In The THICK Of The Playoff Hunt
Last night was a great sign in terms of how the players view Kap. It wouldn’t have been surprising to see them come out with a flat performance the day after Kap’s two-step blunder. But they came out focused and strong and handed it to the Rangers.
One thing I don’t get about the scheduling: with all this juggling do they have to keep to any form or rules? If it were a regular season and a game got canceled they’d make it up. But with 30 games canceled already do they just try to make those up whenever and against whoever they can make it work with? Because if that’s the case I could see MLB pulling this off still.
Signs are pointing to it not working and if they just straight give up that’s what we’ll have to accept I guess.
my emails today. Stix I promise I’ll get to that article after dinner….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Kapler juggles the LU constantly but every Giant player always seems to show up. It’s a team with holes, but they play hard. Kapler must be a big part of the reason games have been so enjoyable.
mlb should go for it — improvise rescheduling, get in as many series as possible, take a break (a quasi-quarantine break) and then run through the best playoff schedule possible. If they’re really clever, they’ll admit that this isn’t a WS year and just call the final series the 2020 Championship.
yeah I think the whole idea with 7 inning DHs is to cover as many games as possible. Encouraging I guess that players are in on this, and the expanded playoffs that will take more time in order to finish season. Maybe they needed something stupid like what Marlins did to give them a jolt of reality…lesson for all sports, one group of idiots can ruin everything and compromise health of many.
cbs site gametracker has beat writer (all the usual suspects for SF including AmyG) and team twitter accounts making comments on all during game. I clicked on one thread and there was obligatory tweet from a fan about why does Kapler still have Pence in lineup. One of responses was “just following orders.”
Thoughts? Is this really being ordered from above by Z, as to how the game is being played today? Or is Kapler on his own and allowed to pencil in whomever he wants?
Kap makes so many moves the bulk of them have to be his. Pence had a great season last year they probably want to let him try to re-capture that. If he did, that would help them win.
If that is the case, Kapler should bat him 8th or 9th where he could do less damage until he gets his shit together. There is simply no logic in inserting a .000 BA in the key hole.
the simple idea of having a guy bat cleanup against the team he starred for last season seems like a personal tip of the hat from the manager, not some front office order
One game against his last year team-mates–maybe. But if he runs Pence in there today I’ll start chewing up my beard.
Cards game probably getting canceled today. We’re about to find out the temperature of Manfred’s feet…..
agree 100% with this
“Just following orders.” For real? That question was something I brought up many days back. Amazed Kap actually may have owned up to it. If so, one would think it ultimately goes higher than Z. Would Baer be the chief suspect there? Gotta protect that $1M investment and keep those Farcebook moms happy. Yeah, someone as astute as Zaidi and tuned into the players like Kapler would logically not wallow in that mire for too awful long.
WillieD didn’t identify who tweeted “just following orders.” There may be a plan to let Pence try to show he can slug. (I’d say he’s run through his tryout period.) I’ll bet you half a day’s salary (now that I’m retired) that there’s no plan to play him in the OF regularly.
yeah was just a fan commenting on I think it was a Hank twitter thread. Not first time I’ve seen this statement made though so I wanted to ask here.
Look, like a lot of you, I thought the Pence pick up was a stupid one. But he had a great year last year. They aren’t going to give him a guaranteed contract and then cut him a week into the season. They’re going to see what he can do. Guys go through slumps like this throughout the year, Pence’s in magnified because it came at the start of the season and it’s EXACTLY how he spent 2018 with us. To Giants fans this guy hasn’t gotten a hit in 3 fucking years…..
Jesus, the guy who tweeted *just following orders* was probably just some dumbfuck twitter tweeter not anyone with any actual knowledge of what’s going on behind the scenes.
yes. Wasn’t a Giants beat writer.
The only thing I care about behind the scenes is why Pence is still on the roster?
Fuck this shit about they might think he can recapture some magic, he is clearly done and not needed as a rah rah cheerleader on the bench!
