FALL CLASSIC GAME 4 10/29/12
Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants, the 2012 World Series Champions! It’s the franchise’s 7th title and second in both the past three seasons and since moving from New York in 1958. Last night’s action packed ten inning 4 to 3 clincher was the finishing touches for the City by the Bay. Manager Bruce Bochy skippered both title runs perfectly and in sweeping the Detroit Tigers turned the tables from being on the working end of those brooms himself back in ’98 as manager of the San Diego Padres, courtesy of the N.Y. Yankees 1990s dynasty. Believe it or not, Bochy has eighteen seasons under his belt and is approaching 1,000 career victories. The Giants represent the Senior Circuit Champs and mark the fifth occurrence of the NL winning at least two of three Fall Classics. The others were the 1907 and ’08 Cubs, the ’21 and ’22 N.Y. Giants, the ’42, ’44, and ’46 Cardinals, and the Big Red Machine of Cincy in ’75 and ’76.
In a Series that had 22 runs scored between both teams with 16 and 6, which could be easily scored in a single contest, Hunter Pence managed to score in three of the four games as he came across again in the second for a one-nothing lead. Many analysts drool about the big power lineups in the American League considering the high production and high pay the designated hitters are good for. Given that, you may have thought Detroit was the winner of Game Four considering they batted a thousand with runners in scoring position. The problem was that only happened once when Triple Crown Winner Miguel Cabrera went deep off of Matt Cain to take a two-one lead in the third. Comerica Park came alive and Max Scherzer was looking good with a lead as he struck out Gregor Blanco and Gerald Laird chucked out Brandon Belt attempting to steal second to end the fourth for the Giants on the ole strike ’em out, throw ’em out. Scherzer pitched six and a third strong innings and gave up three runs with eight K’s and one free pass.
The other Gerald behind the dish in this series, a.k.a. NL Batting Champ Buster Posey, went deep in the sixth with NLCS MVP Marco Scutaro on board as the Giants went up 3-2. However, that all-glorified position of DH made things right in the bottom of the sixth as ALCS MVP Delmon Young hit a solo shot with two outs to tie the game at three. Cain managed to get through seven while also giving up three runs on just five hits and two walks. Then the bullpens took over. Octavio Dotel got Detoit through seven with a lot of high gas that was good for four outs. That was just an appetizer though.
Lefty Jeremy Affeldt came in for San Fran in the eighth and he was brilliant. He got five outs with four K’s on 29 pitches and 18 strikes. Plus, he mowed down the side, which was Cabrera, Prince Fielder, who hit .071 for the Series, and Young after a leadoff walk. Jim Leyland had an answer for that pen performance in the way of former Yank southpaw Phil Coke, who hadn’t given up a run in the playoffs. He struck out the side as well in the ninth, and the Tigers had a chance to fight another day. However, Santiago Casilla needed just five pitches and two strikes to finish the ninth for Affeldt and extra innings were in order. Bonus baseball!!
Who else but the NL team’s DH should get things started in extras? FOX broadcasters made a big deal about Ryan Theriot making his first ever start at DH throughout the game. That wasn’t a surprise considering he isn’t a power guy, or even much of a doubles hitter, and has played for the NL’s Cubs, Dodgers, last year’s Cards, and now Giants. Anyway, he led off the tenth with a single to right from the eight spot of the lineup. Brandon Crawford immediately sacrificed him to second with a text book bunt to the third base side which gave the lefty Coke a tough play and no choice but to throw to first. Angel Pagan struck out for the second out. Up came number two man Scutaro of course. Coke had been nails all this post-season. So had Scutaro. With two outs, it wouldn’t take much to score the quick Theriot from second. Coke pitched him away the entire at bat and fell behind three and one. Scutaro, as he has for a month, went with what the pitcher was giving him and squared up another outside pitch and singled to center to score Theriot easily. Pablo Sandoval bounced out and Detroit had the top of the order due up.
Sergio Romo, who already had two saves with his Brian Wilson tribute beard, was ready to deal his slider to righties and fastball to lefties. Austin Jackson missed a slider and struck out for the first out. Lefty Don Kelly pinch hit in the two-hole. He hadn’t appeared in a playoff game. Romo retired him with a K as well. Two outs. Up came Mighty Cabrera. He could be a hero to keep the game and season alive with just a single. Posey and Romo set him up perfectly. He swung and missed on a slider a foot outside. He took a couple others. Fouled one off. Two and two count. The camera panned on Romo’s face from the home plate view. You could see him shake off the sign obviously. At first I thought he did that on purpose to get to the slider. Even before the pitch was deliverd though I thought again how great it would be to throw a heater since the sliders were so far off the dish. A straight one might freeze even a Triple Crown Winner. Sure enough, he threw that fastball on the same plane where he had started out the sliders and it came right down the pipe as the Mighty Cabrera took strike three and the Motor City went down. San Francisco was champs!
