Limp Bats
Total stud effort by Cueto last night. Apparently you need a little hitting to go along with stud pitching, eh?
Our hitters, who are not this bad, need to be accountable for this nonsense. Pence should voluntarily retire. But this isn’t all on him.
Again, I am really not worried about our hitting. We know it’s better than this. It’s just disappointing that we continue to lose games with pitching performances that are worthy of wins….
But this isn’t as dire as everyone is making it. If they Giants had won 2-1 last night we’d be singing their praises today. If you truly don’t think this team can score 2 runs, this revamped offense, then I can see why you’re giving up.
The offense is not this bad. It should be fine. The pitching has actually been better than expected and Smarge and Bum will return.
Hey, the good news is that Pence absolutely crushes Ray, he’s hitting .538 off him and I can’t stop laughing right now….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
lot of good hitters struggle early and you can find them on every team/every box score. In Astros box score from Sunday, when Colon no hit them for 8, 5 guys were at .214 or under. Last year took Cutch 2 months to get going. He’s in contract year, behooves him to rake.
Watched Stanton highlights this AM—last night GIDP pop out and a K. Fans, uh not happy. Does that mean I wouldn’t love to have him? No.
In my opinion, the pitching has been outstanding, especially when you consider that 3 of our top pitchers have been on the DL. The bullpen too has done a fine job overall. I have no idea if they’ll continue to do well, with rookies bringing up the rear of the rotation and they’re sprinkled in amongst the bullpen. Additionally, our closer is on the DL. Also, doesn’t it seem like our bullpen will likely be exhausted by the All Star break?
The hitting is terrible and although they may increase their run production from the pathetic 2 and change they’re presently producing, I don’t see any of these guys improving our current MLB run position of dead last. In RBIs, we rank 29th. Our K/9 rate of 8.19 is tied with Baltimore for 22nd place. HRs we’re 25th. Batting average of .233 is 18th.
Call me crazy, but I don’t see any evidence that this team is better than last season’s team. I hope I’m wrong.
I think it’s better, but by how much is TBD. It’s older, and that’s not good. This team is getting old, fast. How can the run scoring not be in the bottom third? Williamson and Duggar are a hope and a prayer. Neither is a life saver by any means, even if they come up and do reasonably well, say .250. I don’t see how this team can even be in the hunt for WC II…
I think they have definitely improved 3b RF, at the plate and defensively, over last season and CF too. Eventually I think LF will be improved too once incumbent is politely put out to pasture/coffee bar.
Sure Giants are tough to watch but if pitching can keep them in games they’ll win their share is my take.
They’ve played DBax pretty tough, LA too.
Stanton btw struck out twice last night while going 0-4 and lowered BA to .197. At home he is 3-35 batting .086 with 20 Ks. I’ll still take him.
Maybe Belt found something…even a check swing can turn into a knock if properly placed in right direction.
This is the pattern we fell into for huge chunks of the season. Sure, we got a couple new bats, but the overwhelming suck of the old ones is muting their contributions.
Crawford is now a clueless hacker who hasn’t hit anything hard in a week. It’s got to the the Jheri curl, dude. You are 31 for fuck’s sake.
Pence is Pence. The preacher who lost his flock. Longo is battling a lingering ankle injury. It just randomly locks up on him. No biggie. Actionless Jackson has one XBH and is leading the charge with his .227 BA.
The point being, once we start hitting, the pen will melt. Or Stratton will spin a disaster.
Beyond that, Gorkys and Gregor still lead the team in OPS.
I don’t know. Hard not to get down on these guys when the pitching was supposed to be so fucked up with the injuries, yet we are overmatched just about every game.
Tip your caps, boys. You got beat again.
Like I said I guarantee you we blow a 5-3 lead late and lose 7-5.
It probably wouldn’t have mattered, but why was Hundley pinch-hitting for Panik? If Bochy wanted to use Hundley, then he should have pinch-hit in the pitcher’s spot instead of Gorkys, who looked completely clueless in his AB.
