From the Porch: Move Along, Nothing to See Here

May 9, 2012


Dodgers 6, Giants 2. Dodgers win series 2-1.


San Francisco (15-16): 011 000 000  2 9 0
Los Angeles (20-11): 000 041 010  6 13 0 


WP: Wright (2-2)
LP: Lincecum (2-3)
SV: none
HR: zip


Lincecum: 5ip 8h 4er 8k 2bb 5.89era
Billingsley: 4ip 7h 2er 5k 4bb 3.32era


In NL West: Arizona lost to St. Louis, Colorado beat San Diego, Giants in second, trailing Dodgers by 5.


Comments: Rough loss and rough series loss. After disastrous game Monday, Giants looked better beating Kershaw Tuesday and should have easily had LA on the ropes tonight. Billingsley had nothing but Giants couldn't take advantage. Eleven baserunners first three innings, only two runs. I'm not sure I've ever head of a team being handed 13 walks and losing. It's almost impossible.


Pitching: Timmy seemed to have his best velocity and control of the season so far, hitting 91-93 mph on his fastball and hitting his spots nicely in the first three innings. Amazing that he struck out the planet's hottest hitter, Matt Kemp (.404 to start the game) three times. Even when it got away in the fourth, he wasn't terrible, just left a few pitches hanging and the Dodgers pounded, it seemed, every one of them. And, as is and forevermore will be, the AAA bullpen was awful.


Defense: Mostly Harmless.


Offense: Props to much-maligned-by-me Brandon Crawford, three times on base with two hits and a walk. Burriss was on base twice; Melky had a triple and a walk. Two ridiculous baserunning mistakes by Nate Schierholtz early that cost two runs, then the usual bad RISP; should have been a much bigger lead into the fourth. Nate just doesn't seem to improve, might be time to end that experiment and send him to the Pirates. Probably wouldn't have made much difference once Timmy lost it, but Giants missed a ton of opportunities early against a very shaky Billingsley. Timmy had an RBI single! Zoiks! Kind of interesting to see the MLB debut of Dodger Scott Van Slyke, Andy's son, who is twice the size of his dad. Got his first MLB hit and an RBI in the sixth. Also kudos to $12 million guy Aubrey Huff, who had one AB and popped out slightly more deep to shortstop than usual. An exciting .171 hitter, to be sure. In my imagination, Giants probably considered a minor league rehab start for Aubrey, but could not come up with any level of organized baseball in which he could actually compete.


Baseball Quote of the Day: "The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he has to remind the hitter he's timid." (Don Drysdale)


Next game: Giants vs. Diamondbacks, 6:40 p.m. Friday, May 11 at Chase Field. Bumgarner (5-1, 2.31) vs. Corbin (1-1, 7.00). TV: CSN-BA.