What’s the betting line on his first 18 hopper base hit? He’s at 0-21, I’ll say it will 8 more then his golden ticket 🎫 hit will be at bat number 30.. Freakin ridiculous
And I don’t give a shit if people think Davis should of been sent down, he should not have with his athleticism and youth at 25.Hell atleast he had a bomb and 2 hits in all in only 12 give up AB’s by the Giants, while the Giants continue to keep a rotting corpse on the roster, who can’t even do his head massages anymore to a player(Gary Brown) due to social distancing!!
It was Kapler’s Birthday Day last night.Any team wants to get a win for they’re manager on they’re BD.
Still, it was probably their best game of the season with clutch hits and a superb job by the BP, simply lights out after Webb departed..
Watson looked somewhat weak, but not injured. His velo is still low, but wasn’t his command great? And he looked comfortable and confident. His motion looked fine. Maybe in this crazy compressed season a guy in the pen can do his rehab work *from the pen.* One inning here, with a lead, some side work and PT there, then another inning, and gradually get back to full strength? I guess it depends on the exact nature of his shoulder injury. But guessing’s all we get most of the time.
Texas has RHP Jordan Lyles as scheduled SP. Giants way too early lineup has Belt and Crawford back in there, Longo (who almost homered last night to LF corner) Dick and Duggar with Yaz in OF Wilmet DH Dubon at 2b.
Wouldn’t surprise this is how Kapler is gonna roll with adjustments made for DH Craw Belt and OF vs. LHP ala last night.
Whenever Billy Hamilton is inserted into the roster bye to Duggar and I really like what I see from Tromp and Heine Man has been solid. When Bart gets called up I don’t mind 3 catchers and days Bart does not catch he can DH against lefties and Tromp may be DH worthy because Ruf has shown he can be competent at first and left. What about Ruf’s baserunning??? Shocked how quick Yaz is as well on the bacepaths…go Giants!!
Pence will be “injured” when the rosters start shrinking…
I would not be shocked come Monday they do a one week or even two week baseball delay and hopefully there is not another Marlin type player blowing up a team with the virus. Moving the season back 1-2 weeks is not a killer but think the pennant series and the WS in a set location should be mandated. NL Pennant series in AZ and AL in Dallas and would play the WS in the new Rangers stadium. All players, coaches and team personnel completely isolated during these series…a virtual copy of the NBA bubble. Players and personnel go only from hotel to stadium amd back. All showering and personal hygiene back in their individual hotel rooms…
Would not even be a bad idea that in a 2 week delay have the teams that have had cancelled games if covid cleared to play make up their games games in the second week of the delay..
And maybe instead AL pennant in Houston so the Rangers site can be thoroughly prepped and cleansed for WS….
Lets keep hoping Longoria shows life and tempts a team in a playoff hunt in need of a vet presence at the hot corner…Atlanta anyone???
Almost $37M for Longo in ’21-22 after subtracting the $4M from Rays, it’s hard to imagine any team taking on that contract, especially in this uncertain season.
Smyly supposed to be SP tonite. Man hope a Giants SP can get through 4-5 clean innings. Webb last night threw 79 pitches 44 strikes, left with sacks loaded in 4th with 2 outs. 4 hits 4 walks HBP and 1 bomb. Damage limited to 2 runs, but um too much nibbling/lack of command. Kruk was on him from get go shoulder flying out yada yada.
Great pen work!
last night AK critiqued Tromp’s catching stance; he extended one leg to the side just before the pitch. Someone else objected to the same stance from some other catcher earlier this “year.” I think all of the young catchers the Giants have used have shown a version of that stance — except Heineken. Some seemed to use it only when no one was on base. Tromp used it all the damn time. Something’s going on there.
The Rays we’re diggin’ the Giants for taking the Longo contract off their hands.
they did send some (not a lot) of $$ back and continue to pay small part of his salary. giants also dumped off Span to them and saved $10 mil. Most here were pretty happy about that part of the deal at least.
4 more Cardinals tested positive.
Yup, short-term shutdown may be in the cards.
The NBA bubble is safer, and they have a greater chance of finishing their season; but I tried to watch a game last night, and basketball really suffers from no crowd. It feels like watching a scrimmage. Just no excitement to it.
I’m used to this from years of watching Nets games at the Meadowlands, so no problem for me.
