cardinals, with the Brewers right behind.  The Mets and Rockies, for now, appear to be fading back in the race... LA so far is the only NL team to clinch the postseason, but in the AL division leaders Oakland, Tampa Bay, and Chicago are all in. The A's have a 7-game lead over Houston and could clinch the division as soon as tomorrow, though we sure hope not. But thanks in part to the Giants beating up on Seattle, the Astros are likely to make the postseason as the AL West "2" team...  The rotation has been jumbled up this past week. Webb has pitched twice since Cueto's last start while Gausman today is making his first start in 12 days. Cueto had a poor outing in San Diego last Sunday, you'll remember, and evidently there's concern about Gausman being overworked. If we had to predict down the stretch, we'd say: Cueto tomorrow, Smyly Monday, Anderson Tuesday, Webb Wednesday, Gausman Thursday, Cueto and Cahill in Friday's doubleheader, and the lefthanders Smyly and Anderson to close it out next weekend. 

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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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.