Category Archives: Postgame Wraps

Postgame Wrap: Matt Cain Gets Timmy’d

Matt Cain is broken. Matt Cain is not broken. Matt Cain is broken from the stretch. Matt Cain can’t pitch with runners on base.

Matt Cain would like you to listen very carefully right now. There is nothing wrong with him.

I know this season has been hard to watch, and I understand if it’s hard to hold out optimism after we saw our Timmy hopes dashed against the rocks. But Cain recovered from a horrible first inning to dominate until the eighth.

And then, Goldschmidt. It had to be Goldschmidt, especially after he came up short in his previous at-bats. The twitters and the Greg Papas afterward were talking about Bochy’s decision to leave Jeremy Affeldt in to face Goldschmidt, and why he didn’t call in Sergio Romo. The only problem is that Goldschmidt is something like 3-7 against Romo, so it’s not obvious which would be better. As it happens, Affeldt stayed in and dished up his first homer of the year. Nitpick all you like, but sometimes when you have a great hitter like Goldschmidt, every pitcher has a bad matchup against him.

But really, Matt Cain. After the crappy first inning he allowed just three hits and no walks and struck out four, and gave up just one earned run. He yelled at the ump after the first inning – very uncharacteristic for the Horse – because he thought he was getting squeezed. Was he?

Uh yeah, a little bit. Every one of those little green triangles inside the box is a pitch that – according to this estimation of the strikezone – should have been called a strike. Given how many there are, it’s even more remarkable that he was able to overcome it and keep going as long as he did.

The real problem is the offense. Even though Angel Pagan’s numbers on the year aren’t too sparkly, the Giants sure seem to have trouble scoring without him. I’m a fan of the lineup change that Bochy made today; Posey is a bit more of an OBP guy and Panda has the power, so hopefully that will stir things up a bit. Having Sandoval back, even just 80% of him, will be a dramatic improvement over Arias/Noonan.

Other than that, the rest of the team is slumping a bit. Over the past seven days the Giants are hitting an atrocious .214/.242/.283, with just one home run. Brandon Crawford is batting an underwhelming .278/.278/.278 in the last week, while the red-hot Marco Scutaro has hit a pedestrian .235/.316/.353 over that span. How has Belt been doing? Yeah, don’t ask. With hitting like that, the whole team would get Cain’d, if they pitched well enough to deserve that label.

So in conclusion, good pitching is good. Bad hitting is bad. Keep up the good pitching and try to improve the bad hitting.

Good talk, team.

 

 

 

Postgame Wrap: Timmy Baffles, Torres Avenges

Revenge is a dish best served at 61 degrees, partly cloudy.

After the shellacking that the Giants received in Toronto, this series had to start off the right way. The Giants fell in Toronto due to awful defense, poor pitching, and some R.A. Dickulously terrible hitting. Today, the Blue Jays lost because they couldn’t field the ball, Freaky pitching, and because the Giants never moved the damn fences in. I know the Giants are playing the Jays again tomorrow, but I feel like we exorcized the demon by letting the Jays beat themselves tonight.

But the real story tonight is Timmy. Timmy absolutely dominated tonight after giving up a first-inning home run. He sat down 14 straight Jays, including five strikeouts. He walked just one – the slowest player on their team! – and finished with six strikeouts. So what did he do differently?

Continue reading

Postgame Wrap: Giants Score More Runs Than Cardinals, Win Game

After yesterday’s stomping, the Giants could have done almost anything today and have it qualify as an improvement. They could have tripped and fallen jumping out of the dugout to celebrate a perfect game, or lost in extra inning on a walk-off walk to an American League relief pitcher, or re-signed Armando Benitez for today’s start. It still would have been better than yesterday.

Continue reading