Tagged: Major League Baseball
Cain Doesn’t Have Time for the Pain
To get the awful taste of that Toronto series out of our mouths, and to prepare for Matt Cain’s start tonight in Colorado, here again is that awesome play turned by Cain last Friday against the Atlanta Braves at AT&T Park. It happened in the top of the second inning with one out and nobody on. With the count 1-2, Braves catcher Brian McCann hit a sharp comebacker that deflected off of Cain’s right thigh and rolled toward the first base line. Without missing a beat, Cain ran for the ball, grabbed it with his right hand just as it reached the line, and flipped a quick off-balance throw to Brandon Belt at first, getting McCann by a couple of steps. Belt was equally terrific on the play, stretching to his left in foul territory to glove the throw from Cain while keeping his foot on the bag.
It was only after the play was over that Cain showed how much the combacker stung. Now that’s a major league player.
Cain pitched beautifully that game, going eight innings and giving up only two earned runs on three hits. The Giants won, 8-2.
We need another one like that.
Braves vs. Giants, September 14, 1986: Bob Brenly’s Baseball Rags-to-Riches Tale
One of the most memorable Braves-Giants games took place September 14, 1986, at Candlestick Park. Bob Brenly, who would later manage the Arizona Diamondbacks during their dramatic 2001 World Series victory over the New York Yankees, was the Giants’ regular starting catcher. However, during this particular game, Brenly was asked to take over third base duties after regular Giants third baseman Chris Brown complained of shoulder soreness.
The game was scoreless until the fourth inning. That was when Brenly, not used to playing third, managed to make four errors in the same inning, tying a Major League record. The errors led to four costly runs, putting the Braves on top, 4-0.
But what’s truly remarkable about this story is what happened next. Brenly led off the bottom of the fifth inning with a solo home run against Braves starter Charlie Puleo (Bob Melvin, who was catching in Brenly’s place, came up next and hit another solo homer). In the seventh inning, with bases loaded and two outs and the Braves leading 6-4, Brenly singled to knock in two more runs, tying the game, 6-6.
Finally, in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and the game still tied 6-6, Brenly came to the plate and hit a walk-off home run against Braves reliever Paul Assenmacher, giving the Giants a 7-6 victory.
“I went from the outhouse to the penthouse,” Brenly joked after the game.
Above is a video showing highlights of the game.
(Note: In the video, Bob Costas is wrong about Brenly tying the game 4-4 in the seventh. According to baseball-reference.com, Brenly’s two RBIs tied the game, 6-6.)
Short Film about the New York Polo Grounds
Check out this brief but poignant film about the old New York Polo Grounds, the stadium where the Giants used to play before moving to San Francisco in 1958. It includes interviews with Bill Kent of the New York Baseball Giants Nostalgia Society and author Pete Hamil, both of whom attended games at the Polo Grounds as kids. Interestingly, both refer to the stadium as “our church.”
Today, the site in upper Manhattan where the Polo Grounds used to be is a housing project called–you guessed it–Polo Grounds Towers.
Happy Birthday, Willie Mays!
Today is the Say Hey Kid’s 82nd birthday. Happy Birthday, Willie!
Seems like as good an excuse as any to watch him knock a few out of the park.
Note: the above video has no audio.
The Romo-Kemp Battle of Wills
The talk of last night’s 2-1 Giants win over the Dodgers was, of course, Buster Posey’s bottom of the ninth inning walk-off home run, a line drive hammered into the left field stands. Believe it or not, it was Posey’s first MLB career walk-off hit. Not just his first walk-off home run, but his first walk-off hit, period. It was a thrilling, satisfying end (if you were a Giants fan) to a tense, strange game that saw Giants pitchers put the lead runner on base seven of the nine innings and Dodgers hitters unable to bring them home. The Dodgers had 11 hits in the game, but scored only one run. The only Dodger to cross home plate last night was pitcher Clayton Kershaw, which was also the case during Kershaw’s first outing against the Giants this season at Dodgers Stadium, a game the Dodgers won.
Yet for all the excitement of Posey’s home run, the most compelling moment last night, as far as I’m concerned, was Sergio Romo’s ninth inning, nine pitch battle against Matt Kemp. Kemp ultimately prevailed with a line drive single to right field. Still, the match-up was a thing of baseball beauty.