Hundley SHOULD NOT even have a roster spot. Read this and you’ll know why. Also, Bochy’s use of him (and others) is why we need a new skipper.
https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2018/4/17/17242008/mlb-sf-giants-nick-hundley-low-obp-like-really-low-way-too-low-uncommonly-low-just-not-high-at-all
More reasons why Bochy needs to be replaced and irrefutable evidence of what Unca was referencing about “Actionless Jackson.”
http://thesportsdaily.com/2018/04/17/for-the-san-francisco-giants-the-old-school-is-always-in-session/
Good article and spot on.
The 3 in 5 basking is about done.
With 3 new starting players, same result, what is the commonality the last season and a half where the Giants have the worst record in baseball? Field management…
What a damning article Blade…how was the flight? I was going to make fun of your shoes coming out of your blanket in your exit row…
I am telling you all as I did all last year…time to move Buster…
Those are the very popular Keen water sandals (H2 Newport). These sandals have literally been around the world.
https://www.google.com.vn/search?q=Those+are+the+very+popular+Keen+water+sandals&prmd=ivsn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjt6tT6gcjaAhUFj5QKHZiwASAQ_AUIESgB&biw=360&bih=564#imgrc=_3znND4UismtlM:
Hitting in 2018, 2017 Part Deux, awful
Interesting articles, Blade; thanks!
Bochy isn’t going to suddenly change his approach. It took him forever to bat Belt in the two spot, and some managers would bat him leadoff.
Bochy was the right guy for the 3-in-5, when a lot of wonderful things converged: great first round draft picks mixed with some veterans who had amazing lightning-in-a-bottle momentary resurgences. But now we’re into a type of longer term transition-rebuild that has never been Bochy’s strength.
And a light’s out bullpen during the 3-in-5.
Actionless Jackson.
I believe a new nickname has been coined!
The Padres almost stuck a loss on the Dodgers last night. As was said by someone on the MLB Network this morning: there are some dents in Jansen’s armor now.
I was at that game. Yeah, Jansen is off. Velo was mostly 91. Besides the homer and near homer, several balls were fouled straight back, meaning guys were timing him up well.
Gonna be interesting to see if he gets back to his dominant ways. Baez on the other hand, blew away ever batter he faced. He could be he guy if Jansen continues to struggle.
Taco Tuesday at Petco is quite a scene. Many vendors do special $2.50 tacos that are damn good. Grilled fish, tri-tip, traditional chicken and beef etc….
I’m all in on tacos.
The thing that is driving this Giants bus is ownership and Baer.
The constant drumbeat of selling licensed goods and garlic fries and expensive tickets to see a sucky team.
They do not want to do what is necessary, a tear down and rebuild.
Essentially, they don’t trust the fanbase to handle a couple of years of no-names and kids playing at ATT at .500 or worse, while the minors are restocked, ala the Cubs and Astros. Consequently, they keep recycling vets with a name — a plan that looks like it will generate the same result –.500 or worse baseball. Never mind, keep those butts in the seats with named vets on the downside and the bobblehead giveaways. The talent level delta between the Giants and a team like the Astros is wide…
The Giants game was over so quickly (2 hours or so) that I flicked over to the A’s game and was impressed with some of the A’s hitters. The A’s can rarely keep anyone longterm, but they do a nice job of finding and developing talent.
In the pre-season rush to anoint the Yankees, people kind of slept on the Red Sox. That is a very solid team, with a nice mix of young talent and veterans, and a new manager who seems to be connecting very well with them.
How is it that a high revenue team like the RSox continue to find and draft good talent, and make contributing FA choices, so that they are almost always in the hunt year to year — while the Giants with similar high revenue have a regularly dissed minor league system? And the RSox aren’t afraid to change field management. Guys like Mac Williamson and Parker would have been jettisoned some time ago if they were in the RSox system…
I don’t know the answers but I was darned impressed they cut Sandoval loose and ate about $50 million.
There’s NO WAY they would be trotting the 2018 version of Pence out there.
The Red Sox also fired the GM that signed Sandoval.