KInda like some night games at the stick years ago. It was cold but some of those games were the best I been to.
I don’t like the current style of NBA play. A lot of 5-guys-out, no post, drive to the basket and either finish or kick it out for a 3. I miss actual plays and intricate passing. A well-executed play used to be one of the big joys of basketball. It emphasized teamwork and unselfishness. It was pleasing to see. The Warriors had that. The Kings of the early 2000s had that. Teams before the 1990s had that.
Agree zum. Even the bigs like Giannis and Embid are out at 3 line. On that Gif Loo posted couple days ago of Clyde going 1 on 1 and landing with jump stop before up and under move, so few players do that these days. Instead they take off to hoop and go airborne only to have to kick ball out wildly at last minute. Just never liked that; off jump stop you can pivot or reverse turn and have time to see floor for pass or shot if it develops. In the air, no
Analytics came to the NBA and said shooting lots of 3s is better. It worked for the Warriors, but a lot of teams just clank a lot of 3-point attempts.
Only if you have the shooters that can knock down 3’s
Steph&Klay when on fire 🔥 can expand leads are get them back in a game in a hurry.
It’s weird to watch NBA footage from the ‘80s now and see teams with 2(!) post guys. Lots of passing. Lots of mid-range shots. Lots of fast-breaks. A well-executed 3-on-2 break was a great joy. Players today are lost souls trying to execute a fast-break.
There’s less fast-breaks today because so many players are at the 3-point line, the defense gets back quicker. The analytics probably like that.
No reason the Giants should not continue they’re hitting assault against Lyles.
He’s faced them 20 times overall going 4-3 but era 5.20, at Oracle in 7 appearances( 2 starts) he went 1-2 with an era of 7.71.So he’s no new guy that usually pitches like Cy Young against them, they should light him up!
A sweep would be sweet. But no chicken counting on my part till that fat lady sings…I hope its a tune that can keep Giants fans dancing…like some good boogie woogie.
Hey Kat got good news and bad news.
Kapler, on Davis as quoted by Shea: “When he makes contact, he drives the baseball. His exit velocities are real. When he gets it in the air, it’s for extra bases and HRs. The focus is certainly continuing to improve the contact rate.”
“He’s a step away from the major leagues at any given time, and we still believe he’s going to make an important impact on this club.”
then, um on Pence: “I just want to say i have 100% confidence that Hunter Pence’s track record is predictive of what’s to come for him.” “…he’ll start to hit balls out of the ballpark because that’s who Hunter Pence was last year and that’s who he largely has been in his career, and we have every reason to believe that’s going to happen going forward.”
“Going forward” is the lamest bunch of hypetalk, bureaucrappy bullshit out there. My esteem for Kapler just went down a notch—simply echoing the official party-line.
Sure, but a manager and GM have a working relationship. And Kapler isn’t going to go against the grain this early in his Giants tenure. He has to build up “capital” first.
Good f’n Grief – Whats Kap supposed to do – bad-rap one of our teams respected informal team leaders whose contributions earned our team TWO F’ng RINGS to the press for a bad start?
Kap inherited a patchwork team with a few few unproven youngsters & a bunch of proven veterans – has them in the hunt & playing enthusiastic baseball –
Damn right they have some serious sorting out to do, but alienating and not supporting your players would a complete disaster.
I believe…. a pro such as Pence will be the first to admit hes no longer capable of playing this game – These decisions are likely already on the table will be made by Kap & Pence in the managers office not in the press.
Enjoy the ride and what little fun this conjured & bastardized season brings – it could be worse, we could be Doger fans or living in Pittsburgh…Yes?
Glad to hear he hasn’t given up on Davis totally and hopefully with better contact rate he will be back shortly Willied!
And yes the bad news!
I firmly believe now that Kapler was brainwashed like in the movie Machurin Candidate (the original of course with Sinatra)and is still under a powerful control that instead of wanting to kill Hunter, he just wants the fans to be miserable 😖 when his name surfaces in the LU are PH when better options could be used..
lulz
saw that one at drive in Mt. View off Grant Rd as a kid. Heard drive ins are actually coming back in some places
I read MLB will use winning percentage, not games won as the way to see who gets in playoffs. Marlins will make it with a .750 at this rate. Needs confirming, but a way to allow for teams all not playing the same number of games
Btw Uncle Chuck is running today, 2nd race $100K purse around 2:30 at Del Mar.
