- 8 months ago
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00:00Let's go to Gary in San Ramon.
00:02Hi, Gary.
00:02What are you doing?
00:05Hey, I'm just watching the replay of last night's game.
00:08Us, too.
00:09Anyway, yeah.
00:11You know, great move to get Devers.
00:15It comes with some associated good problems.
00:19Number one, though, I didn't like the batting order last night
00:21for a couple of reasons.
00:22I'd like to see Devers in the two-hole, push Adamas down.
00:27And I also was wondering why Casey Schmidt was batting ahead of Yaz last night.
00:32I mean, you could have had Yaz up in that bases loaded situation
00:35in the bottom of the ninth
00:37and with a much better chance to have a much better at-bat.
00:41So I just don't get that last night.
00:44Gary, can we dig in on this for a second?
00:46First of all, why do you want Devers batting second and move Adamas down?
00:53Because look around the league, Mark.
00:57You've got Ohtani leading off.
00:58You've got Schwarber leading off.
01:00You had Soto batting number two for the Yankees when he played there.
01:03So a lot of these teams put their best hitter, and you want to maximize their at-bats.
01:08So that's why I like the two-hole.
01:09No doubt.
01:10But what if I responded by saying that they would really love to get Willie Adamas going,
01:15and when you bat in front of your best hitter,
01:18in theory you're going to get really good pitches to hit?
01:20Well, that remains to be seen, you know.
01:24Yeah, for sure.
01:25He needs to hit because he's not a plus fielder.
01:28So, yeah, I hope it works out.
01:30But the other thing is, what was missing last night?
01:34It was missing Wilmer Flores.
01:36Now, he had one at-bat, and it was a good at-bat.
01:39But giving Casey Schmidt four at-bats and Wilmer one,
01:43that just doesn't compute for your leading RBI guy and your best clutch hitter.
01:47So they need to find a way to get Wilmer back in the lineup.
01:50Oh, we're working on it with Devers playing first.
01:52Yeah, and by the way, Gary, thank you for the call.
01:55Wilmer will – I mean, Bob Melvin already announced this.
01:57Wilmer will be the starting first baseman tonight.
01:59So he'll be back in the lineup.
02:00Dom Smith won't be.
02:02Facing the lefty tonight, right?
02:04Yeah, like I just – I wonder sometimes, you know, like when you make that comparison,
02:09you've got to get Schmidt out and Wilmer in.
02:11Well, sorry, are you saying that Wilmer should play third base?
02:14I know he used to do that earlier in his career.
02:18I don't know that I want to do that defensively.
02:21As far as, you know, dropping Schmidt lower in the order, you know, I understand the point.
02:27I also can see why it's like, well, you don't want to shove Schmidt down there
02:31with the catcher in Fitzgerald because now you're really lining up all the struggling people.
02:36Yep.
02:36Plus maybe you want a little right-lefty, right-lefty, right-lefty kind of action with Schmidt and Yaz.
02:41So, again, all I can usually do with a baseball manager is understand the thought process.
02:49And here's something that I thought of last night.
02:51Like, it ended up not being a clean game at all,
02:55and there were a bunch of we-could-second-guess Bob Melvin moments,
03:00you know, bunting a couple people over for Kisner.
03:03Right.
03:04Was that a good move?
03:05That was the one.
03:05I forgot to mention that earlier.
03:06Well, and it led to a situation where then later in the game when you'd love to bunt Fitz,
03:11you couldn't do it because Logan Porter was on deck and you couldn't pinch hit for him
03:15because that was your second catcher who was already in the game.
03:19You'd have loved Fitz to bunt the guys over and then put Flores in, but you couldn't do that.
03:24So you had to put Flores in for Fitzgerald,
03:27and now a huge double-play guy is batting with nobody out,
03:32runners at first and second.
03:33He ends up hitting a line shot.
03:34Casey makes the base-running mistake, and rally is over.
03:39And then, obviously, all the way down to do you send Jung-Hoo Lee.
03:43I think also not having Gerard Encarnacion hurt you as well.
03:47Probably.
03:48That's an extra bat you would have been able to use, right,
03:51in a spot where maybe you use him earlier knowing that he's probably not going to get in the field
03:55and you could double-switch it.
03:57They were all moves where I'm like, ooh, you could second-guess those,
04:01but I also am like, I get the thought process.
04:04I get what you were thinking when you did that, you know, Matt Williams.
04:08I get it.
04:09Jung-Hoo Lee, probably out.
04:12Probably out if you send him.
04:14The same way Casey Schmidt at the plate, probably out.
04:18I mean, honestly, if I'm looking at those two probably out scenarios,
04:23I'd rather have a guy with the bases loaded and have an at-bat
04:26as opposed to a tag-and-score on a medium-deep fly ball with a gold-glove outfielder
04:33who's already flashed a little bit of the arm.
04:35For me, I'd rather not take the bat out of Casey's hands,
04:39especially coming off a weekend where he did hit a grand slam and a diet grand slam.
04:43We'll call it a diet slam.
04:44I like that.
04:45It's still a slam.
04:46It's still a diet slam because it came off a position player-pitcher triple-P's.
04:51Yeah, in a game where you were down by like 11 runs.
04:53Whatever.
04:54I'm sure when it comes time for arbitration and negotiation,
04:58he's not going to give that one back.
04:59You know?
05:01Actually, guys, I only had one slam that year.
05:03Yeah.
05:04I want to give that one back.
05:05It's a tough call.
05:07For me, I would default to keep the bat in the guy's hands.
05:11I get it.
05:11I really do.
05:12I get it.
05:13I get it.
