Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Survival of the Freakiest
It's a tough task to eke out wins on the road when your team resembles a MASH unit, but the Giants have been able to do just that, beating the Mets in the first two games of their series in New York, and suddenly turning this into a decent road trip. Of course, it helps when you have a pitcher capable of turning major league hitters into crying children.
Tim Lincecum provided all the ammo tonight with his right arm, striking out twelve Mets en route to a shutout win. The Giants blooped and blorped a couple of runs together to make Timmy's brilliant pitching stand up. All of these injuries have pressed backup players like Mike Fontenot and Nate Schierholtz into larger roles. Not ideal, of course, but to their credit they've stepped up, with my Totally Random Moment being when Schierholtz launched a mammoth upper deck home run in Coors Field two weeks ago.
I was starting to worry a bit about Timmy a little, to be honest. Despite a nice start against Washington, he had walked six Braves batters the start before and had walked three in seven innings before that. I checked the box score for today's game briefly at work and saw that Lincecum had already walked three batters in two innings. The sudden lack of command was worrying me.
Naturally, my fears were abated in a hurry. Lincecum didn't walk a batter for the rest of the game and cruised through seven innings. The pitch total of 127 is eye-opening, but I think Giants fans in general are through fretting about such things. Two years ago, the entire fanbase would have been ready to crucify Bruce Bochy for letting Lincecum throw so many pitches in just seven innings, but these days everybody figures Timmy can handle a high-pitch outing here and there.
The good from the last two games: Aubrey Huff, who looks like he is finally getting his bat back in order. Darren Ford, who is a joy to watch on the basepaths. I hope to goodness this guy hits enough to hold a job in the majors, because he's a lot of fun. Brian Wilson also wins kudos for a string of gritty saves. After a rocky first few appearances, I think we can safely say The Beard is back!
The bad: Buster Posey is struggling, but I think he's also running into a lot of bad luck. His BABIP is .289, a mite below average. Cody Ross looks awful right now, but hopefully this is attributable to his injury. Miguel Tejada...well, need I say more? It's the Miguel Tejada Pissing On Blog! Subscribe now!
Tim Lincecum provided all the ammo tonight with his right arm, striking out twelve Mets en route to a shutout win. The Giants blooped and blorped a couple of runs together to make Timmy's brilliant pitching stand up. All of these injuries have pressed backup players like Mike Fontenot and Nate Schierholtz into larger roles. Not ideal, of course, but to their credit they've stepped up, with my Totally Random Moment being when Schierholtz launched a mammoth upper deck home run in Coors Field two weeks ago.
I was starting to worry a bit about Timmy a little, to be honest. Despite a nice start against Washington, he had walked six Braves batters the start before and had walked three in seven innings before that. I checked the box score for today's game briefly at work and saw that Lincecum had already walked three batters in two innings. The sudden lack of command was worrying me.
Naturally, my fears were abated in a hurry. Lincecum didn't walk a batter for the rest of the game and cruised through seven innings. The pitch total of 127 is eye-opening, but I think Giants fans in general are through fretting about such things. Two years ago, the entire fanbase would have been ready to crucify Bruce Bochy for letting Lincecum throw so many pitches in just seven innings, but these days everybody figures Timmy can handle a high-pitch outing here and there.
The good from the last two games: Aubrey Huff, who looks like he is finally getting his bat back in order. Darren Ford, who is a joy to watch on the basepaths. I hope to goodness this guy hits enough to hold a job in the majors, because he's a lot of fun. Brian Wilson also wins kudos for a string of gritty saves. After a rocky first few appearances, I think we can safely say The Beard is back!
The bad: Buster Posey is struggling, but I think he's also running into a lot of bad luck. His BABIP is .289, a mite below average. Cody Ross looks awful right now, but hopefully this is attributable to his injury. Miguel Tejada...well, need I say more? It's the Miguel Tejada Pissing On Blog! Subscribe now!
