Not a lot went right for the Giants tonight.
They faced a pitcher making his second start of his career and were only able to muster 3 lousy hits off him. They weren't able to get a single hit off the Oriole relievers since Arrietta left them so confounded. The Giants performance prompted Orioles closer David Hernandez to tell the media: "No offense to the Giants, but they don't have the Yankee firepower," Hernandez said. "I think that enabled him to go out there and pretty much pitch his game. He definitely has the quality stuff to do that." when asked about Arrietta's performance.
Spot starter Joe Martinez pitched OK. He just happened to be pitching on the wrong night. If he had pitched on any of the last 5 nights and had the exact same numbers, he would have received a W for his efforts. The giants got exactly what they wanted from Martinez tonight. They wanted a starter to pitch relatively deep into the game and to keep it close. In fact, if it wasn't for a few bad breaks, Martinez should have walked away with a W.
The only offensive positive was the fact that Pablo Sandoval hit his 6th homerun of the season. It appears Pablo is heating up as that was 2nd homerun in the last 4 games. I know a lot has been made of Pablo's struggles but consider this: Last season, through June 1, Pablo was hitting .301 with 3 HRs. This season, he was hitting .286 with 4 homers. He was only hittng 15 points higher coming in to June lst year than he is this year. In June, he hit .394 with eight HRs! Now he hasn't quite matched that production so far this June, but he's showing signs of heating up and his track record shows that he hits in the summer months.
Bruce Bochy never ceases to amaze me. The San Jose Mercury News reports that Bochy didn't want Posey catching Martinez tonight because: “if it’s going good, you don’t’ fix it.” Added Bochy: “You keep playing your hand if it’s a good one. We want to keep things pretty much the same, and hopefully we’ll keep scoring some runs.”
I'm not sure how putting Molina in the lineup, after a game in which the Giants scored 10 runs for the first time in forever, can tell us that: A. Bengie Molina is a "hot hand" or B. Molina contributed at all to the offensive outburst last night. Now Whiteside was 0 for 1 but he did score 2 of the 10 runs last night. Although I guess Bochy has been preaching the "hot hand" all season long he's not gonna stop now.
On the farm:
Look at this kid:
Does he strike you as someone who as a guy who is hitting a Bondsian .394 with 8 homeruns and a .509 OBP?
No?
Well he is.
Who is he? Well that's Brandon Belt. He is currently the first baseman of the San Jose Giants who just captured the California League North 1st half division title. He was the Giants 5th round pick last season and is hitting better than even Buster Posey did in San Jose.
In more encouraging future San Francisco Giants news Madison Bumgarner won his seventh consecutive decision. After limiting Portland to 2 runs in 6 innings. John Bowker hit another homerun and Tyler Graham collected 2 hits to raise his average to .407. Edgar Renteria, in his rehab assignment, went 2 for 2 with 2 RBIs.
Nate watch:
Nate rotted on the bench some more tonight. Travis Ishikawa was going to pinch hit for Mota and then Aaron Rowand pinch hit for Ishikawa and wound up getting HBP.
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