20% of MLB teams are now not playing this weekend…
MLB needs to establish a minimum number of games played for a team to be eligible for the playoffs.
It should be at least 50, IMO. Anything less than that turns the whole thing into more of a travesty than it already is.
A 35-win team winning the World Series is going to be pretty embarrassing, but so it goes.
I like Xoot’s idea of calling it the 2020 Championship.
Bellinger is currently on a 1-20 cold streak. He’ll do better, but it’s another reminder how truly hard it is to hit at the MLB level.
uncle chuck has been SCRATCHED from the 2nd at Del Mar today. Too bad that was free money.
Damn. And I was all set to go hit the OTB
Now I’m getting letters from Drumpf.
I’m sending his letter back with a sharpie FU greeting, and “looking forward to your indictment in 2021, jail in 2022” …
Nice. Take some of their polls they are hilarious
Giants will give a long leash to The Preach.
He can go 0-40 and he’ll still be trotted out.
Shoot, they kept Blanco despite his usual 6 for 66 summers…
Bochy gave the longest leash ever in 2009 to Randy Winn in 2009, he trotted him out there everyday (150games) and in 597 total AB’s he hit 2 HR’s 2 Freakin Hr’s while batting .262.. Nate Scheirholtz was the obvious player to be out there but Bochy would not play him..That ended up being Winn’s last year with the club not surprising with those numbers..Vet presence in this organization runs to deep with loyalty on washed up players, they just can’t cut ties!!
Frank Souze with a HELL of a post up above.
It’s fine Kap sticks up for him; he talks a great game (Kapler that is). but Pence has yet to do anything to contribute to their 4 Ws and .500 record, and what happened 6-8 years ago is meaningless to now. Would anyone feel the same way if Belt and Crawford, who also have few rings to their credit, started 0-21? Do they get unlimited passes?
The giants have gone 3-0 vs. LHP starters and have nice lineup. Pence is not a productive part of it and i’m with those who think the less often he plays the better.
I don’t have a single problem with pence playing. It’s been a fucking week. Maybe bat him 8th but still, they signed him, he did something to his swing last year, maybe he gets it going.
I can’t think of anyone here, including yourself, who thought signing him was a good idea. OK so why compound the error by continue to run him out there? Z signs all kinds of guys to deals and has either released those that can’t cut it or sent them to alternative site.
since the Mrs. already lives in alternative universe…
He’s been working on his stupid swing for 3-4 years with no results.Hell he went to the same hitting guru that Williamson went to and atleast MAC at 1st had some good AB’s before ramming his head into the BP wall.
Pence never got it going, so he had a few hits in the Junior Circuit big deal? Why didn’t Texas resign his scrawny ass ? Because they got all that he had left, and the Giants gullible as always with ex players signed him. He’s an AUTOMATIC OUT, sucks to play with 8 players and knowing the hitter that bats before him knows he has no chance of scoring a run are even advancing on the bases, cause he can’t even do that anymore …
he was a fucking all star last year wtf are you talking about.
Unfamiliar league. Unfamiliar pitchers? He’s in his 2018 form.
At the cost of playing Davis? Fuck that. Double fuck cleanup. So like Boch and Posey. If they want to pretend they are all about winning, Pence should have no leash.
You’re gonna regret that post when he finds his stroke
I’m not regretting my post!
Davis everyday over Scarecrow in Lexi Hot Pants!
who are you sticking up for here–
Zaidi
Harris
Kapler
Pence
all of the above
I am sticking up for….the situation today. look they already signed Pence. And he DID have a great year last year. How much of it was ballpark factor related? I don’t know. He did change his swing that is documented. I think another week of Pence commensurate with the length of the season is warranted. Come on, this guy is an all time great Giant. And he proved last season, he’s got something still in there…..
