Madison Mutes Texas, Giants up 3-1

After a postseason of walks and important singles, Huff finally pumped a pitch and Tommy Hunter sure gave him a good one to do just that. But then again, Andres Torres and Freddy Sanchez combined to work him to death in the top of the third inning which may have  helped, and by the time Huff Daddy stepped up to the plate, Hunter was ripe for the picking. He threw an 86 MPH cutter across the middle of the plate, just ever so slightly towards the inner half, and Huff took care of the rest. The only question was fair or foul, and had they been in San Fran you bet that pearl would be wet. The Giants led 2-0 and it was the big blow they would need to restore their confidence and carry them the rest of the muggy evening.

One of the most promising signs of the evening was one swing off the bat of the Giants’ – lets say it together – 23 year old rookie, cleanup-hitting catcher. When he stepped up to the plate in the eighth against Darren O’Day for yet another battle, I texted to a friend: “I wish Posey would wake up. His at bats have been dreadful. He’s trying to pull everything and it doesn’t make any sense. His strength is opposite field and yet he’s trying to yank everything.” Moments later, Buster displayed the brilliance of his developing talents and of glorious backspin in one swing. O’Day left a changeup in the top quarter of the strike zone – in case you didn’t know, terrible place for a changeup – and Buster belted it to center for a solo shot. It sure would have been nice to hear a real homerun call, you know, one by Kuiper. Oh well. It reminded me a great deal of a homerun Buster hit off of Andrew Cashner in the eighth inning of a critical game at Wrigley in September. That night hard luck Matt Cain had battled a resurgent Carlos Zambrano to a stalemate through six and was removed because the Giants were desperate for runs. The solo shot by Posey in the eighth would be the only run of the game as the Giants won 1-0. His homerun that night traveled 418 feet to center field, and his blast traveled 419 feet to center on this Halloween night. When Posey’s going good that’s exactly what he does, and I’m hoping that’s a sign for tomorrow’s 2010 version of November baseball. The graph below illustrates Posey's ability to hit for power to all fields, where 10 of his 18 homeruns were to center or right field.

Compliments of Hit Tracker

But the real story tonight was Madison “Young Hickory” Bumgarner* of Hickory, North Carolina. A reader recently informed me that was the nickname of James K. Polk – I hadn’t realized it –who was given the nickname for being a particular protégé to Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson. This tenacious 21 year old Bumgarner, who by my novice observation is about as fearless as the original Hickory, started the evening having already thrown 216 total innings in 2010 (including at AAA Fresno) and hadn’t pitched more than 151 innings in a season ever; he did that in 2009.

*The Giants used to punt 1st round draft picks for aging hitters like Michael Tucker. That trend is no more. Their four postseason starters are homegrown, drafted and developed by San Francisco. Their second baseman, who flashed the leather brilliantly on this night, was acquired by trading Tim Alderson, another 1st round pick. Posey was of course the fifth overall selection in 2008. Their bearded closer they got in the 24th round of the 2003 draft out of LSU because he had a big arm but needed Tommy John and would require a hefty bonus. That one worked out, too.

At the end of 2009, he came up to make an emergency start when Tim Lincecum had a stiff back and couldn’t make it. It was cause for four-alarm panic in San Francisco, but at least we’d get a chance to see this kid we’d heard so much about already pitch live. Bumgarner pitched fine, he gave up two runs (on two solo shots) in 5.1 innings and got the no decision. But, Madison topped out at about 88-90 MPH and confirmed what many (obsessed) Giants fans had been reading. The reports from the minor leagues were not good. Bumgarner was still getting outs and competing, he was still not walking many batters which is one of his greatest strengths, but he was also not popping the catchers mitt with a mid-90’s heater and he was not striking out many batters. That’s what he was throwing in Spring Training in 2009 what he garnered compliments from Manny Ramirez. But over the course of his second professional season, his fastball disappeared. He was still pretty successful, but the way he was doing it wasn’t exactly overwhelming.