Yep, they don’t have a problem with admitting expensive mistakes and moving on…
Snarkk…Mac Williamson almost killed me at Fenway…we need to see if the new swing is real. Because one thing I know for sure is that he hit one of the hardest hit balls I ever seen (and ended up feeling) during batting practice…
I think qurstions about their starting pitching with David Price and Porcello in the rotation were legit. Let’s see how they hold up…
The reason I started the Bruce Bochy .500 count end of last season was that I was convinced he would not retire below .500…figured he would announce his retirement out of the blue while still above .500.
There is little hope now of him finishing this season (he is 6 games below .500 now) above .500, meaning we are stuck with him for the year as he chases .500…
Bochy could give a fuck about his record. He’s not chasing numbers at this point in his career. The numbers that matter are 4 WS appearances and 3 WS wins.
Yeah, the marketing angle is overblown about 100%. Sucking with vets is preferable to trying to get better faster? This looks for all intents and purposes like another 90+ loss season. As with all the decisions around baseball in general, catering to the casual fans is the wrong way to approach this.
Snarkk, the Giants finally cleaned house in the scouting/drafting department last year. David Bell has the job, and hopefully he can bring his success from the Cards, another team that has done very well despite always being near the bottom of the draft year after year.
If this is our tack, then if I’m Madison Bumgarner I’m asking to be traded once I get healthy. Fuck this mess. Cueto has to be thinking ‘shit, I could have opted out?’
Beyond that, anyone using ‘cromulent’ in a baseball article is alright by me.
I think Cueto will be shopped and may end up outside Bum bringing in the most value even above Posey. I personally dont think Bum cares. He has 3 WS rings and I could see him perfecrtly happy to stay in the orange and black. What is sad is that it looked like he was going to have a big, big season…
Yeah, between last year and this year he will have lost one full season. The Giants’ margin for error is too tiny to lose him for extended periods like that.
It’s not like we were flying high before he went down last year.
But it was early still. Only about three weeks into the season.
I gave Alonso Powell too much credit the yesterday saying he was a lifetime.231 hitter he actually was worse at .211!!
How the hell a guy with a .211 avg get to be a hitting coach?? He only played in the bigs twice and they were 4 years apart!! As Twin would say ferchristsakes (sp) rip me Twin lol
We all knew the Giants would have a tough April, but we figured the offense would be better than ’17. How can so many hitters all struggle at the same time? That kind of thing never ceases to amaze me.
Their dual hitting piece of shit coaches!!
Would be a great start to look!!
Yes the “Wrath of Kat” will be relentless on these 2 knuckleheads…
That article on Hundley is funny. Just the right combo of amusement and twisting the dagger. I too have wondered WTF he’s doing batting sometimes in the middle of the LU, but I didn’t know his OBP was that bad. Bochy is not new to wacky LUs. Remember, Bochy once had Rohand hitting lead off for about 2 months. Still don’t have any in the mainstream sports media around here really questioning Bochy, as if that would be sacrilegious. But, I see it as healthy and logical. After 1.5 seasons of suckage, and a bad start into another season, it would be ludicrous for a fanbase to not question whether field management had it’s act together, and still had the attention of the players, who already seem to be sleepwalking again in some games…
Dodgers get a more challenging opponent than the Padres this weekend:
“Pitching matchups this weekend vs. Nationals at Dodger Stadium:
FRI: Hill/Scherzer
SAT: Kershaw/Strasburg
SUN: Ryu/Hellickson”
The 1-hit wonders taking on Ray: Jackson CF, Panik 2B, McCutchen RF, Posey C, Longoria 3B, Pence LF, Belt 1B, Crawford SS, Stratton RHP
Bochy says: “I got your Jackson right here, and he’s batting leadoff, haters!” 🙂
Now a corrected lineup: Jackson CF, Pence LF, McCutchen RF, Posey C, Longoria 3B, Belt 1B, Tomlinson 2B, Crawford SS, Stratton RHP
Pence in the two-hole; why not?! It’s so crazy it might work!
