This game had everything you'd expect from Bad 2011 Giants: baserunning gaffes, first-pitch outs, Aubrey Huff killing four rallies, leadoff doubles getting stranded, starting pitchers getting flustered, terrible umpiring calls, Michael Tejada celebrating doing something useless, Aaron Rowand coming in to pinch-hit and taking two strikes before swinging and missing at a slider low and away, Pat Burrell getting a key pinch-hit walk while starter Nate Schierholtz goes 0-for-4, opposing pitchers getting multiple single-digit pitch count innings, and Mike Krukow saying "That's a rough at-bat" after yet another Giants batter has a three-pitch strikeout.
The only surprising thing about this game was that the Giants got Ricky Nolasco over 100 pitches. The final score of this game really should have been 2-1. Matt Cain was the victim of literally the worst strike-calling I've ever seen in the fourth inning, no less than three times on two different batters getting an inning-ending strike three called a ball, leading to two consecutive walks, which let the Marlins extend the inning for a three-run double. It was a fiasco behind the plate all night. A pitch would be a strike, and literally the next pitch in the exact same location would be called a ball, or vice versa. The bad news is that Joe West is also on this umpiring crew.
Aubrey Huff should not be playing games right now, let alone batting third in the lineup. His WAR is the second-worst in the NL according to baseball-reference.com and he can't hit a lick. He's truly turning in a sub-Tejada performance, and it's not even close. The Giants need to call up Brandon Belt soon. A year ago I wouldn't imagine they'd dream of benching Huff, but they've done it with Rowand and cut Molina loose to make room for Posey, so it's a possibility. Two pieces of good news for today: Pablo Sandoval will probably be back ahead of schedule, and the Rockies lost their best pitcher. I'm not celebrating De La Rosa getting hurt by any means, but if the already-flustered Rockies get even more hopeless, I'm all for it.
Tonight was a demoralizing, frustrating loss. (Is there any other kind?) My prediction is a Marlins sweep, but I'll be happy to be proved wrong. It's early in the season, but this offense needs to make SOMETHING happen or we're all doomed.
You had to figure that eventually Aubrey Huff would turn back into Aubrey Huff. Last year in the playoffs I had the games on (obviously) and my wife who remembered Huff only from lazy days at the Skydome was like "woah woah woah AUBREY HUFF?" and I couldn't explain what was happening at all.
ReplyDeleteYeah it really felt like the Giants needed him to stay, and he was demolishing it in spring training, but now that Belt is clearly big league-ready, it seems like the height of foolishness that every day there is Huff batting third and hitting weak popups to every part of the infield.
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