In 2008, Bumgarner made his professional debut in the Class A Sally League and threw 141.2 innings. He struck out 164 batters (10.42/9) and walked just 21 (1.33), while giving up just 3 homeruns (.19). That left him with a 15-3 record, a 1.46 ERA and the honor of Minor League Pitcher of the Year. He was instantly an untouchable prospect and being groomed for the Big Club’s rotation by the Giants. He was overmatching the Class A hitters like a man among boys, and his 6’4”, 220 lb frame doesn’t make it difficult to imagine.

Many Giants fans hoped that Bumgarner’s arm simply tired throughout 2009 and that he’d show up in the spring in 2010, flash his plus fastball and control and skate his way into the rotation. Instead, his velocity hadn’t returned and he was blasted in Spring Training. Suddenly onlookers began to worry he was injured. It’s happened countless times before. A phenomenal pitching prospect rockets through the minors, gets hurt along the way and is never heard from again.

Bumgarner was sent to AAA Fresno and continued to get rocked through three starts. His replacement in the Major Leagues was Todd Wellemeyer, and he would need replacing of his own soon enough, that is once the Giants came to the realization that any success he was having was as hollow as a termite infested tree. And then, Giants instructor and pitching guru Dick Tidrow had a bullpen session with Madison and he was back on track. His mechanics had been muddied somehow along the way and he needed a tweak to get him back where he was. Over the next couple months, Madison regained his control and started dispatching minor league hitters again.

Fast-forward to Halloween 2010. Sometime in August or September, Bumgarner started to get his fastball back. What’s more, he’d gotten a better idea of how to pitch through his struggles – does this remind anyone of Tim Lincecum’s struggles this season? On Halloween night with (much) of the country watching, in a pivetol game 4 of the World Series, Bumgarner once again flashed his talent and everything he learned when his fastball abandoned him, and he showed that he was a better pitcher because of it. It’s a beautiful thing when a plan comes together.

Madison threw 106 pitches on the night and 69 strikes (65%). The big key for him was changeup and slider command. He was able to five total swing and miss strikes with those offerings. He threw 16 of 21 changes for strikes (76%) and 18 of 25 sliders (72%). He averaged 91 mph with his four seam fastball (topping at over 94 mph) and located it on both sides of the plate. I recall specifically, when McCarver mentioned that Kinsler was an inner half feasting type hitter. No sooner did those words fly out of his mouth was Bumgarner pounding him on the insider corner with a fastball for a strike. Bumgarner pitched fearlessly and was rewarded for it.

His best work came against Vladimir Guerrero. In the second, he struck him out with a 92.5 mph fastball perfectly placed on the insider corner, up at the hands. In the fourth with a runner on, he struck him out with an 82 mph changeup off the plate. Guerrero’s swing was extremely awkward. And in the seventh after a baffling error by Juan Uribe, he struck him out with an 82 mph slider that he, again, looked far from comfortable swinging at. It was almost as if after the first strikeout he kept waiting for that inside fastball again, and it just never came. His final line was impressive: 8 IP, 3 hits (all singles), 2 BB and 6 K’s.

In the ninth, closer Brian Wilson needed just 11 pitches while throwing 8 strikes to finish Texas off. He decisively handled the Rangers’ Josh Hamilton which was particularly impressive. He threw a 93 mph fastball for a called strike. Then he threw a devilish, biting slide piece at 84 mph that many believe must be some type of hellish curveball. Hamilton miraculously tipped it for a foul strike two. Finally, he threw a 96 mph fastball way up and out of the zone but Hamilton just couldn’t resist, swinging and missing and giving the Giants the 3-1 lead in the series. The Rangers got the chance to flash their shiny closer in game 3, and the Giants did in game 4. It had this Giants fan smiling and the Rangers hitters (and fans) fearing the beard.

Also of note, the Giants averaged 4.6 pitches per plate appearance. They averaged just 3.74 during the regular season, and no, that’s not good. Andres Torres went 3 of 5 with two doubles, including a huge one while batting right handed. This is a good sign because he’s been swinging a hot bat lately from both sides of the plate lately, and he’ll be facing left handed Cliff Lee tomorrow as the Giants attempt to clinch, and Torres gave him trouble last go ‘round in game 1. And their creaky shortstop, Edgar Renteria, had three hits too. This may well be his farewell performance and I can't think of a better way for a gem of a ballplayer to head out as the curtians close.

