Tag Archives: braves

2010 Rookie of the Year

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Congrats to Buster Posey on being the 2010 National League Rookie of the Year!

  busterrookieoftheyear.jpg
Buster beat out his main contender, Jason Heyward with 129 points to Heyward’s 107.  I don’t really get how the points thing works, but it sounds good.  
At least in my neck of the woods, there’s been a lot of speculation as to whether Posey would get it, as Heyward and Posey’s records are fairly close, but Heyward played all year while Posey didn’t show up until June.  I’m not sure what put Posey over the top.  I don’t think it was the post-season, because I think they have to vote on that stuff before it happens.  It was probably the complete shift in awesome between Pre-Posey-Giants and Post-Posey-Giants.  Or maybe it was because Posey is a catcher, and catching the best pitching staff in baseball, while Heyward is a right fielder, which probably isn’t as glorious a position.  
Whatever the reason, good decision Voters of Stuff!  
Rookie of the Year AND World Series ring in the same year?  It’s good to be Buster.

Philadelphia vs San Francisco

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In an effort to kill time while I impatiently wait for Saturday, I guess I’ll do what I did last time before facing the Braves and look at some numbers going into the Championship series.  I should point out that looking at the numbers didn’t help me predict anything in any way, and they probably won’t again, but it makes my blog look fancy, so let’s do it anyway.  

How do they rank overall?  Well I already know the Phillies are the #1 ranked team, but let’s suffer through the details anyway:
Rk Tm W L W-L% last10 last20 last30
1 PHI 97 65 .599 6-4 15-5 23-7
3 NYY 95 67 .586 3-7 8-12 13-17
5 SFG 92 70 .568 7-3 12-8 20-10
8 TEX 90 72 .556 6-4 11-9 16-14
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 10/13/2010.
Yep, they pretty much dominate everything in that department, don’t they?  The Giants have a better “Last 10″ but not by much, and that’s not counting the post season, where the Giants lost one to the Braves while the Phillies swept the Reds.  So yeah, no help there.  (But keep in mind that the #1 team doesn’t always win the World Series!)  Let’s see how they do against each other:
Hey that’s better!  3-3 against each other this season, and both teams have a 2-1 record in away games.  So if we don’t do so hot in Philadelphia, maybe we can make up some ground when we return home.  
Of course the big draw of this series is the pitching.  It’s great that the starting rotation is in sync too, so we’ll be getting one against one, two against two, etc.  So like last time, sticking with just the first game pitching, we have the superstars: Roy Halladay vs Tim Lincecum.
Roy Halladay:
H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA
Eli Whiteside 2 1 0 1 2 0 1 .667
Aubrey Huff 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 .333
Edgar Renteria 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 .500
Cody Ross 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 .167
Jonathan Sanchez 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Pablo Sandoval 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 .500
Nate Schierholtz 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000
Andres Torres 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .250
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 10/13/2010.
Tim Lincecum:
H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA
Ryan Howard 2 1 0 1 1 0 1 .667
Greg Dobbs 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Ross Gload 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Cole Hamels 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000
Raul Ibanez 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000
Roy Oswalt 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .200
Placido Polanco 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .333
Carlos Ruiz 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Chase Utley 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000
Shane Victorino 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 .000
Jayson Werth 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 10/13/2010.
Summary
halladayvslincecum.jpg
Pretty close overall though Lincecum edges out in the RBI’s allowed and overall Batting Average against him and is the clear winner in the Strikeouts department.  They’ve both pitched one game during the playoffs, and while Halladay’s was probably more note-worthy as it was a no-hitter, Lincecum’s two-hitter was more success in terms of overall pitching domination as he had 14 strikeouts to Halladay’s eight.  AND Roy Halladay has yet to face Pat Burrell, Buster Posey and Juan Uribe, who could arguably be our best hitters right now.
But a close race to be sure.  I’m really looking forward to this series.  As I’ve mentioned many times before, I like the Phillies quite a bit so I’m excited to face them.  Of course I want the Giants to come out on top, but regardless of the outcome, watching two of my favorite teams going head-to-head in the NLCS should be really fun!