Put away your pitchforks. I’m no turncoat. But the Romo-Kemp struggle was what major league baseball is all about, with two talented players facing off in a war of wills: Romo, painting both sides of the plate with fastballs and sliders against the powerful Dodger right hander; Kemp, fighting off close, tricky pitches with foul balls, fouling one particularly meaty pitch, offering at another way out of the strike zone, spitting at still others, and seeing at least one–the first pitch of the at bat, a fastball inside–get called a strike.
That first pitch strike came at an interesting time. Dodgers second baseman Nick Punto, who led off the inning, had just got called out looking on a slider from Romo that hit almost the same spot on the right side of the plate (viewed from the pitcher’s mound). The left-handed Punto thought it was outside, and argued furiously with home plate umpire Joe West. With a dismissive wave of the finger, West silently warned Punto to head back to the Dodgers dugout.
Reviewing the replay, it’s clear the pitch was outside.
The first pitch to Kemp hit nearly the same spot, yet this one caught part of the plate. Kemp appeared to disagree. Unlike Punto, however, he kept his thoughts to himself, choosing instead to stare in disbelief into the stands along the first base line (was he staring at the scoreboard there to confirm the pitch got registered as a strike?). After all, it was the first pitch of the at bat, not the last. Still, Dodgers hitters must have been confused at the end of a game in which Joe West, throughout most of it, had stuck to an unbelievably tight strike zone. All of a sudden, in the ninth inning, that zone expanded.
Which is perhaps part of what set up the battle between Romo and Kemp.
Something interesting happened after that first strike. Kemp stepped back into the batter’s box, took a practice swing, then signaled time out to West before stepping back out.
Then he did it again.
Was he trying to get the bad taste of that first called strike out of his mouth? Or was he attempting to throw off Romo’s timing? Perhaps a bit of both. Both times, Romo went into the stretch, only to have to start over and set up again. Before Kemp stepped back into the box a third time, Romo went into his stretch, as if he were going to quick-pitch Kemp. West was having none of it. He stepped out from behind home plate to warn Romo. Romo threw out his arms, as if to say, “What did I do?” Giants fans started screaming at West.
On the next pitch, Romo threw Kemp a slider that curled and fell away from the plate outside. Kemp swung and missed it by a mile. The count was 0-2.
Kemp bounced the next pitch foul off to his left. Then Romo threw a cutter outside that Kemp spit on. The count was 1-2.
The crowd started chanting, “Beat LA! Beat LA!”
Kemp fouled another pitch into the stands off first base. Romo was lucky this time. He had hung a fastball over the heart of the plate. Kemp next took a low slider inside that was called a ball. The count was 2-2. Romo went back inside with a front door slider but missed. Barely. The count was 3-2.
Seven pitches had been thrown in the at bat.
Kemp fouled off the next pitch, a fastball in on his hands.
The ninth and final pitch of the at bat was a fastball on the outside edge of the plate. Kemp reached out and punched a line drive into right field.
Battle over. Kemp won.
But Romo would go on to win the war. After falling behind Dodgers shortstop Justin Sellers, 2-1, Romo got Sellers to foul off the next pitch. He then struck Sellers out swinging with a wicked slider that broke off the plate out of the reach of Sellers’ bat.
A.J. Ellis came up next and popped up the third pitch slider to Joaquin Arias at short for the third out.
Posey would lead off the ninth inning. But you already know how this story ends.
The Marichal-Roseboro Brawl
Did you know footage exists of the Marichal-Roseboro brawl? I didn’t. See the above clip. The video freezes in a couple of places, so be patient.
For those not familiar with this famous brawl: It took place August 22, 1965, at Candlestick Park. There had been some heated words between Dodger catcher John Roseboro and several Giants players during the previous game. Juan Marichal was pitching the next afternoon for the Giants, and he threw a couple of brush back pitches that forced Dodger hitters Maury Wills and Ron Fairly to hit the deck. Sandy Koufax refused to intentionally hit any Giants batters in retaliation, so when Marichal came to the plate, Roseboro dropped a pitch behind him, picked it up, and threw the ball back to Koufax, brushing Marichal’s ear. This led to a heated argument between Marichal and Roseboro. To the shock of everyone in the stadium, Marichal suddenly hit Roseboro on the head with his bat several times, opening a gash in Roseboro’s head that would require 14 stitches. The Dodgers and Giants dugouts emptied onto the field. Koufax attempted to intervene. In the video footage, you can see the home plate umpire finally get a hold of Marichal and pull him onto the ground.
