Sunday, July 18, 2010

Missed opportunity

The Giants wasted a another fine start (Game Score 61), this one by Jonathan Sanchez. To be fair, they were up against Johan Santana, who won his first Cy Young when JSanchez was still in A-ball. The game appeared lost until the bottom of the 9th when Pablo Sandoval started a rally with, of all things, a walk. It was a great effort against K-Rod, who is one of the best. A Juan Uribe single and an Eli Whiteside sacrifice bunt put runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out. Travis Ishikawa then smoked a line-drive single to center that tied the game, and Andres Torres followed him with a rope into the right field corner that I thought for a instant might win it. Alas, Jeff Francouer came up with the ball cleanly and kept Ishikawa at third base. Freddy "5-3" Sanchez hit one of his signature ground balls to the left side--I thought the probability of him doing that was very high at that point, and could not believe the Giants had the contact play on. They did, however, and it looked like another wasted opportunity. The Giants then caught a break--Wright made a high throw home--and Ishikawa slid under the tag for what should have been the winning run. The Mets then caught a break--home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi missed the call--and the game went to the 10th. It was a spirited comeback by the local lads, only to fall short. Still, I was impressed. The rally caught me by surprise as we looked like our bags were packed and we were done. Brian Wilson, who has been brilliant this season, gave up the go-ahead run in the top of the 10th on a monster double by rookie Ike Davis, his second of the game. He hit two home runs last night, so I think we can say he's "seeing the ball real good."

I was really hoping for a sweep, but three out of four against a good team ain't bad. The Giants go to Chavez LAtrine for three games starting tomorrow. The Dodgers just got swept in St. Louis and are a game behind us. Perhaps we'll turn it around against the NL West this week. Struggling James McDonald gets the call against Madison Bumgarner. That looks like a good opportunity, I hope we can take advantage of it.

--M.C.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Worst loss of the year because it really should have been a win. I hope we drop a pitcher now and call up maybe Bowker or someone.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I wonder why we are carrying 13 pitchers, too.

Brother Bob said...

We wuz robbed.
It was a step in the right direction for JSanchez. There was an inning, I think the 4th, where he came out looking like crap, but he pulled it together and minimized the damage. So he seems to be learning how to re-focus and avoid meltdowns.
He's always the favorite trade bait in fantasy GM speculation, such as Sanchez for Cory Hart. I could live with that one. We should get a strong outfielder and move Huff back to first, even though he's doing OK out there.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I dunno, I think pitchers are worth more than position players. Hart straight up for JS would be selling him too cheaply.

Zo said...

I just wrote a long post explaining why Hart for Sanchez is a bad idea, but it was lost in the ether. I'll try again.

Troy Nelson said...

The Giants will go back to a 12-man staff soon since he starters have pretty much fixed their issues.

When the G-men DO call up a bat, I hope it is NOT Bowker. Say all you want about our lack of offense, no legitimate power threat, yada yada yada. But what this team needs more than anything else is SPEED on the base paths.

That's why I hope the Giants call up Emmanuel Burris. Or better yet, have you seen this Tyler Graham kid in Fresno? I watched him run silly at Raley Field when the Grizzlies visited the Rivercats a couple weeks back. He is explosive on the bases and gets from first to third like nobody's business. And he's a solid contact hitter, too, batting .346/.390/.452 in AAA. I would much rather see Graham (who has 24 SBs in 2010) called on to pinch run than an Edgar Renteria or Eli Whiteside.

Zo said...

Second try: Trading Jonathan Sanchez for Corey Hart is a bad idea. First, Hart would be a marginal upgrade. He is not a middle-of-the-order slugger that defines a team's batting order. He would take the place of Edgar Renteria, which would place Juan Uribe where exactly? As it is, we can swap out Uribe for Renteria for an upgrade making Hart, as I say, marginal. Second, you trade Sanchez, you make your rotation 4/5 of what it was. Given that Madison Bumgarner is a child, he might reach the end of his pitch count/inning count, or he might simply wear out at the end of the season. You do not want to push him and risk injuring him, so now you are down to 3/5 of your rotation. And what if someone gets hurt? Wellemeyer may or may not come back to full strength, but his "full strength" was not all that great before he got hurt. I know I have been a proponent of marginal upgrades, but those were dependent on replacing one guy with a better guy, not downgrading one position while upgrading another. The Giants do need a hitter, and the hitter they need is already on the team: Pablo Sandoval. He looks much better since the break, which, if it continues, simply makes the downside of a Sanchez/Hart trade (even if the Brewers would accept that) more potential down with less potential up.

