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

06.01.2008
6/1/08: Turning Point

Giants 4, Padres 3, 10 innings: We human beings jump to conclusions that reinforce our biases. Wow, lots of purple cars on the road these days, huh? Maybe it has something to do with the purple car you just bought, pal.

If the Giants go on to have a great homestand, a great month, even a great year, we'll look back to today's game as a turning point. That's the narrative we all crave. It's the kind of game that can really spark a team to greater heights, to believe in themselves, to never give up. Unless it doesn't. That's not cynicism. In fact, it's a nod to the hoary baseball cliche that momentum gets you as far as the next day's starting pitcher. Or that momentum could simply be the product of an aging closer's bad day at the office.

But let's not allow such existential musings to piss on our post-game campfire. Backs against the wall, in need of two runs pronto against the game's greatest closer, and the Giants scored three. And this after San Diego seemed to lock it up on a devastating two-run homer in the top of the 10th from Adrian Gonzalez, who was sitting on a first-pitch curveball from rookie Alex Hinshaw. It wasn't too bad a pitch, perhaps knee- or thigh-high, 95% of the time it would be a surprise-breaking-ball first-strike kind of pitch. Gonzalez crushed it. Welcome to the big leagues, Hinsh.

But the Giants countered, stoked by Fred Lewis's triple that would have been a 420-foot home run anywhere else. In fact, if Fred hadn't watched it and jogged for the first five seconds, he probably would have had an inside the park home run to win the game outright. Instead, he had to wait to score until Jose Castillo's infield single (due to bad infield positioning by the Padres). Game over.

More than mojo or gamerness or the will to win, the Giants could use a better fifth starter, and they'll soon get one in Kevin Correia. Pat Misch didn't get embarrassed -- a few better breaks, and he probably would have won a game or two and sport an ERA a run lower. But Correia should be an upgrade, as should Merkin Valdez, due back soon, instead of Billy Sadler, whose extra-inning meltdown Friday was painful to watch. Sadler might be useful later this year or next, but as I noted earlier this week, he simply allows too many baserunners. Could the Horwitz-for-Ortmeier swap (and congrats, Brian, on your first two major league hits) also be an upgrade? With everyone healthy, it's hard to say. Ortmeier (who has had a broken finger, it turns out) still has great speed and power potential. Horwitz is mainly a high-average guy with little power to show in his minor league career.

PLODAG: Horwitz. Not just his first two hits, but the second one came off Hoffman in the decisive 10th.

The Upside: FreddieLoo! Every time I think he's slowing down -- witness his 0-for-4 with 3 Ks Saturday -- he does something to impress.
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[June 2, 2008 12:24 AM]  |  link  |  reply
reeky said

Sadler is a strange case: he's torn up the minors at times (260 Ks in 241 innings...see stats at http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/pl/452/452724.html ), but he dumps in the majors...some kinda head thing? Or just too many walks both minors/majors?

[June 2, 2008 12:47 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

The link you give doesn't include his 2007 numbers. Mainly at Fresno, he walked a brutal amount of hitters, nearly one an inning. Look ">here.


[June 2, 2008 12:48 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM replied to ELM

Oops. Try here .

[June 2, 2008 10:25 AM]  |  link  |  reply
reeky replied to ELM

Yeah, you're right, there's always been a lot of walks.

[June 2, 2008 2:11 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Jonathan said

We do need power, but we also need guys like Horwitz, who had nearly a .400 career OBP in the minors.

Timmy made some progress out there today, not pitching for the strikeout as often and working deep into the game. Meanwhile Alex Rios isn't exactly lighting the world on fire this season. We can thank our lucky stars that didn't happen.

BTW, Velez is tearing it up in Fresno since he got sent down. I think he's hitting over .400 in 10 games of, perhaps more importantly, errorless baseball.

[June 2, 2008 12:22 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

Heck, I though the sweep might have been a turning point. I'll save my turning points once/if we get to .500.

Yeah, great comeback against great closer, though a shadow of his former greatness.

Also, don't know if this started last year with Bochy or before with Felipe, but I noticed that the Giants seemed to have Hoffman's number for a while, don't know if that's a purple car thing but thought I would see if anyone here also noticed it.

Unfortunately, the Misch experiment looks done for now. But I think it was worth trying out still, had to find out whether his AAA dominance translated or not - it appears not but he had flashes of goodness and, like the Sanchez experiment, you never know when it clicks in.

Still, as far as #5 starters go, he was no worse than any other teams'. That's why it'll be an upgrade for us to have Correia back, he's been at least as good as anyone's middle rotation guy, if not better, and so we should win our share of games with him back in our rotation, maybe even get us back to .500 after Roberts got put on the DL (few teams can win when the leadoff hitter hits that poorly).

I think Ortmeier and Horwitz would make a good pairing in the outfield utility, though it would be better if one were left-handed. You want power and speed, Ort's your guy. You want to get on base, Horwitz (who also had shown no speed either, though he's starting to show power this season a la how Lance Niekro suddenly went from just hitting to hitting with power) is your guy.

About Velez, don't know if it was covered here or not (maybe it was MCC) but reportedly Velez's got screwed up on his batting strategy while up in the majors (perhaps language problem with Carney?) and Fresno is fixing it by taking what he used to do and incorporating the new instruction.

Also, it's nice to play everyday.

Sadler, it appears to be both walks and a head thing. We'll have to wait and see if he can ever solve either one.

Fred Lewis: who do you think you are, Barry Lamar Bonds? :^p Eh, it's OK, he did score and it adds another triple to our team count, maybe we can set a new recent era mark or something.