The Giant with jersey number 26 who is also brandishing a bat is shortstop Tito Fuentes. Thankfully, Fuentes didn’t end up using the bat.
Toward the end of the footage, Roseboro charges Marichal but is stopped by Dodgers players.
Unfortunately, the throw back from Roseboro that clipped Marichal’s ear has been edited out of the footage.
Roseboro sued Marichal over the incident. The case was settled out of court. Many years later, Marichal and Roseboro would patch up their differences and become friends.
Who won the game? The Giants, 4-3. However, the Dodgers would get their revenge. They won the pennant that year.
The Dodgers vs. the Swamp Giants
With the Dodgers coming to AT&T Park today for the start of a three-game series against the Giants, I thought I would relate one of my favorite Dodgers-Giants rivalry stories. It took place in August of 1962, as the Dodgers and Giants played a three-game series at Candlestick Park.
The Dodgers were in first place in the National League as the series started, five games ahead of the Giants. (In 1962, there were no separate divisions in baseball, and therefore, no formal playoff series. Whichever team finished first in each league won the pennant.)
The Dodgers’ running game was a big part of their success that year. It was the year base-stealing great Maury Wills broke Ty Cobb’s single-season stolen base record of 96. Wills stole 104 bases.
Giants manager Alvin Dark asked the head groundskeeper at Candlestick, Matty Schwab, if there were anything he could do to help slow Wills down. Schwab had an idea. He and his son went out early the morning of the first game of the series. Sports Illustrated writer Noel Hynd describes what they did:
Working by torchlight, the Schwabs dug up and removed the topsoil where Maury Wills would take his lead off first base. Down in its place went a squishy swamp of sand, peat moss and water. Then they covered their chicanery with an inch of normal infield soil, making the 5- by 15-foot quagmire visually indistinguishable from the rest of the base path.
By the time the Dodgers took batting practice that afternoon, however, the wet, loose soil became noticeable. When Dodgers coach Leo Durocher saw it, he got down on his knees and dug through the topsoil.
“What the hell is this?” he asked.
The Dodgers brought it to the attention of the umpires, who forced the Giants’ grounds crew to remove the soil or forfeit the game. The grounds crew complied, carting out several wheelbarrows of the stuff. But instead of replacing it with the regular infield soil, they carted back the peat moss mixture and laid it down again, then watered down the area. Now the soil was looser than before, and wetter. Yet, for some reason, the umpires approved it.
Back on the field, the Dodgers started making duck calls. “What time does the tide come in?” Dodgers first baseman Ron Fairly asked Alvin Dark. Dark shrugged. Fairly built an impromptu sand castle.
“What could you do?” asked Dodgers left fielder Tommy Davis. “It was their park. They were going to get away with anything.”
The swamp did its job, slowing down the Dodgers’ otherwise superior running game. At one point, center fielder Willie Davis rounded first on a base hit, slipped, and was thrown out. After arguing with the umpire, he was tossed from the game.
Wills stole no bases that game, nor did any Dodger. The Dodgers lost the game, 11-2.
Word about the incident got back to National League headquarters, and the Giants groundskeepers were ordered to remove the soil. They did so, but they watered down the base paths for the second game, and it was so wet the umpires had to halt the game and have the grounds crew sand down the infield. This just made it swampy again. The Dodgers lost the second game, 5-2, and the final game, 5-1. They left Candlestick Park just two games ahead of the Giants.
The Dodgers and Giants would go on to tie for first place that year, leading to a three-game playoff that the Giants won, sending them to the World Series. You know the rest. The Giants lost to the New York Yankees, 4 games to 3.
The Giants would have to wait another 40 years before their next World Series chance, and another 48 before winning it for the first time since moving to San Francisco.
The Dickens Matt Cain
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Then, miraculously, it was the best of times again.
Sort of.
Last night for the first three innings against the Diamondbacks, Matt Cain looked like his old self. He was controlling his fastball. He was getting Diamondbacks hitters to pop out. He had three strikeouts in three innings. He even struck out Giants killer Paul Goldschmidt.
