Tag Archives: Matt Cain

Thursday’s SF Giants lineup vs. Pirates, plus notes and links

The Giants’ road woes continue. With two straight defeats in Pittsburgh, San Francisco is now 12-20 on the road and just 33-31 overall. To their great fortune there is no breakaway team in the NL West, with Arizona on top at 37-29. If the Giants called the NL Central home, they would be 8.5 games behind the world-beating Cardinals.

The Giants will face Pirates’ pitcher Charlie Morton, who is making his season debut. One year ago tomorrow, the 29-year-old had Tommy John surgery to repair his elbow.

Marco Scutaro remains out with a case of “mallet finger”, but is looking to return tomorrow for the Braves series. Updates to follow today and tomorrow.

With the right-handed Morton on the mound, Blanco and Crawford return to the top of the lineup. Belt, too, moves up, having hit behind Joaquin Arias just yesterday. I understand Bochy believes heavily in platoon splits, but in the long run extra at-bats for Belt are more useful than anything Joaquin Arias does at the plate.

Here’s the lineup vs. Charlie Morton (0-0, 0.00), with notes to follow:

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Bad pitching, bad defense and a path to the postseason

Aside from a burst offense in an aborted comeback on Wednesday, little has gone right the last three days against the Oakland A’s. The defense has been bad and the pitching has been worse. Health, too, has been a problem; Angel Pagan hasn’t played since Saturday and Marco Scutaro has caught the virus making its way through the Giants’ clubhouse.

The Giants have played themselves into a tie for second in a very tight NL West. At this point, the winner of the division might only need 85-87 wins. The defending champs aren’t out of anything, but the last three games have been enough to wound the spirit of a once-believing fan base. Let’s ask some questions and posit some answers:

Is this just bad luck? Are the Giants vulnerable? Is this a .500 team?

First, let’s address what made the Giants successful from 2009-2012:

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POSTGAME RECAP: Django Uncained

Everybody predicted that Game One of the 2010 World Series would be one for the record books. Two-time Cy Young Award Winner Tim Lincecum was going up against Cliff Lee, a man eight feet tall with flaming red hair, with an arm made mostly of titanium who had yet to give up a run in his entire playing career.  Lincecum, a man of slight build and a back just four pitches away from flying into the stands mid-pitch, would have to be perfect to keep the game within reach of the mighty Clifton. If one this was certain, it was that this would be a pitchers duel for the ages.

And yet, that didn’t quite happen. Timmy was only decent and Clifton was flat-out bad, and the Pitchers Duel For the Ages ended 11-7. In fact, it seems like every time we have a PDFtA it ends up crappy, like when Yu Darvish and Justin Verlander faced off last week and Verlander walked in two runs. PDFtAs are so often disappointments.

Not tonight, though. Matt Cain recovered from his shaky first inning and an inconsistent strike zone to pitch seven strong innings. He gave up just one hit and two walks after the first inning, including striking out four of the last six batters he faced. Strasburg was equally brilliant, escaping a bases-loaded jam in the first inning and sitting down the last 10 Giants he faced. Both stars lived up to expectations.

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