A completely-biased, totally-outrageous, completely-irrational and sometimes unbelievably-unhinged view of San Francisco Giants Baseball.

June 7, 2016

1,059 words of disgust; more than one is 'Casilla'

Boston rolled into AT&T Park on Tuesday leading the Majors in every offensive category except back hair. The Giants countered with a patchwork line-up and a pitcher making his second career start. In the immortal words of Alfred E. Newman, “What. Me worry?”

Yeah, worry.

An unlikely hero denied his due. (AP Photo)
Still, it looked for much of the night like an unlikely hero might be crowned – at least until the bullpen got involved. Gee, that sounds familiar.

Albert Suarez gave San Francisco 6 1/3 innings of five-hit ball and exited to a well-deserved ovation. A one-out walk to Jackie Bradley Jr. ended his night after 84 pitches (1K, 1BB) as Manager Bruce Bochy took no chances with his young hurler. You can’t argue with the move (well you could but why?), but Suarez deserved a better result.

Boston broke on top, showing some muscle with back-to-back doubles in the second that had Chris Young driving home Bradley for a 1-0 lead. Young had already made his impact felt, serving notice he planned to catch everything between McCovey Cove and Momo’s with some stellar glove work in the first. The RBI double, which hit the bag at third, was one of those annoying extras we could have done without, kinda like the director’s commentary on “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip.”

An inning later the BoSox were back in doubles mode. Mookie Betts doubled to left, moved up on a ground out, and scored when Xander Bogaerts (we are not making these names up) beat out a grounder to short with a head-first dive.

The Giants’ response was small yet loud. Jarrett Parker, he who is not Hunter Pence, sent a shot off the awning atop the Willie Mays Wall to get the Giants on the board in the home half of the third. The bigger sound came an inning later.

Jackie Bradley Jr. opens the scoring (Getty Images))
Joe Panik dumped a leadoff single into center, Matt Duffy lined a base hit to left, and Brandon Belt added a single to right to load the bases. Brandon Crawford worked Boston starter Rick Porcello for an RBI freebie to tie things up. Porcello got Gregor Blanco to ground into a 4-6-3 twin killing, but Duffy came home on the play to hand the G-Men a 3-2 lead

It stayed that way until both starters were gone, at which point that lead evaporated. With George Kontos on for Suarez, Bradley stole second and kept right on going when Trevor Brown (in for Posey) sailed his throw into center field. Kontos walked Young to put runners at the corners, and Boston called on the farewell-touring Big Papi.

David Ortiz, waiting for a pinch-hitting opportunity with no DH in effect, collected the game-tying RBI off Javy Lopez but honestly shouldn’t have. His grounder to Crawford screamed double play and Crawford did everything to make it so except tag Young, who dropped through a trap door between first and second. The throw to first was in plenty of time to get Ortiz, who runs like a DMV employee from “Zootopia”, but the whiff allowed Bradley to score and knot the game 3-3. The Giants did record an out so no error was charged, but it hurt all the same.

The Red Sox made some noise in the eighth against Hunter Strickland, and so did plate umpire Mike Everitt, who took a wild pitch flush on the right thigh when Strickland missed Brown’s target by a zip code. Both survived.

Santiago Casilla pitched a quiet ninth (spell check locked up on that one) but the San Francisco offense was similarly inert and Bochy tempted fate by sending Casilla out for a second go-round in extras. Sandy Leon led-off the tenth with a double and Gas Can walked pinch hitter Marco Hernandez, who was TRYING FLIPPIN’ SACRIFICE, on four pitches. Betts laid down a perfect bunt that Duffy had to eat. Bases filled, no outs.

Duffy came home for a force out on Dustin Pedroia’s tapper, but Bogaerts looped a two-run single to center and Casilla had done it again. Bochy lifted him afterward but the damage was done. Josh Osich inherited runners at first and second – make that second and third on a double steal because Osich was too busy counting seagulls to notice. He whiffed worked out of the jam but it didn’t alleviate the honked-off fan factor one iota.

Santiago Casilla coughs up another one.
Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel gave up a lead-off single to Parker, giving rise to the possibility Posey might be used as the potential tying run at the plate, but he never twitched as a grounder and two fly balls ended it.

The Giants continue to be in total denial in regard to Casilla, who allowed two runs on three hits and a walk in just an inning and a third. He blew six saves last year and already has four failures this season, and that doesn’t count games like tonight where he entered with the score tied. He got two of the five Giants strikeouts, big deal. He still coughed it up like a calico with a fur ball. The vet needs to put this one down out of mercy.

The Giants were outhit 9-7 with two safeties each from Parker and Span leading the way. Only three of those hits, two of them singles by Span, came after the fourth-inning uprising.

While the Casilla and the Giants played give-away, second place Los Angeles made hay of the traditional June swoon to pull within three games of the front-running G-men by topping Colorado 4-3. San Francisco will attempt to perform the needed navel plexiotomy on Wednesday as the BoxSox return for Round Two and a battle of aces: Madison Bumgarner (7-2, 1.91 ERA) meets up with David Price (7-2, 4.88).

Hopefully Casilla misses the Muni.


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