The Giants are up 3-1 going into a Game 5 in Texas with their ace on the hill and their adoring fans at their backs. They have 3 games, 1 in Texas and 2 in San Francisco if necessary, to make history and give Giants fans a long awaited parade down Market Street. I may only be 25, but I was around in 2002 and I’ve been around long enough to know these opportunities don’t arise very often – someone can try telling that to rookies Bumgarner and Posey when this is all over. The Giants are making just their fourth trip to the Fall Classic since coming west, and the thought that their on the doorstep of ending the heartbreak after all the torture this season is giving me the chills.

Pitch data from Brooks Baseball PitchFX.

Giants Crush Koufax's Equal - Lee - Take Game 1

The Paul Bunyan tales of Cliff Lee can now cease for at least the next few days as the lefty is bulletproof  in October no more (previously 7 and 0). The Yankees managed to take down the Phillies last year despite being beaten by Cliff Lee twice in the World Series, and now that the Giants vanquished the illustrious darling of the East Coast media, they won’t have to go that route. I posited in my 3 keys to the series that the Giants would put themselves in excellent position if they were able to defeat Lee even once. Check. They also passed the other two key tests of the series on this night with flying colors by keeping Hamilton at bay and the Rangers’ running game too.

*Speaking of those they’ve defeated, the Giants have now beaten Derek Lowe (2 x), Tim Hudson, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels, Ryan Madson and Cliff Lee in these playoffs. They also beat Halladay, Oswalt (3 x), and Hamels in the regular season, as well as Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Johnson, Clayton Kershaw, Matt Latos (2 x), R.A. Dickey and Adam Wainwright during the regular season. I’m just saying.

One thing that helped the Giants was the fact that the usually superb Lee was unusually wild. He wasn’t Jonathan Sanchez wild. But he walked a batter and so I guess he was wild for Cliff Lee. For one, he could not locate his curveball. Of the 104 pitches he threw, 11 were curves. That’s actually a couple more than he averages per start. That problem was, only 3 of 11 went for strikes. One was an excellent hammer that dispatched Burrell swinging in the second inning, but otherwise he was unable to locate the pitch. He also used the changeup sparingly– he only 5 threw of which 3 went for strikes – so perhaps he didn’t have a feel for it tonight. He threw his cutter more often than usual (30% of the time). That’s because it was about the only pitch he was able to consistently locate but the Giants hitters appeared ready for it, especially when it wasn’t located with the surgeon precision the world has become accustomed to after hearing McCarver and Buck drool over him for 4+ innings.

He threw 80% strikes in the fourth but labored while throwing 32 pitches and giving up two runs (1 earned as Michael Young did the Giants a huge favor by committing an error to start the inning). And that probably did a lot to undo him as he threw 29 more in the fifth while getting two-out-hit to death before ultimately being yanked for Darren O’Day – who is typically excellent against right handed hitters – who promptly gave up a mammoth three-run dinger to Juan Oooo-Ribe. When the ball landed in the bleachers, the crowd had reached a fever pitch that only 55 years of disappointment and a season of torture could create, and the Giants had opened up a six run advantage they would never relent. Lee’s strike percentage by inning was uncharacteristically low (62, 67, 66, 80, and 62). He got behind hitters more often than he usually does, and when he needed to make pitches he didn’t. He missed up and in with his fastball a few times when he was trying to plant it on the insider corner. And when he needed to come into the zone as he fell behind, he center-punched the zone a few times too many and the Giants punished him for it. And he left his curve up and away versus right handed hitters more than a couple of times, because as I said, he didn’t have a feel for the pitch, a pitch he often uses to freeze hitters for strike three.