That’s it for the 2012 season fans. The Winter Meetings are only six weeks away. In the meantime, there will be plenty of awards to be handed out from the regular season. Speaking of which, Sandoval, as predicted here, did take the Sereis MVP award last night as he had four RBI, batted .500, and slugged 1.125 while scoring four times too. Romo may have gotten the award if he had been in a save situation for all four games, but three saves couldn’t match those offensive numbers in an unbelievably low scoring Classic. Congrats to MVP Big Panda!
Later Fans.
FALL CLASSIC GAME 3 10/28/12
The Detroit Tigers are in a real bad situation. Actually, they’re in the worst position a playoff team can be in after they lost again in Game Three by the exact same shutout score of two-nothing from Game Two. They’re down three games to none thanks to another great pitching start by San Francisco ‘Playoff’ Giant, Ryan Vogelsong. They have now gotten the ’66 Los Angeles Dodgers off the hook as the last team to get shut out in consecutive World Series games. However, the Jim Palmer-led Baltimore Orioles did go back-to-back-to-back in dealing two 1-nil and a 6-nil shutout against Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Co. Impressive, right? The prediction for the Tigers was to break out with the bats in front of the home crowd with 14 hits. HA!! If coming within nine makes for a good prediction, I’m in. They came up with a that-ain’t-gonna-get-er-done five hits. WOW!! Those sticks are slumping like there is no tomorrow and there probably isn’t going to be a tomorrow. “Why?”, you may ask. Let’s count the reasons.
Reason numero uno is the historical implications. Of the twenty-three teams to go down three games to none, exactly none have came back to win it, which I think we all remember as it was only in ’04 the BoSox became the first to do it and that was the ALCS. However, NOBODY has even gotten to Game Seven. Or Six. In fact, ONLY THREE have forced a Game 5. That’s really saying something. Three of twenty-three teams managed a lone victory. WOW. Oh, and the last time was forty-two years ago when the again Palmer-led 1970 Orioles coughed up Game 4 before putting Cincinnati away in Game 5. However, by the law of averages we’re due for someone to come back to force a Game 5 after being down three games to none. It happened in 1910 when Connie Mack’s Philly A’s let the ChiCubs have Game 4 and the other time was in 1937 when Joe McCarthy’s Yanks dropped the fourth contest to none other than the N.Y. Giants. So actually, we’re way over due. Conversely, those teams probably weren’t facing the leading team’s ace in Game Four. The Tigers are as 2012 perfect-game-thrower Matt Cain awaits to lock it up tonight. At 6′ 3″, 230 pounds, and well rested, he makes for reason numero dos why the Tigers are going golfing Monday.
The third reason is the big time D of left fielder Gregor Blanco, the guy who made the amazing perfecto-saving catch in ‘right’ field for Cain, and shortstop Brandon Craword, who is showing off his range and cannon arm up the middle. Finally, numero four-o, is the confidence the Giants are playing with. In last night’s game, Buster Posey was swinging on a 3-oh pitch (he popped up in foul territory to Prince Fielder) with two outs in the third inning. They’re confidence is leading an aggressive charge. Plus, they haven’t even trailed in over 50 innings!
Here’s some small things from Game Three: Admirably, Anibal Sanchez went seven strong innings for the Tigers while giving up those two little, yet large, runs in the second inning. He got even better throughout the game and got looking K’s to end the sixth and seventh innings. He chucked 74 strikes on 117 pitches. Great strike to ball ratio is an understatement. A great performance that was wasted…..The entire Detroit lineup didn’t get the big hit and they had some chances. Prince Fielder hit into another inning ending double play and Quintin Berry also had a GIDP. Plus, Miggy Cabrera popped up to short with the bases jacked to end the fifth. That may have been the Series in terms of making it must-see-t.v. as a back and forth battle, but the Giants slammed the hood down on the Tigers’ paws…..Despite not having an RBI or run scored, Pablo Sandoval had two hits and is at a .636 clip for the Classsic with an even more ridiculous 1.545 slugging percentage…..In the two 2 to 0 games, Hunter Pence scored in each and Crawford pushed across a run in each also.