If the Giants are going to make a trade, they need to trade Rowand or Renteria and either Torres or Schierholtz for an outfielder like DeJesus. They can even up the trade with minor league talent. That way, they can upgrade and clear less productive players at the same time. Leave our rotation alone.

Anonymous said...

Nooo not Andres. I won't allow it. I love him. Yes, I'm from NJ, but, he's everything that they/we wanted Fred Lewis to do. He has the speed, he plays an amazing Center Field, he gets on base, he's a real lead off hitter, he's a nice guy that never seems to have a complaint, and is just happy to play everyday. He is arguably the finest Center Fielder this year (at least that's what fangraphs told me). I wouldn't mind having DeJesus on the team, not at all. He would be a great 1-2 punch in the lineup with Andres:

CF Torres
RF DeJesus
LF Huff
C Busta
3B Pablo
SS Uribe
1B Ishi
2B Sanchez
P

Something along those lines would be nice. However, DeJesus is their best position player and they know it. They won't part with him cheap. And I hope that if we do get him, we won't trade away Brandon Belt. He could be the next big thing to come out of the minors for us. He'd form an excellent Triforce with Buster and Pablo. Pablo, the Triforce of Courage, Buster, the Triforce of Wisdom, and Brandon, the Triforce of Power. I can't wait.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Losing Torres would kill what little offense we have. Torres, Huff, and Posey are what we've got. And Sandoval--assuming he can find his old form. I don't expect .943 OPS (2009), but .726 (2010) is not cutting it.

The sad part about "adding a bat" is that there isn't anyone out there to add. Prince Fielder, just to throw out a great hitter, would cost more than the Giants can or will spend. The latest name, god help us, is Jose Guillen. Bleah. Here's what David DeJesus (a good player) will cost: "a major league-ready prospect, along with at least one midlevel prospect or a pair of lower-level players" (MLBTR)

Both of our "ML-ready prospects" are in the bigs and producing (Buster and MadBum).

No, I think all we can do is hope the Panda can hit again, and that Torres, Huff, and Posey continue to produce.

And we can't trade Rowand or Renteria unless we eat their salaries.

If Tyler Graham can take a walk he might be a useful PH/PR. His ML numbers outside of this season are not encouraging, though. But I'm willing to try anybody. The team needs more hitting. How about Travis Ishikawa getting more time (moving Huff to OF)? He's swinging the bat well lately.

Zo said...

I am not advocating such a trade, but stating that if we do absolutely need to make a trade, we should NOT deal Sanchez or any of our starting rotation, and we should attempt to do something with our outfield that, as of today, has Huff, Schierholtz, Torres, Rowand and Velez. If we could clear the way by trading two of these non-Huff guys for an upgrade, I would do it. We probably can't. I do not favor trading Torres, but if we could trade him for DeJesus and clear some other dead weight, I would do so. You are correct, we would have to pay salary for Rowand or Renteria. Right now these guys are overpaid bench players and deservedly so. The season has changed. We could use another bat, but as of right now, we are not nearly as desparate as we were earlier.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Clearing out the dead weight would be lovely. I'm all for it. Torres is too valuable, at this point, to consider moving him. In terms of wOBA, he's the 13th best OF in all of baseball. His 3.6 WAR (which includes defense) is 5th among all MLB OF.

I never imagined he was anything but a useful (speedy, great glove, some pop) platoon/4th or 5th OF type, but he proved me wrong. He's one of the best players in the game right now and the Giants would seriously hurt themselves by trading him. Without him and Huff having career years the Giants would probably be a .500 club at best.