Braves-Giants Game 4: Onward

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Well I was right about the close games, but wrong about it taking five.  Giants are off to the Championship after winning game 4 in Atlanta:

nldschamps.jpg
My grandma decided to fall down in her shower the other night, so I had to miss most of the game to go visit her.  Geez, doesn’t she know it’s the playoffs?  How rude.  Anyway, got to listen to the tying and winning run on the radio on the commute home, which was actually the way to go because you get to hear the announcers you’re used to rather than the strange TBS personalities that just don’t seem right.  
strangers.jpg
Got home in time to hold my breath and watch Wilson get the three last outs in his typical dominating, yet torturous fashion.  I swear he does it on purpose, letting the opposition taste the bases just a little bit before going in for the kill.  Makes it more dramatic.  Makes us love him more too, I think.  He knows it. I want this shirt.
fearthebeard.jpg
Once again it was tainted with another possible error as what may have been a second out turned into an opportunity for a winning RBI from Cody Ross.  I guess it’s lame for me to complain about good/bad calls when they’re in the Giants favor, but I just don’t like the ambiguity of it all, regardless of who comes out on top.  
robotumpire.jpg
Glad we won it in four, but sucky that we weren’t at home when it happened.  Kind of depressing to see a stadium full of sad faces.  Especially sad to see Bobby Cox saying goodbye to the crowd.  Look like he had shrunk three inches after the game was over. 
bobbycox.jpg
The series is over, thank god.  Was definitely not my favorite, but ultimately the Giants came out on top and they’re moving on the Championship round.  Woo hoo!  The Phillies are certainly scary but I’m looking forward to playing them anyway.  Funny how when I first started this blog and starting paying closer attention to baseball in general, it was around this time last year when the Phillies were playing the Dodgers in the NLCS.  Now they’re playing the Giants in the NLCS.  Let’s hope they fair better than the Dodgers, eh?
dodgerslosenlcs.jpg

Braves-Giants Game 2 & 3: Blind Luck

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Unlike the Yankees and Phillies, who have swept their opponents and are on their way to the Championship Series (again – congrats!) the Giants are 2-1 against the Braves and need one more.  I should be somewhat happy (at least we’re ahead) but I’m not.  Let’s recap:

GAME 1 – Giants score the only run of the game because an error by the umpire let’s Posey stay in scoring position when he should have been out.
GAME 2 – Start off really strong (for the Giants) with a 4 run lead by the 2nd only to lose it in the end by a failed bullpen lead by Romo.
GAME 3 – Giants again score first, thanks to an error by Brooks Conrad, only to lose the lead towards the end because of Romo again, only this time they come back and take the lead again because of another error by Brooks Conrad.  
To me it feels like we’re back in April.  Starting pitching is ridiculously awesome, the bullpen (*coughROMOcough*) keeps giving it up, players are stranded on base over and over (how many bases loaded scenarios did they waste this weekend?) and every game is decided by one lucky or unlucky run.  
When they went into this, I was living off the high of winning the NL West, and truthfully didn’t care if they got any farther.  Why be selfish right?  Well now I want them to win.  Maybe not take everything, but I want them to beat the Braves.  I don’t want to get schooled by the Wild Card (sorry Twins!).  I want to make it to the Championship.  
More importantly, I want them to play better then they’ve been playing.  I know they’re better.  They need to dominate a game like I know they can.  I want to see 14-2 tonight.  I want to see hitting tonight. I want to see a win because they deserved it, not because they got lucky.  
Because luck isn’t going to beat Philadelphia.  
P.S.
Shave off your stupid beard, Romo.  It’s not working.

