 |
| Brilliant color coordination by sign girl. |
Dallas Keuchel is probably the most Astros name ever. If you
knew who Dallas Keuchel was before this start, either you play in a 100 team
keeper league or you are Dallas Keuchel’s parents. If you are the former, did someone pickup Roger Clemens on the waiver wire yet? If you are the latter, what was the thinking behind naming your child Dallas? Was it a punishment for something he did as a fetus?
Here’s John Sickels scouting report on Keuchel, which will
be the first thing you have ever read on Dallas Keuchel.
Keuchel is a 6-3, 210 pound left-handed hitter and thrower, born January 1st, 1988, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His fastball isn't very fast, being as low as 83-85 MPH at times, though at his best he works at 86-89, which is where he was in his big league debut. His main breaking ball is an adequate curve, but his out-pitch is usually his changeup, a solid offering with good action low in the strike zone.
So lets see…
soft tossing lefty… batting practice fastball… tries to work low in the zone…
around 6-2 200 pounds… what’s a good comp… oh hey Barry Zito pitched today!
Barry Zito throws batting practice fastballs too! He is about that size! What
coincidence and great narrative to write about!
Dallas
Keuchel is basically Barry Zito with a changeup as an out pitch instead of a
curveball that goes 12-6. And for a little while, it’s pretty much what you
would expect from a game between Barry Zito and Barry Zito. The Giants jumped
to 4 early runs in the first, 3 coming off the bat of Hunter Pence. Dallas
Keuchel held up his end of the bargain. Barry Zito was all like “oh no you did
not” and would not be out done, going as far as getting pulled in the 3rd
inning. Classic Zito!
It was 4-3
after the 3rd and it looked like it would be runs party, and not the
type lactose intolerant people have. Then Dallas Keuchel started pitching like
2002 Barry Zito not 2012 Barry Zito. After Pence’s home run in the 1st,
Keuchel retired the next 14 hitters he faced. He was practically perfect if not
for a ball that hit off the center field bill boards. Minor stuff. The Giants
turned on hack-mode and Dallas Keuchel did something not even Dallas Keuchel
thought he could do. The next hitter to reach base after the Pence home run was
Marco Scutaro, who doubled in the 6th. That led to Keuchel being
pulled, much to the relief of the Giants. That is an interesting and annoying
sentence.
The story of
this game, other than Dallas Keuchel things, was the Giants bullpen. Zito was
pulled after his 3rd pitch, and Bochy let his bullpen loose like a
pack of hyenas since rosters were about to expand anyways. I didn’t have a
problem with Bochy having a quick hook. He wasn’t going to let Zito get shelled
and the writing was on the wall. As mentioned he could afford to overuse the
bullpen and he didn’t want another Zito implosion.
George
Kontos was excellent, and again, should be used in a role other than the early
inning long man or mop up duty. His location was pin point and he still is
either second or first in most major statistical categories in the Giants
bullpen. This was a pitcher who was traded Chris Stewart. That is a more
pleasant sentence then the last one that ended a paragraph.
Then Mota,
Mijares, Affeldt, Casilla and Lopez finished off 6.2 innings of 1 run baseball
thrown by the pen. It wasn’t perfect, but considering the up and down nature
the group has experienced this season, this was certainly a welcome sign.
Guillermo
Mota is back by the way. Hello World Series!
Hunter Pence
swings hard. We went over that yesterday. Today he made contact with a pitch
while swinging hard. What a wonderful sequence!
Mike Krukow
has been riding the “Hunter Pence swing is back” bandwagon for a while now.
He’s still swinging at slop but he’s not exactly in a dark dungeon like Belt
was in July. Right now all we can do is hope that this swing is something that
jumpstarts something that makes something happen.
Golly that baseball was hit far.
*****
Pablo
Sandoval since coming back from the hamstring injury: .213/.273/.277. Sandoval
since coming back from the hamate: .269/.319/.414. Not good.
I have to believe
Pablo Sandoval is one of those hitters that takes longer than most to return to
form after coming back from injury. This is mostly speculation, but for a guy
that swings at pitches on the jumbotron’s instant replay, he has to take an
especially long time to establish the strike zone and identify pitches to hit. He needs to be in a rhythm and that takes more time than most. Right now, Sandoval is swinging a lot as usual, and the few hits he’s getting
are singles. Not a lot of loud contact.
Sandoval is not right, and while I think he’ll find some sort of groove, I’m
not sure when it’s going to come and how long it will take him to be Pablo
Sandoval. Hamstring injuries are tricky and tend to linger. Right now though,
Posey should be hitting third, with Sandoval cleanup based on pure talent and
upside. On this day, he is a lot more Jose Castillo than Pablo Sandoval.
Which is bad because he is Pablo Sandoval. Jose Castillo is somewhere in retirement, probably swinging at crap. Please come back real Pablo Sandoval.
*****
The Giants have faced two pitchers having bad seasons the last 2 days and have looked terrible to okay. Tomorrow they will face another crappy pitcher in Jordan Lyles. Third times the charm! I guess it's a sweep, so that wouldn't really work, but this is my post so you'll just have to live with it. I'm sorry for being mean :(
No comments:
Post a Comment