OK, tonight’s Game 4. Everybody is calling for the brooms to be brought in to clean up the mess that Detroit is right now. Currently, they look like a team-size version of the Yanks’ Robinson Cano, who cooled off in this year’s playoffs after he ended the regular season on a 19-for-31 tear, good for a .613 clip. The predictions here are sometimes loosely based on gut feeling, what ‘should’ happen, and a small percentage of what would be ‘cool’ to see happen. They’re rarely correct and not in their entirety at that. Therefore, I’m going to go WITH the numbers this time for Game Four. Tune in tonight because it’s the last game of 2012. The Giants get it done as Cain goes a strong eight innings and starter Max Scherzer joins the likes of Sanchez and Doug Fister with wasted above average Classic outings while Justin Verlander watches and gets no shot at redemption in a Game 5 that won’t be needed. 7 to 2 with Sandoval your MVP.
But since I’m rarely correct, perhaps the pick is relying on that and the fact that I know it would be cool too see the Series get extended a game. We, and Detroit, can only hope!
Later Fans.
FALL CLASSIC GAME 2 10/26/12
Game 2 went to the Giants in a tight game (as predicted right here, thank you) after a 2-nothing shutout gave them a 2-nothing Games lead over the Tigers. Detroit’s Doug Fister was really good on the hill and allowed just one run on four hits in six innings, but Madison Bumgarner was brilliant (as predicted right here, thanks again) as he threw seven shutout (obviously) innings of 2-hit ball in getting the W (NOT predicted right here, bad move). Santiago Casilla and Sergio Romo then slammed the trunk down on the Motor City mashers, allowing exactly no base runners in the eighth and ninth innings. Detroit will need to step it up a notch at the plate and give their pitchers a lead or 2 as the players get ready for some colder baseball weather in Michigan. As we all know, it’s basically do or die time for manager Jim Leyland’s crew.
You know runs are at a premium when one, there is only a total of 2 scored in the game (now there’s a revelation) and 2, when they are scored in the fashion of a double play grounder to second base by Brandon Crawford and a sac fly by Hunter Pence. That’s taking small ball to its absolute lower limits! The Giants mustered a whopping five hits and five walks in comparison to the paltry 2 hits and 2 walks that the Tigers’ offense came up with. However, if you score and they don’t, then it doesn’t really matter how does it? Besides, what should we expect from a team that was dead last in home runs in the BIGS and could only come up with 31 long balls in their own yard for the season. We’re never going to see that awesome display from the opener of timely and powerful hitting 2 days in a row.
In getting back to Bumgarner’s performance, his efficiency was beyond great. He needed just 86 pitches for seven innings, and 54 of those were strikes. He struck out eight which required a minimum of 24 pitches, or 27 percent, for 38 percent of his outs. The point being that he got his K’s early in the counts while also inducing contact outs early in counts. That is a combination which makes its difficult, if not impossible, to overcome and be productive. The Tigers only sent one more than the minimum 27 batters to the plate with one double play ball, courtesy of Prince Fielder. A close scoring game was not indicative of how dominated the Tigers’ offense was by ‘MadBum’ and Co.
Pence scored the first run on Crawford’s GIDP ball. Pence, with his shorter hair and scraggly beard, reminds some of legendary former Alice In Chains front man, Layne Staley, other than his 6’4″ and 220 pound frame. Leadoff man Angel Pagan scored the other run on Pence’s sacrifice. Pagan, the former Met, sports a shaggy and bearded look reminiscent of a 70s hard rocker. Perhaps a modern John Entwistle look? Either way, the Giants are rocking with a two games lead and have now won an impressive five in a row in the postseason. The record is 8 in a single postseason by the BoSox of ’04 and ChiSox of ’05. The Reds did it in ’75 and ’76 (as only 7 wins were required in that era to go all the way).
Game 3 is big. Big for the Giants. Bigger for the Tigers. And biggest yet for fans who want to see a good and long series similar to last year’s seven game thriller when the Cards came back from being down to their last strike and facing elimination against th Rangers en route to taking Games 6 and 7. Anibal Sanchez, the former Marlin, and no-hitter club member, takes the ball for Detroit against San Fran’s Ryan Vogelsong. I’m looking for the Tigers to really get into the game from another level and enjoy themselves as the fans at Comerica Park match the World Cup-esque atmosphere of Games 1 and 2 from AT&T Park. It’s still a game afterall and many of the players will never be on this grand stage again. A home game is just what they need and another former Marlin, Miguel Cabrera, will lead the way with a 3 hit, 3 RBI performance out of the 3 spot in the lineup. The Tigers pounce early and pound out 14 hits in a 7 to 2 ‘cruise control’ game to make it 2 games to 1.
