Tag: Andrew McCutchen

Rollercoaster ride: Giants start fast, then hang on in 10-7 homecoming win over the Reds

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By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–The Giants returned home from a rough road trip on Monday, and appeared to have their handpicked, get-well opponent in place: the NL bottom-dwelling Cincinnati Reds.

Except the Reds–after falling 19 games under .500 in the season’s first 35 games and firing manager Bryan Price–suddenly turned hot over the weekend, sweeping a four-game set at Dodgers Stadium.

So what to expect Monday night? A ragged ballgame were neither team looked like the ’98 Yankees, especially the Giants who burst out to a 9-4, sixth inning lead only to hold on for a 10-7 win that got dicey in the ninth.

“They’ve been playing very well, they’ve been scoring runs,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We had a lot of timely hitting going on. It was good to start a homestand like this.”

After interrupting a six-game slide on Sunday with a 5-0, getaway win in Pittsburgh, the Giants were looking to maintain their self-esteem on Monday. They did that with 14 hits, seven of them doubles, and 12 of those 14 coming from the first six guys in the lineup. After Brandon Belt homered in the eighth, the Giants were three outs away from a tidy, 10-4 win.

But the ninth got hairy as reliever Jose Valdez, in just his second appearance as a Giant, allowed a three-run homer to Adam Duvall. Valdez did recover however, striking out Scooter Gennett to end the ballgame.

Chris Stratton picked up the win, going five innings, allowing nine hits and four runs. That was just enough for Stratton to pick up his fourth win and comfortably keep his rising ERA under 5.00. Stratton allowed home runs to Tucker Barnhart and Scott Schebler.

The Giants evened their record at 21-21 with the win, surprisingly enough to keep the club within 3 1/2 games of division-leading Arizona, who lost their sixth straight on Monday. If Monday’s snapshot of the league standings is any indicator, 2018 is no 2017. This time last year, the Giants’ awful start had them dead and buried as the Dodgers, D-Backs and Rockies surged on their way to playoff appearances. This season, a .500 record has them within reach of the entire National League, where 10 of the 15 clubs have winning records, but none are better than the Braves at a modest 25-16. The Giants swept the Braves in Atlanta last week.

Andrew McCutchen picked up the 1,500th hit of his 10-year, big league career in the Giants’ three-run, first inning. McCutchen finished with a pair of doubles and scored twice.

A guy with more than 1,600 career hits, Joey Votto of the Reds, had an interesting, if not brief evening. Votto was at the plate in the first inning when a 3.5 earthquake registered in the East Bay, and probably caused more of a stir within the stadium on people’s cell phones than in their senses. Votto would ground out in that at-bat. His second at-bat ended his evening, a base hit with enough personality that it took a right turn on outfielder Gregor Blanco for an additional base error. But Votto eased up turning around first and was removed with lower-back tightness, which he said cropped up in warmups.

“I was feeling pretty good and then that earthquake hit and all of a sudden everything got thrown off right around 7:18 p.m. in the middle of my first at-bat,” the not-normally humorous Votto said afterwards.

The Giants have Ty Blach starting Tuesday, in a Ty-Ty affair. Tyler Mahle starts for the Reds, a 23-year old who holds the distinction of being the active-leader in strikeouts among all players aged 23 or younger with 58 in the 64 plus innings of his career, accumulated this season and last. That’s no trivial matter for the Giants; they’ve struck out 92 times in their last eight games, including six on Monday. In fact, the Giants have suffered 10 strikeouts or more in 14 of their 42 games this far.

Hanging in there: Giants blow ninth inning lead, but win in the bottom half, 4-3

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By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–Close games mean rare opportunities, and Andrew McCutchen knows that’s the time to ramp it up.  When Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt took reliever Hunter Strickland out of the park in the top of the ninth Tuesday night to tie the game, McCutchen got his cue.

In the bottom of the ninth, Kelby Tomlinson drew a walk. A sacrifice moved Tomlinson up a base, then Austin Jackson was intentionally walked, and reliever Jorge De La Rosa, in his worst moment, missed with a pair of splits to Brandon Belt, then walked the bases loaded on four pitches. In the Giants’ dugout, McCutchen took it all in, his competitive juices starting to flow.

“I was just sitting there, like, ‘This is about to happen again,” McCutchen recalled.

Yeah, but only because McCutchen–who had six hits and the game-ending home run against the Dodgers on Saturday–was about to make it happen.

On the first pitch fastball from De La Rosa, McCutchen singled and the Giants were 4-3 winners.

“We get a guy like Andrew McCutchen. I said he’s going to impact our club,” Bruce Bochy said. “And he’s shown that. In that position, you couldn’t ask for a better guy to be up there.”

The Giants evened their record with the 4-3 win, a sure sign that through the first 10 games of the season, the team is embracing the need to survive a tough early schedule, win just enough against the most prominent teams on their schedule, and hopefully thrive after that. In the team’s clubhouse, you can almost see the scratch and claw marks on the walls.

“We’re all about just scoring runs,” McCutchen said. “We’re a team that can do it. It’s been a little odd that we haven’t been doing that right now, but today was a good game.”

The Giants are the lowest scoring team in the National League, having scored just 30 runs in their first 10 games.  Heck, the first four games for the Giants were the worst for run scoring any MLB team has experienced in 30 years.  They scored just twice. But after a pair of 1-0 wins against the Dodgers, one blowout win over the Mariners, and a couple of games won by McCutchen on the final at-bat, the Giants have five wins to show for all their frustration.

That’s called surviving.

Tyler Beede made his major league debut on Tuesday, starting in place of Johnny Cueto, who has developed some lower body issues that have forced the cautious Giants to scratch him temporarily.  Beede, the former first round pick from Vanderbilt, made 76 starts in the minors, and would have arrived in San Francisco last season were it not for an unfortunately timed injury.

Not surprisingly after such a lengthy build up to his inevitable rise to the majors, nerves played into his debut as his pitch count skyrocketed, and his control deserted him.  But after allowing two, first inning runs, Beede settled enough to get the Giants through four innings down just 2-0.

“I was obviously working in and out of situations for the next three innings, but just limiting damage,” Beede said.  When guys get on its just kind of bearing down and making a quality pitch, getting a ground ball or getting a strikeout.  It’s easier said than done, but going out there and pitching against these guys shows that my stuff can play at this level.  So its just a matter of making those adjustments I need to make, and obviously, commanding the ball a little bit better.”

The Giants conclude this homestand and series with the Diamondbacks today at 12:45PM  at AT&T Park.