What’s more, Giants hitters were doing something they rarely do: giving Matt Cain run support. And they did so right out of the dugout, scoring two runs in the top of the first and adding another run in the top of the second. They had already matched the total number of runs they had given Matt Cain during his first five starts.
Dawn seemed to finally be breaking on Matt Cain’s dark night of the pitcher’s soul.
Then came the bottom of the fourth inning.
It started with a walk to Cody Ross, Cain’s third walk of the game. That should have set off alarms that however good Cain looked, something wasn’t quite right. Jason Kubel came up next, and on the first pitch launched one into the right field stands.
Thousands of Giants fans—sitting in Chase Park, watching on television, listening on the radio—shifted uncomfortably in their seats. They shifted again, perhaps even let out a curse under their breaths, after Eric Chavez belted an opposite field solo home run over the left field wall, tying the game, 3-3. Cliff Pennington, who doubled during his previous at bat against Cain, also got hold of one to right field. Fortunately, it fell into Hunter Pence’s glove on the warning track. Pitcher Ian Kennedy grounded out to short. With two outs, it looked like Cain might limit the damage.
Martin Prado came up and quickly got behind in the count, 0-2. The next pitch was a ball, low. The count was 1-2. Prado fouled the next pitch into the stands deep along the right field line. It was a loud foul, and, in retrospect perhaps, a portent of what was to come.
Cain threw a fastball down and in, and Prado catapulted it into the left field stands.
In case you’re wondering what a pitcher who has just given up three home runs in an inning looks like…
…yeah, Cain doesn’t give away his emotions as readily as he’s giving up home runs this year. I, on the other hand, looked like his wife, Chelsea, during the final three outs of his perfect game last year. Really. I checked in the mirror.
I’ve never believed in curses, but I was beginning to believe Cain was as marked as his namesake in the Bible. No matter how well he seemed to be pitching, he carried that big run inning with him always. You didn’t know when it would come, but as surely as the sun rises in the east or an ‘L’ car follows another ‘L’ car in a downtown Muni station, it would come.
Gerardo Parra’s strikeout to end the inning hardly seemed a consolation. The Diamondbacks led, 4-3.
It was only the fourth inning, but after five consecutive losses, it appeared the Giants were being set up for a sixth. The Giants managed to tie the game in the top of the fifth, 4-4, after Scutaro singled and advanced to second on a wild pitch by Ian Kennedy. Pablo Sandoval knocked Scutaro in with a ground ball to right, somehow reaching down to hit a pitch that almost bounced off the plate.
Buster Posey walked. With two men on and one out, Hunter Pence hit into an inning-ending double play, although the replay showed he was safe at first. Bruce Bochy thought so too. It was the second such call that didn’t go the Giants way, and that, perhaps along with the big run inning, was too much for Bochy. He unloaded on first base umpire Bill Miller and got himself ejected.
We were all Bruce Bochy at that moment.
The game stayed tied until the top of the eighth. Diamondbacks reliever Brad Ziegler came in to replace Ian Kennedy. Nick Noonan, who replaced Pablo Sandoval at third in the sixth inning after Sandoval’s elbow did its thing, doubled to left. Buster Posey moved Noonan to third base with a sacrifice fly to right. Hunter Pence grounded out. Gregor Blanco walked. Another walk to Brandon Crawford loaded the bases for Brandon Belt. In what seems to be becoming a welcome trend for Belt, he hammered a ground ball to center, scoring Noonan and Blanco. The Giants took back the lead, 6-4. It would remain that way as the Giants bullpen shut down the Diamondbacks offense.
It was another come-from-behind victory for the Giants, though it didn’t feel that way. Yes, the Giants had finally broken a five game losing streak. But it’s a game they should have won from the beginning.
Still, we’ll take it, even as the big run inning for Giants starters looms large.
An Odd Fight Between a Giant and a Snake
It was one of the strangest brawls in baseball history. The Giants were playing the Diamondbacks at Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Field), April 16, 1999. It was the Diamondbacks’ second season in existence, and they were clobbering the Giants 8-3 in the top of the sixth when Giants third baseman Charlie Hayes charged the mound to get a piece of Diamondbacks pitcher Todd Stottlemyre.
