When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

08.10.2007
Post-Game 8/9: Blue Sweeney

For those who missed the glorious broadcast debut of El Lefty Malo, click here, download and fast-forward through the first 25 minutes. Don’t get up to piss or you’ll miss me. (I could turn that into a country song.)

Nats 3, Giants 1: Before I comment, I have to say thank you to Mark Sweeney. He was traded to the Dodgers tonight. I’ll cheer you when you come back to Mays Field, Mark, even wearing the blue. I wish you were my teammate.

It’s the first Giant-Dodger trade in 22 years, so my guess is this is a reward to Sweeney for being such a stand-up guy during his Giants tenure. And quietly, he’s put together a nice year after a slow start. Give him the taste of a pennant race instead of the Mordur of 13 back in mid-August. The Giants only get a player to be named; perhaps the Nedster will take pity and send ol’ Sabes someone promising. I doubt it.

Back to today’s game: An orgy of waste on both sides. Both teams had ample opportunity to score, and both teams flailed. Especially the Giants. First inning, men on first and third with no outs: Winn pops up, then a a botched double steal. Fourth inning, man on third with one out: nothing. Fifth inning, man on second with one out: nothing. Sixth inning, first and third with one out: Frandsen hits into a double play. Eighth inning, first and third with no out: Giants can’t even hit a fly ball or ground ball up the middle. And yes, this includes you, Barry “You Even Love Me When I Pinch-Hit!” Bonds. Ninth inning, Vizquel on second with two outs: game over.

Pat Misch: the early verdict is “hittable.” After two starts here’s my early kneejerk assessment. He throws a lot of strikes, which is both good and bad. It’s good when he throws deceptive strikes. It’s bad when he gives up a lot of smashes, like he did today. He’s going to need a spry defense, and a wide strike zone won’t hurt.

Note: on the stadium gun, Kevin Correia didn’t crack 90 MPH in his two innings. I couldn’t tell if he was throwing all off-speed stuff, or if his fastball has lost a few ticks.

PLODAG: Rajai Davis. Three hits, two stolen bases, a little extra excitement every time he comes to bat. If I were Bat-Girl (oh, please come back to us!), Davis would be my B.O.D.

SMALL PRINT UPDATE: Sweeney gone, Ortmeier up. Why no Schierholz or Lewis? I can only speculate that Ortmeier is a switch-hitter who does better from the right side, which the Giants sorely need at this point.



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[August 10, 2007 2:32 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Jonathan Bass said

Question I've always wanted to ask--how does the player to be named thing work? Does the player still have to be mutually agreed upon? Can the team providing the player (Dodgers in this case), just send over anyone they want? I've never understood this, or the rationale for it.

[August 10, 2007 2:41 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Chris said

Lefty,

I think Ort has been playing some first base in AAA. Maybe the Giants wanted someone like Sweeney that can play 1B/OF?

I'd rather see Schierholtz get AB's than be a bench player.

[August 10, 2007 11:51 AM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

Unfortunately, though Ortmeier is a SH AND he throws lefthanded, he is hitting much better against LHP than RHP this season. This held true for AAA last season too, but not AA. However, in AA in 2005, again, he hit LHP better than RHP. They should just force him to hit LH all the time, he would be a good complement to our lefties if he could hit RHP.

Lewis has to stay down, if I recall right since he was just recently sent down. Don't know if Roberts going on the DL (if that happens), allows a waiver of that. In any case, if Roberts is out, Schierholtz would see more starts, as they move Winn to CF in that case or maybe play Rajai there anyway.

Only problem is the Pirates have a ton of LHP starters, so we really need a righty. However, I think Schierholtz has held his own this season against LHP, though obviously that's at AAA level, but still, that's progress, I think he had big problems before.

About the PTBNL, I found a great explanation as I've been wondering the same too: http://www.bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=658&Itemid=75

One key thing: "The player may not be an active Major Leaguer player during the interval between the trade and the date the player is named. As a result, most players to be named later are minor leaguers."

It must be completed in 6 months and sometimes there is a pool of players agreed upon. Sometimes the player is agreed upon but for a few reasons, is untradeable at the moment (draftees cannot be traded until a year elapses; prospects on minor-league reserve list may not be traded between Nov. 20 and Rule 5 Draft in Dec.)

About Misch, I was going to post this today at my blog, but I'll post here first: I looked through his splits and found that he has that magic combination you want in a pitcher (hence why the Giants decided to move him into starting), he can get a lot of strikeouts plus when he is hit, he gets a lot of groundballs. That's what King Felix can do to a better degree, but still, that's what Misch has done in AAA and MLB the past two seasons, give up more GB than FB, plus strike out a lot of batters.

I haven't looked at his BABIP, but I have to assume it is above the .300 mean he is suppose to regress to, since he is striking out so many. If you recall Big Daddy Reuschel, he didn't have much of a fastball either but could spot the pitches pinpoint, so his MO was progrssively worse strikes throughout the count, leading to mainly well pitched games with strikeouts. But there will be games where he looks totally hittable, like he was throwing batting practice. So I would give Misch time first before we pronounce him hittable. According to a post game quote on sfgiants.com, the Giants intend to give Misch at least 2-3 more starts, Ortiz or no Ortiz, Lowry or no Lowry, so that is good.

[August 10, 2007 1:46 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

Re. Misch: hittable isn't necessarily terrible. But my early read on him is that batters will put a lot of balls in play against him. He needs to make sure those balls don't leave the yard and are mainly on the ground. I'm certainly still optimistic.

Re. Ortmeier: OGC's first couple pargraphs are quite confusing. To clarify: Ortmeier is a switch-hitter who seems to hit better from the right side. Martin, I think you meant to say "They should just force him to hit RH all the time." That would make him the opposite of JT Snow, who moved to hitting left-handed full time after he got beaned by Randy Johnson in spring training one year.