Braves-Giants Game 1: Teeth Skin

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I talk Giants with a co-worker fairly regularly, especially lately of course.  Passing  my desk on his way out the door yesterday, we speculated on how this Braves series is going to go, and I made a prediction that it’s going to go all five games and every game is going to be a 1-0 victory.

So far so “good.”  
To paraphrase Wayne Campbell, “Giants Baseball…Torture!” is not just a clever slogan.  How many games this season have been a 1-0 victory?  That’s not rhetorical, let’s count…one…two..three…okay only three.  Really?  Seems like more.  There’s also been three 0-1 games, so maybe I’m lumping them all together.  
Anyway, hard to complain about a win, but I’ll give it a shot.  It’s hard to “suffer” through a 1-0 game, there’s always nail biting, fidgeting and lots of pacing accompanying each pitch to the opposing team, knowing that all it takes is one good hit to tie up the game or flip the lead around.  It’s hard to watch players stranded on base or an awesome triple by Buster Posey being reduced to a waste.  It’s hard to watch a pitcher having to carry a game without run support.  
But then that’s drama, which is why we’re watching, eh?
As we all knew he would, Derek Lowe pitched a ridiculous game, pitching 5 innings and allowing only 4 hits and 1 run.  On any other day that’d be enough, but he was facing The Franchise yesterday at his very best.  Tim Lincecum pitched a complete game, his fourth for the season, shutting out the Braves and allowing only two hits with 14 strike-outs, which is apparently a Giants post-season record and third best record in MLB history (don’t quote me on that last part).  I love it when Lincecum has a good day at the office.  
lincecumstrikeouts.jpg
I also speculated to my co-worker yesterday that I thought whomever made the first error was going to be the team that lost, which again turned out to be true.  But I can’t decide if the Braves made the first mistake, or the umpire Paul Emmel.  
Posey steals second in the 4th (his first stolen base…awww) and the umpire calls him safe.  ERROR maybe because it’s possible he was out  I couldn’t really tell last night, even with the umpteen instant replays, as they never seemed to show the foot and the tag on camera at the same time for some reason.  But this photo that’s been floating around the web doesn’t scream “safe” to me:
poseysteal.jpg
On the other hand, I think the photo is an optical illusion, (so why did I even post it?) because Conrad didn’t tag Posey’s arm, but instead brought his hand all the way down to Posey’s waist.  So I’m still not sure if he was safe or not.  Judge for yourself.  
So now Posey’s on second and Lowe strikes out Burrell and Uribe.  Up comes Sandoval and they decide to walk him.  ERROR because next up is Cody Ross who singles to left field and drives in an RBI Posey, which ends up being the only run of the game.  Maybe the Braves should have pitched to Sandoval, who probably would have struck out swinging over his head, per usual.  I guess the panda hats are scarier than they look.
pandahat.jpg
While I wish the winning run, the only run, wasn’t tainted I’m glad the Giants came out on top and Game 1 is behind us.  Lincecum was better than anyone could hope for and August seems like years ago.  Now bring on Game 2: Cain vs Tommy Hanson.  How’s ol’ Tommy look?
H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA
Aubrey Huff 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 .000
Pat Burrell 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 1.000
Travis Ishikawa 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 .000
Buster Posey 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Cody Ross 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 .000
Freddy Sanchez 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Pablo Sandoval 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Andres Torres 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333
Juan Uribe 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 10/8/2010.
Hmmm….

Atlanta vs San Francisco

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So who’s gonna win?  How the heck should I know?  The Giants I mean.  Definitely!  