Freddy Sanchez had an excellent evening. In his first at bat he swung at a perfectly placed down and away fastball, shattered his bat, and hustled into second with a double as it dumped just inside the foul line down the right field line. I guess that was a good sign for how the rest of his night would go. In the third, he doubled in a run down the left field line on a cutter that was down in the zone but caught too much of the middle of the plate. And in the fifth after the Giants did a wonderful job of wearing down Lee in the previous inning, Sanchez doubled in another – his third double, making him the first player in history to double in his first three World Series AB’s – this time on a fastball that Lee was trying to get in on Sanchez but got way too much plate and was up in the zone. Sanchez smoked it into the left-center gap for a clean, warning track two bagger. Freddy lined out hard to right field in his next AB against Alexi Ogando but he’d hit it on the screws again. For good measure, he finally scorched a slider that caught too much plate in his final at bat for another run scoring hit, this time a single with an advance on the error by Vladimir Guerrero, which brings us to our next topic.

The Rangers – Ron Washington, more specifically – went with Bad Vlad in right field. It turned out to be a really bad idea as he committed two errors and looked much like a wounded animal in the spacious AT&T outfield throughout the night. He let a “single” drop off the bat of Edgar Renteria – I say "single" with hesitance because an adept right fielder might have been able to actually snag the liner on a fly; this is something I saw more than once down the stretch with Jose Guillen manning right field – and to make matters worse, he let it fly right by him as he couldn’t reach down to retrieve it and Rent ended up on three for the other of his two errors. To say he didn’t look comfortable would be to say that that Donald Trump’s hair is comb-overish or that Keith Law is sometimes condescending. Something tells me Vlad won’t be in the lineup come Thursday.

The Giants managed to start the series off wonderfully despite the rocky start in the first two innings. Lincecum gave up 1 in the first and 1 in the second, though he wasn’t hit especially hard. He benefited from a nice double play by Juan Uribe to end the threat in the first with the bases juiced – that after he’d done something extremely boneheaded. He retrieved a weak groundball and had the runner between home and third dead to rights, but instead ran him back to the bag as if another Ranger would be there waiting and one would be tagged out. It was a clear case of Tim forgetting the situation. In the second, he gave a double to Lee – yes, the pitcher – on a butcher boy play before giving up a sacrifice fly to Elvis Andrus. The person that scored was the ever-speedy Bengie Molina – he received a nice and classy ovation from Giants fans during introductions – but his cause was helped on what could have been a close play if not for the truly atrocious throw from Torres, though Torres rewarded his manager for letting him start despite the relative ineffectiveness from his weak right side with a big double.

Lincecum left the game with two outs in the sixth having given up 8 hits, 4 runs and 2 walks while only striking out a very uncharacteristic and few 3. He didn’t look great early on but pitched well enough to win on this night. He did appear to be heading into a groove but it seems likely, though as grateful as he was for the 8 runs of support, that the two long offensive innings for the Giants in both the fourth and fifth extinguished what momentum he had. Perhaps having only thrown 93 pitches will be in his favor when he takes the mound again, should he need to of course.

The Rangers would never again be within four runs of the Giants. Both pens didn’t pitch particularly well but the Giants added on three more in the bottom of the eighth so it didn’t much matter. Wilson came in to get the final two outs in the ninth when neither Ramirez – who I am hoping Bochy sees for what he is by now – nor Affledt could close the door. Bochy wasn’t taking any risks and frankly I can’t blame him.

Tomorrow is Game 2 and it starts at the same time, i.e. 4:57. Matt Cain will oppose C.J. Wilson who I wrote a scouting report for yesterday. The Giants shouldn’t expect to get too much help from the Rangers tomorrow as far as errors – or errahs if you’re Dick Stockton – and should look to make their own breaks. Hopefully some other bats will join the fun and Freddy will stay hot as well as Huff who is really starting to swing the bat better. Furthermore, the Giants made a few snazzy plays tonight but also made a couple of mistakes – they’ll need to continue to do the former while limiting the latter. The Giants are just three wins from endearing themselves to The City forever, but they better play one game at a time. It all starts with pitching. Matt Cain, you’re up.