Postgame 7/29 – Giants 3 Reds 4 F/13
Tonight the Giants played about as well as you can to lose a game. Six scoreless innings by the ‘pen tonight not including Wllson’s outing tonight. Moreover; the winning run scored by the Reds tonight was just the second earned run given up by the Giants bullpen since the All Star break. In the Giants past two series they have lost the first game then gone on to win the next two against both the Brewers and Phillies so they look to continue the pace against the Reds who currently sit 6.5 games out in the NL Central in fourth place.
Tonight Ryan Vogelsong was quite simply blowing cheese at the Reds hitters tonight, and boy they sure didn’t make him pay for it. Eight runners reached in the first two innings and only three of them came across to score. Vogelsong wasn’t fooling anyone at the onset but he walked the tight rope out of danger and all in all settled down nicely to continue his streak of 15 consecutive starts of three earned runs or less pitching five or more innings. How about Guillermo Mota tonight? The relief job of the year for the Giants, getting the shallow fly ball and some major league help from Schierholtz to complete the double play at the plate to nab Joey Votto. Vogelsong by the way has reclaimed his National League ERA title with his six innings pitched to re-qualify for the position, he currently stands at a 2.23 earned run average.
Eli ‘grandpa’ Whiteside sure pulled that eighth inning two-out, game-tying double out of no where. Dusty Baker showed no respect for ol’ Pops by leaving the lefty in to face him and Gramps drove an 0-2 fastball into the bowels of the left-center field gap scoring Aubrey Huff by a breath or two, or three for Huff. Carlos Beltran is fitting in perfectly with his new teammates, going 1/5 tonight driving a belt high pitch by Dontrelle Willis into left field to score the games first run. After that however; Beltran walked once and struck out three times. He’ll come around, rumor has it John Bowker left some of his kool-aid some where in Murph’s sewing kit.
My beef I have tonight is with Aubrey Huff, or rather it might be Bruce Bochy. Huff this past month is hitting .224 with one home run. Brandon Belt is hitting .308 (4/13), also with one home run this month. Belt is younger. He fields better. He hits better. He’s younger. He hits better. He chews sun flower seeds and drinks Gatorade better. And he also hits better then Huff. Need I say more? The Giants aren’t exactly neck and neck with the Dbacks, they have a four game cushion and it’s like they think Belt is capable of ruining all of that like he’s Armando Benitez. Right now the Giants have nothing to lose by playing Belt except his own development as a player.
In other news Hunter Pence will depart from the lowly Houston Astros to the lower Philadelphia Phillies. Or at least yesterday they seemed like it. Pence hasn’t been lighting it up since the All Star break but he’s a solid .285-.290 hitter who can shoot balls all over the field and definitely a pick me up for a struggling line up if that’s what you really want to say about the Phillies lineup. Shades of the Jason Bay trade the Red Sox made a few years back.
Tomorrow it’ll be two youngster toeing the slab for the Reds and Giants. Bumgarner and Leake, 4:10 first pitch