But let’s look at stats, because much like religion, that’s what baseball people go to when they have no real control over things.  I’m no jerk statistician, but I’ll take a crack at it anyway, because what else do I have to do while impatiently waiting for Thursday?  
Er..uh…so what do I look at?   The obvious would be who’s “the best” overall?  As the Braves are the Wild Card, I already know that answer, but let’s rub it in anyway:
Rk Tm W L W-L% last10 last20 last30
1 PHI 97 65 .599 6-4 15-5 23-7
2 SFG 92 70 .568 7-3 12-8 20-10
3 CIN 91 71 .562 5-5 10-10 14-16
4  ATL 91 71 .562 5-5 10-10 14-16
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 10/6/2010.
Giants eek by on the W-L column and last 10 and last 20 win record, and destroy in the last 30 games played column with a 20-10 record.  Giants win.
How about Giants vs the Braves specifically this season?
Whoops!  3-4 record?  I thought the Braves were the underdog?  Um…oooOOOooo I know, how about this?
Whew, that’s better!  2-1 record against Atlanta at home, which is where this goddamn epic battle is going to begin.  I wish it was a 3-0 record but I’ll take it.  
How about pitchers vs batters?  I’ll just stick with the first game because I don’t have all day: Derek Lowe vs Tim Lincecum.  
Derek Lowe:
H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA
Juan Uribe 2 1 0 0 2 2 0 .667
Pat Burrell 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .500
Matt Cain 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000
Mike Fontenot 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Jose Guillen 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000
Aubrey Huff 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 .000
Travis Ishikawa 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Edgar Renteria 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000
Cody Ross 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 .500
Aaron Rowand 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333
Freddy Sanchez 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500
Jonathan Sanchez 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Pablo Sandoval 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333
Andres Torres 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 .500
Eli Whiteside 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 10/6/2010.

Tim Lincecum:
H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA
Alex Gonzalez 1 0 0 1 2 0 0 .333
Brian McCann 2 0 0 1 2 1 2 .400
Eric Hinske 1 0 0 1 1 1 2 .200
Rick Ankiel 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 .000
Melky Cabrera 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .167
Brooks Conrad 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000
Matt Diaz 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .333
Diory Hernandez 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000
Jason Heyward 1 1 0 0 0 1 2 .200
Omar Infante 3 1 0 0 0 0 2 .429
Jair Jurrjens 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000
Kenshin Kawakami 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000
Martin Prado 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 .333
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 10/6/2010.
Summary

STAT GIANTS BRAVES WINNER
HR 3 0 Braves
RBI 5 2 Braves
BB 4 6 Giants
SO 15 6 Giants
BA .244 .220 Braves

So the Braves “win” 3-2.  But which of those stats are most important?  I guess batting average is probably important, and the Giants have the worse average against Derek Lowe.  On the other hand, Derek Lowe hasn’t faced Posey yet and he’s got the best batting average of the team.  
All-in-all…I still have no clue.  The stats seem depressing, but then you can still find a silver lining when you’re not reading what you want.  And it’s the playoffs, so everybody’s stats are going to be too close to make any real determinations, I would think, as if you could regardless just based on stats alone.  From an overall perspective, the Braves are obviously the underdog in this series, but if you look at their work specifically against the Giants, I’m not so sure… 
So who’s gonna win?  How the heck should I know?  The Giants I mean.  Definitely! 

Killing Time

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I’ve got baseball on the brain, but at the same time I’m trying not to spend too much time and effort over analyzing every little thing about today’s game.  So instead I revisisited one of my favorite baseball sites, Flip Flop Fly Ball to see what latest and greatest graphs and charts were available to peruse.  And much to my delight, there was a bobblehead chart!  Check it.    

The first thing that came to my mind was which two teams gave away a bobblehead when the Giants were visiting.  Not an easy thing to figure out without researching every teams’ bobblehead activity, which is what I ultimately ended up doing.  (Like I said, this day is crawling way too slowly towards 7 PM!)   So using Flip Flop’s own key, I made my own chart:
2010bobbleheadgrid.jpg
I found a few discrepancies in Flip Flop’s chart, but for the most part they’re the same, square-wise.  I added all the applicable teams though, so on the left side you can see what team was visiting during bobblehead day, and on the right you can see what teams gave away a bobblehead while being visiting. 
I would have assumed that most teams would decide to give away a bobblehead when they’re scheduled to play a bad team in an attempt to generate ticket sales.  The Phillies giving away a Roy Halladay bobblehead on the day they have to play the Pirates makes perfect sense.  (And photos of the sucker blew up all over Twitter, so obviously it worked!)  But then there’s the Dodgers giving away a bobblehead when the Giants came to play, and what would fill seats better than a Dodgers-Giants game?  
Note also that the Braves, Red Sox, Rockies and Yankees are too cool for bobbleheads (or draw enough ticket sales without gimmicks) and the White Sox was the only team to give away a bobble when the Red Sox and Yankees came to town (not enough of a draw for Chicago, I guess).  
I wonder if there’s a bobblehead website…