(Spoiler alert: it won’t work.)
Bochy apparently hasn’t read the article Blade posted earlier.
Pence is striking out darn near in 4 out of 10 ABs. So, sure, makes sense he hits #2…
Tolbert on KNBR this afternoon saying if they Giants were getting any hitting at all they could be 11-5 right now. That’s not too far off. The pitching has more than met the task this year esp when you consider they have been without their top 2 starters all year and Cueto for 2 starts…
Loo I sent you another email
Hey, I’ll be thrilled if Pence proves us wrong and has a nice game tonight. He just looks so out of whack, though.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he has some chronic pain in the area hit by the wild pitch a couple of years ago.
Pence in the 2-hole? Oy vey.
i feel this is kinda always how Pence looks. He’s always looked pretty awkward whether he’s swinging or throwing the ball. Up till now his superior athletic ability has gotten him by. Now, without that same level of ability, he’s swinging and succeeding like I might if I were in the box….
Pence has Scheuermann’s Disease, a spinal disorder that bends the upper spine abnormally and restricts movement. It’s usually painful, apparently, and the pain can worsen with athletic effort. When this came to light in the PS 2014, Giants’ trainer Groeschner said “he has no rotation in the mid-spine.”
really? I had no idea.
yeah, I remember hearing about it in 2014.
https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/there-s-a-good-reason-why-hunter-pence-throws-like-that-101214
iirc he sort of alluded to his disability when he accepted the Willie Mac Award, 2013.
Bochy really needs to go. The team is flat, boring and desperately in need of a new voice.
No urgency, no spark. They look like they’re going downhill on a scooter…
Yes. For a couple of years now.
“PHOENIX — D-backs manager Torey Lovullo announced on Wednesday that right-handed pitcher Taijuan Walker will require Tommy John surgery to repair a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.”
Sorry to hear that, really don’t want players to get hurt in general, but look at the bright side that’s one less starting pitcher that will beat the Giants..
One thing I do admire about Hunter Pence is his durability and all out hustle throughout his career.From 2008 his second season at age 25 till 2014 age 31 he missed a total of 25 games with 2 straight 162 game seasons( 2013-2014)for the Giants as a true “Ironman”
Sad to say unfortunately those many years and averaging 650 plus AB’s has taken a toll on his body now, and maybe between his stubborness and managers allowing him to go out their everyday was definitely not the wisest decision in the long run..
“LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Dodgers today recalled left-handed reliever Adam Liberatore from Triple-A Oklahoma City and placed left-hander Rich Hill (left third digit inflammation) on the 10-day disabled list, retroactive to April 15.”
This one might be shenanigans because the Dodgers had an extra inning game last night and used a bunch of relievers.
The Giants are kind of like my marriage. Going downhill fast but staying together in the faintest of hopes that the spark will once again reignite.
Spoiler alert- It doesn’t reignite.
Sorry to hear about your marriage, but that’s funny stuff. And been there, done that, so I can relate.
that sucks Wilco but I agree with LJ, that was pretty funny. It’s nearly impossible to live happily with a woman for life, at least that’s what I discovered years ago. Hope it all works out for you one way or the other.
Christ, Ray almost hit the backstop about 6 times, but God forbid we move a runner. Actionless finally gets on first and he sets up a basecamp there,
“Basecamp”
Funniest line I’ve heard in days.
They plunked Belt for the bunt yesterday
Obviously all hitters have slumps throughout the course of the long season, but balanced offenses can absorb that. It seems we’re often wondering how so many Giants hitters can “struggle” at the same time. The whole offense tanked together the 2nd half of 2014, maybe also in 2013, I can’t remember anymore, and of course last year. I had started to think they weren’t just struggling, but rather that maybe they all just sucked, period. With the new bats brought in this year, I figured there’d be more balance and less unified sucking. Damn, gotta blame someone, so I’ve been with Loo on the Bochy must go train… dead-ass teams need someone wearing the big hat who will *do* something to snap them out of it, and that’s not Bochy…
Just a non stop exercise in futility. First two guys get on but it feels like almost no chance they’ll score. Tomlinson gets jobbed on a bullshit called strike three and that’s all she wrote.