Later Fans.
FALL CLASSIC GAME 1 10/25/12
Well so much for thinking Justin Verlander was going to continue dominating the post-season and push the Giants around in Game 1. The Tigers are well rested, but the Giants are well oiled right now. That’s more important when trying to stay hot and made for a perfect storm not named Sandy, rather Sand-o-val, as Pablo entered the history books by not merely just appearing in a World Series. Oh no, the big fella made a huge splash as he took Verlander deep not once, but twice, and then also took Al Alburquerque out of the park also in his FIRST three at-bats. The list now reads the Babe (twice), Reggie Jackson, and Albert Pujols along with Pablo as the only players to homer thrice in a Classic game. WOW!!!! It may be a while for another such performance as we’ve been spoiled two years in a row by Pablo and Albert. Pablo added a single just for the fun of it as he went 4-for-4, good for 13 Total Bases. An incredible performance to say the least.
The story of the game was the Giants’ bats. They pounded out a total of 11 hits, and 10 of them came from batters one through four between leadoff man Angel Pagan, Marco Scutaro, Sandoval, and Buster Posey (whose full name is Gerald Dempsey). That spells disaster for anybody and that’s how you get eight runs on those eleven hits. Their lone other hit was by pitcher Barry Zito, who looks like a new man on the hill, and his single was good for a ribbie too. And, go figure, but Scutaro maintained his NLCS batting average of .500 by doing it again with another two hit performance at 2-for-4. Talk about locked in! Conversely, Detroit’ bats managed just eight hits, and ironically, seven of those were from their first five of the order. Their grouping wasn’t nearly as good as the Giants’ and six-hole man Jhonny (yes, his first name is spelled correctly) Peralta’s two run homer was their lone long ball and much too little, too late in the ninth inning. For him, it surely was still a thrill to go deep on the game’s biggest stage.
Zito kept any big damage to a minimum by spreading out six hits through 5 and 2/3 innings as he gave up just one run. His looping curve is very effective and makes his below average fastball, in terms of speed, look closer to 92 to 93 than the 84 to 86 miles-an-hour that it really is. Plus, he has a nice cutter/slider that comes in in the high 70s range too. A great outing for a guy who was on top of the world in the mid 00’s, got the big money, struggled and has just kept on working to be the best he can be. He’s on a roll right now, and he gave the Giants everything they needed last night. Verlander, on the other hand, just had a night where the hitters were better than him. It didn’t look like he threw bad mistake pitches, as even Sandoval’s first homer was an up and out of the zone blazing fastball on an oh-and-two count. That’s not a bad pitch, in fact, it’s probably just what he wanted to do, save for the monstrous swing Pablo put on it. Some days at the office are just rougher than others. As a result, Verlander became the first pitcher to lose his first three career starts in the Series.
A little noticed outing in last night’s game may have been by Tiger reliever, and season long closer, Jose Valverde. After getting rocked by the Yanks for runs in New York in just two-thirds of an inning, he came in to pitch in the fifth with the Giants up five-nothing and gave up two runs in just one-third of an inning. He’s struggling big time after saving 35 saves this year and a whopping 49 in ’11. I’m wondering if he’s playing through some type of injury, and perhaps the elbow or shoulder is inflamed. It will be interesting to see his role and effectiveness throughout the series. I think the Tigers need him to have a big impact and help out Phil Coke in the back end of the bullpen in order to capture the title.
Tonight is Game 2, and the TIgers need a win to bring back on the plane ride home. We’ve got Doug Fister taking on Madison Bumgarner on the mound. Fister has been hot whereas Madison has pitched more like a bum lately rather than the Madison avenue prize that he has been in the past. Why take the hot guy? I did that for Game 1 and the law of averages caught up with Verlander. I’m going with Bumgarner pitching well, but not getting the W. The Giants go up 2-oh in a close one at 5 to 4, as the Series starts to take the shape of the first ‘home-team-won-every-game’ Series, on the 25 year anniversary, between the ’87 Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals.
Later Fans.