Disssssss

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Well I got what I wanted.

sweeptheleg.jpgTook the series, four AWAY games against a DIVISION rival.  I mean, yeah I guess not really a rival since the D-Backs have been way behind for quite some time, but the Giants are so bad at facing the NL West, a win is a win is a win is a win!  I talked about the first game already, but some things that stand out about the other three:

Posey Keeps On Hitting

And hitting and hitting and…a .371 batting average and an 18 game hitting streak, which places him second to McCovey for rookie Giants hitting streaks.  Is he stoppable?  Probably, but let’s enjoy the ride, eh?

busterposey.jpgVelez Knocked in the Head

The most hated player on the Giants roster, if you go by Twitter, is knocked in the head while drinking his Gatorade by a foul ball from Pat Burrell.  Dislike him or not, that’s still not cool.  Is there no way to keep the dugout safe from such random attacks?  It’s happened at least three times this year that I’ve read about. (Maybe he can do Mountain Dew commercials now, though.)

eugeniobeamed.jpgJuan Uribe’s Grand Slam

My step-daughter and I were shouting the “OOO-RIBEH!” chant in our living room when he decided to hit his fourth career grand slam in the 7th on game three, with two outs and on the first pitch to boot.  I totally think it was our chant that did it.

uribeslam.jpgStill in second place and three games behind because the Padres JUST WON’T LOSE!

Rk Tm W L W-L% GB Strk
1 SDP 58 39 .598 — W 3
2 SFG 56 43 .566 3.0 W 4
3 LAD 53 46 .535 6.0 W 2
4 COL 51 47 .520 7.5 L 5
5 ARI 37 62 .374 22.0 L 4
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 7/26/2010.

We’re also first now in the Wild Card race, but who wants to get to the series that way?

Rk Tm W L W-L% GB Strk
1 SDP 58 39 .598 — W 3
2 ATL 57 41 .582 — L 1
3  SFG 56 43 .566 — W 4
4 STL 55 44 .556 1.0 W 1
5  CIN 55 45 .550 1.5 L 1
6  LAD 53 46 .535 3.0 W 2
7  PHI 52 46 .531 3.5 W 4
8  COL 51 47 .520 4.5 L 5
9  NYM 50 49 .505 6.0 L 2
10  FLA 49 49 .500 6.5 W 1
11  MIL 47 53 .470 9.5 W 4
12  CHC 45 54 .455 11.0 L 1
13  WSN 42 57 .424 14.0 L 3
14  HOU 40 58 .408 15.5 W 1
15  ARI 37 62 .374 19.0 L 4
16  PIT 34 64 .347 21.5 L 4
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 7/26/2010.

I also saw on the television that we’re number one hits this month.  Not sure if I saw that right and have no idea where to go to validate it but if that’s true?  MAN what a different team post-All-Star game, eh?

No Time to Say Hello Goodbye

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I was in Arizona all last week and I’m off to Toronto all next week, so I really have little time to say how awesome it is that the Giants won their first three away games, how fun the opening ceremonies were on Opening Day with the center field walk-in and the Tim Lincecum love and Jerry Rice pitching the opening pitch to Steve Young, or how they held out for 13 innings and won it with a two base steal from Uribe. 

All I really have time to do is post this:

standings20100410.jpg

:)