Sad to say that last inning was likely our rally for the game.
Longo, we need that last AB
Pffffffffffffffffffffft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pffffffffffffft . . . . pfffffffffffffffffffffft
Fuck. At least he kinda battled there. And went down swinging. Not a pussy at bat for once
Another wasted inning for your SF Giants!!
Remember this inning and have a chance to win one free month of Waste Management garbage recycle pickup..
Now this is getting ridiculous.
Let’s get the kid a couple of runs fercrisssakes.
So is Stratton going to be Cuetoed tonight as well? It’s beyond a joke now how miserable this team has gotten..
“Austin Jackson has a hard time with the hanging slider from a lefty…” If that doesn’t sum up the 2017-2018 Giants, I don’t know what does.
The kicker is LJ, they picked him up cause he’s suppose to tear up left handed pitching lol..
Stratton about to get Cained. Stratton looks like the reel deal. He locates his sots and keeps guys off balance. He K’s Goldy with a curve the 1st time and then a fastball down and in.
A clean inning? No LOBs?
Oh fuck. Here comes a 5 minute delay. He’s out.
There’s your Giants replay.
We have our leading base stealer on 1st . . .
Longo IS feeling it . . .
RUNS!
Am i the only one watching?
Amazing how much better Longo looks just a week later. That nasty slider he laid off just before, then BOOM! His whole demeanor at the plate is night and day.
finally! Not worried about Longo this year at all. Unless he gets hurt. He’s adjusting to the league finally, he can still hit.
Runs!
Now that was a great AB by Longo!
Maybe atleast he’s coming out of the team wide coma..
this Puerto Rico game is crazy. Sano ties it up with a bomb in the 14th
I guess the lights are working at the baseball game?
Retire now Hunter fucking A your so done!!!
It’s time to get Pence out of there. He is utterly lost.
They need to mystery-malady Pence hence.
Great pickup by Stratton for the shut down inning. He’s being super efficient tonight, really dealing. Mac Williamson can drop fly balls and actually have a chance to hit a little bit. Time to make a move.
patience. Sock Day is almost here.
They can put a sock in Pence’s mouth now permanently..
He might have raked Ray in the past, but those days are over like him..
Reminds me of the whack-sock days.
Bring up Williamson&Duggar&Slater shitcan Actionless Jackson, Pence (won’t happen sadly) and Blanco..
Outfield now is Williamson LF Duggar/Slater combo in CF McCutch RF
Gorky sticks only cause he’s younger..
Stratton has a nice even demeanor out there.
Shit, that ball was crushed.
The kid from Redwood City Daniel Descalso is flashing serious leather tonight..
They’re only giving out the Hunter Pence socks to kids.
Ugh, those things are hideous.
Looks like he is hanging by his neck.
Might make a hideous tie for a Halloween party,,
I would send Pence home ASAP for a thorough physical examination. I really believe he may be terribly ill…
I might need that exam as well Loo, cause I’m really getting terribly ill watching him..
On Buster Posey sock day they will be given out for all ages.
Stratton’s gonna be a good pitcher for this team, he knows how to locate and then blow cheese by you when you guess wrong..
I’m starting to cringe on any ball hit to the outfield.
Are those Pence sox for real? Looks like something out of South Park….
Yeah, those are the socks.
LOL
Great pitching their to freeze Avila at the plate as Goldy looks in disbelief from 2nd base lol..
Flav, we talked last start about how Stratton wasn’t missing many bats. He’s turned that around tonight. He looks like a polished professional to me, nailing his spots, changing speeds and using his fastball really well. He hasn’t even had to go to the hammer all that often. He just abused Avila on that last AB.
Dee Gordon is struggling defensively with the move to CF. He’s got the speed, but looks just like you’d expect an infielder to look playing center in the big leagues for the first time. Bad routes, overrunning the ball, etc.