Only Hayes wasn’t charging from the batter’s box after getting beaned. He was charging from second base.
Here’s what happened. Hayes came to the plate with a man on first. His career record against Stottlemyre was abysmal, 0-for-13, and it wasn’t about to get better. Hayes hit into a fielder’s choice force out at second. As he reached first base, he started cursing, later saying he was cursing at himself. But Stottlemyre assumed the blue language was meant for him.
On the next at bat, as Hayes advanced to second on a single by Giants catcher Brent Mayne, Stottlemyre tossed an F-bomb his way. “I thought he was yelling at me from first base,” Stottlemyre explained, “so when he got to second base I had something to say to him.”
A nasty exchange ensued. Then, as Hayes rounded second, he charged the mound and threw a punch at Stottlemyre. “I was trying to knock him out,” Hayes told reporters. “I didn’t want to wrestle. He talks like he’s Bob Gibson. I’m the only one he can get out.”
Hayes was referring to his struggles at the plate against Stottlemyre.
Stottlemyre managed to avoid the punch. “He missed me all night, at the plate and on the mound,” he later quipped.
Diamondbacks third baseman and former Giant Matt Williams rushed to the mound and tackled Hayes as Giants third base coach Sonny Jackson got a hold of Stottlemyre. Both dugouts and bullpens cleared. Curses and taunts flew back and forth. Hayes was still livid when Barry Bonds grabbed him and led him back to the dugout.
Both Hayes and Stottlemyre were ejected from the game.
In the melee, Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson lost his cap. He picked up a Giants hat by mistake and put it on, thinking it felt a little tight.
“I guess I was a Giant for a half-minute,” Johnson said.
The Diamondbacks went on to beat the Giants, 10-4. Not that that will happen tonight.
My Silly Theory about Why the Giants Aren’t Winning–and Everyone Else’s
Eureka, I’ve found it!
I’ve finally zeroed in on the source of the Giants’ problems: their pitchers aren’t hitting.
After starting the season with their bats on fire, of late, Giants pitchers might as well be going to the plate holding an icicle. First, check out their batting averages a week into the season:
Zito .750
Bumgarner .333
Lincecum .333
OK, Vogelsong and Cain didn’t have a hit, but you see my point. Now let’s look at these same pitchers’ averages a few weeks later.
Zito .600
Bumgarner .250
Lincecum .125
I know what you’re saying. Zito is still hitting a remarkable .600, and Bumgarner’s .250 isn’t too shabby for a pitcher. But Zito’s average has dropped by .150, Bumgarner’s by .083, and Lincecum’s by an embarrassing .208! Meanwhile, Cain and Vogelsong remain hitless.
How can a ball club win games when their starting pitchers suddenly aren’t hitting?
Yes, I’m being silly. But no more silly, I think, than a lot of sportswriters, fans, and radio broadcasters who just four weeks into the season, with the Giants two games out of first place in the West, are already looking for scapegoats to explain why the Giants have seemingly lost their mojo. Last night on KNBR, Marty Lurie asked his listeners which Giants hitter needs to step up his game to get the rest of the Giants’ offense going. Like a prosecutor leading witness testimony, he limited their choices to Sandoval, Posey, and Pence. Apparently incapable of following simple courtroom rules, I was ready to burn Marco Scutaro at the stake until I realized what I was doing.
The thing is, Giants hitting has been good overall this season. They have the second best average in the National League, hitting .262 as a team. Even if we limit ourselves to the past four games, the Giants have gone 38 – 148, a .257 average.
Oh, but they’re not hitting with RISP! Andrew Baggarly points out that the Giants have gone 0 – 15 with RISP the past two games. Two whole (low-scoring) games!
The point is, you can cherry pick whichever numbers you wish to make an argument about what’s supposedly going wrong for the Giants. But we’re only four weeks into the season. Of course, we expect the Giants, who have won two World Series titles in the past three years, to be dominant all the time, and throughout their lineup. However, you could easily go back to the 2010 or 2012 season and take a snapshot of the team, or even a particular player, and make an argument explaining why the Giants were unlikely to win the division that year, much less go on to win the World Series.
Baseball is a game of numbers, and numbers are revealing–over a long stretch. We’re not there yet. Not even close.
A Long Way from the Polo Grounds 