Also WillieD I don’t think for a second Zaidi signed Pence. That was a Baer directive. I do think he should be batting lower in the order till this gets sorted out.
baer doesn’t send baseball directives any more
he doesn’t do anything public anymore. He’s still around make no mistake he’s still pulling strings.
The Giants have removed the three championship banners from the outfield wall and replaced them with advertising.
Hmmm…..
Where their heart truly lies.
Gonna hafta play ketchup baseball. Nothing to be smyly about in the top of the 1st.
Way to screw up the rundown that now cost them 2 runs!
The ump took a vicious shot at 3 rd by Heiney…
That botched run-down is on Heinemen. Nobody knew what the heck he was doing.
The catcher tried to chase down the Rangers’ lead-off hitter. That’s not going to happen.
Heineken’s a stiff. Kruk the other night said he loves him because he’s so old school. Maybe not now.
embarrassing.
note that Chirinos, the Texas catcher, puts one knee down and slightly extends the other leg. It’s a thing now.
Don’t think that’s good technically Xoot, but a catcher is in a squat for a long time.I don’t feel they can shift to make stops as well with a leg down.
I don’t see Heiney doing it, he’s technically sound behind the plate like Posey.
Heineken doesn’t do it. Ever. I think all of the other Giants’ catchers do.
of course, Posey would never do that
quick google search shows beat writers in Colo Minn and NY examining catchers using one-knee down last year and early this year. It’s a thing.
Longo earns his spot tonight.
Longo powers it up the gap tie ballgame
I see we have the 2014 lineup tonight.
Two walks and a double and Lyles is in trouble. Longo looking like that professional hitter he was for Tampa.
Two Heinies in one game. At least their Heinie wasn’t the guy in our Heinie’s botched rundown.
Hey, if Pence starts hitting, grest. I just don’t see it. He’s pounding balls into the dirt like he did before. The only difference is he isn’t beating those out for infield hits. He isn;t hitting nything hard. Crawfish was at least barrelling shit before he finally got some hits.
Kruk’s still crazy about Heineken. He can catch the ball where it’s thrown! Damn.
Slymy needs an out pitch.
Fifty pitches through two innings. Ouch. Bullies busy tonight, no doubt.
Bottom of the lineup stunk it up in that frame. Not much rest for Smyly. Worst part is that Lyles has thrown only 3/5th of Smyly’s offerings.
Slymy throws 30 pitches, Lyle, 5.
That’s just what Slymy needed.
ah very cool 7 pitch inning.
Yeah,performance must have given our starter a big grin as he left the mound.
ribbie leader strikes again!
With nobody on base I can see a catcher being lazy with one knee down, but the Chinerous dude does it with runners on as well.And now he just fucked up a pitch he should of handled!
Real bad technically by this guy, who does he think he is Benito Santiago throwing out runners from his knees?
I nominate Donnie Barrels as our hitting coach, He can tell Belt to swing the fucking bat.
man can Sando at least hit half his weight?
No not with a batting average of .105 for panda now, granted that’s still .105 better then Pence..
Longo’s lay-off hasn’t affected his swing at all thank goodness he’s up to .444 right now!!
Belt fouls off so many pitches. He’s way late.
He’s at 1/3 right now. 310, and .105.
Why is that suppose to be a good deal on a Subway $5 dollar foot long when they force you to buy 2 and you spend 10 bucks?
You weren’t supposed to notice the catch.
Crawful.
Sigh, thought we were finally going to see someone get thru 5.
I like Baragar.
that was big. this guy got hammered the other night. Doesn’t have to pitch next inning either.
4 and 2 is a quality start 2020
btw, Flav, I just realized that if you’re getting personal email solicitations from busty shill Kimberly G, especially some with the word “sensitive” in the re line, then trump’s brilliant algorithm must’ve automatically categorized Fuck You as a male supporter.
Ooh 😮 I’m so excited Hunter Pence to hit again!
Pence, wearing board shorts and a helmet, dug in over and over and over in the back of the box like a crazed animal, and then meekly struck out
0-22 But he’s still a Stud in Kapler’s Mind!!!
Strikeout!!!
This is the worse catcher in baseball by far..