05:13I can also tell you that this isn't hindsight 2020.
05:18Jude will have my back.
05:20Ball was in the air.
05:21I'm screaming, send him!
05:23Send him!
05:24And then they didn't send him, and I went,
05:26dang it, they got to send him!
05:29Casey's going to strike out against Class A.
05:32And then Casey struck out against Class A.
05:35Yeah.
05:35So, anyway.
05:36The bigger thing was one for 13 with runners in scoring position.
05:40Of course that was the thing.
05:41I mean.
05:42Of course.
05:42Yeah, when you get 10 hits as a giant team, you should win the ball game.
05:46And, you know, you did enough.
05:49Defensively, you were a little shaky, but it didn't totally burn you.
05:52The Adamas error didn't hurt you.
05:54The Ramos overplay didn't cost you 90 feet.
05:57He probably would have doubled anyway.
05:58But just overall, a little loose and a little sloppy.
06:01Not a clean game.
06:02Right.
06:02I think Bob Melvin would have said it.
06:03By the way, speaking of Bob Melvin, and the question that Gary had with regard to moving Adamas down and maybe batting Devers second,
06:14Bob Melvin talked about the pitches that Adamas will see batting in front of Devers.
06:20It's one game, but Willie got some pretty good pitches to hit today.
06:24So, I think, you know, as I said, I was saying earlier in the day, you always know where he is.
06:28You always know when his spot's coming up.
06:30And you don't want to put guys on base ahead of him.
06:32You know, the one time they did, he hits well in the gap and scores a run.
06:36And so, I don't know, as a quick look, it crossed my mind, too, that Willie got some pretty good pitches to hit today.
06:42Okay.
06:43So, again, that's all I can really, it's like Jim Bowden talked about this yesterday.
06:48He almost made the manager sound like, like, don't even, you don't even need to think about that in baseball anymore.
06:54He's like, you have Bob Melvin.
06:56Bob Melvin's one manager of the year before.
06:58Bob Melvin knows what he's doing.
07:00This is either going to sink or swim based on what the players go do.
07:03And he's right.
07:04If I look at last night's game, there's plenty of second guessing I could do with Bo Melvin.
07:09But the actual plays that ruined the game, in many ways, were made by the players.
07:15Bob Melvin did not tell Casey Schmidt to go halfway to third base on a line drive to the left fielder.
07:20That's not Bob Melvin.
07:21No.
07:22That's the players.
07:23Yeah.
07:23So, I don't worry too much about Bo Melvin.
07:26Not every decision is going to work out, but I understand what he's doing when he does it.
07:30I'm going to try to do a deep dive tonight on the sacrifice bunt, because it feels like the Giants are bunting guys over at a higher rate than the Major League average.
07:42I obviously can't confirm nor deny, because I haven't done the research, but the idea that you're going to bunt a guy over for Kisner, who's hitting 0.95,
07:52that, for me, feels like a lower percentage play than having Casey Schmidt bat with the bases loaded.
08:00Okay.
08:01Time and place.
08:03Obviously, you're talking about a very, very different inning.
08:06That was much earlier.
08:07What inning was that, the Kisner thing?
08:10That was the fourth or the fifth.
08:12I'll find it.
08:12Yeah, I'd also point out that, like, when we do, oh, you know, he's hitting 0.95, I mean, we're talking about how many at-bats so far for Kisner.
08:25I mean, he's been to the plate 20 times.
08:27Yep.
08:27Essentially.
08:28And it was the fourth, and with nobody out, you'll go ahead and bunt Fitzgerald, so now you've got second and third for Kisner and then Jung-Hoo Lee.
08:38Yeah.
08:39And fly ball, Kis.
08:41Give me a fly ball, and we've got the lead.
08:42And he can do that.
08:44Oh, and he did.
08:45To the catcher.
08:47Well.
08:47Tough to tag up when you pop out to the catcher.
08:49Right.
08:49Yeah, you need to do it a little bit different.
08:51I get it.
08:52But by the same token, you know, I think much earlier in the game, at times, that can make sense.
08:59And then let's not, you know, let's not beat around the bush here.
09:03Some of these guys that we're calling out, like, all of these names, they're in there because someone else is hurt.
09:09And I know Patrick Bailey hadn't been hitting the ball either.
09:11But Casey Schmidt is in there because Matt Chapman is hurt.
09:15Yeah, and Kisner's in there because Bailey's hurt.
09:17Right.
09:17And now Bailey is not hurt anymore.
09:19Right.
09:20So you don't have to worry.
09:21You don't have Kisner to kick around anymore.
09:23Well, we got Bailey to kick around.
09:25Yeah.
09:25A guy who, you know, is hitting better than Kisner, but not by a lot with more plate appearances.
09:30Not by a lot.
09:31And I think that this answers the caller's question about the lineup.
09:34And you did it very astutely where if you put Schmidt down to seven, now you've got three basically automatic outs.
09:42I know Fitzgerald can hit a little bit every now and again.
09:45Nobody's struggling right now.
09:46There's no two ways about it.
09:47And Schmidt's not really struggling.
09:48But you put Yaz down at seven and you do have the righty-lefty stagger and it prevents that bottom three of the order from being just three automatic outs.
09:57But, yeah, if you even think about the way they did the lineup last night, remember, because Dom Smith was in there, you are going, let's see, lefty, Jung-Hoo Lee, righty, Willie Adamas.
10:07Lefty, Rafael Devers, righty, Elliot Ramos.
10:11Lefty, Dom Smith, righty, Casey Schmidt.
10:15Lefty, Mike Yastrzemski, righty, Tyler Fitzgerald.
10:18You get what they're doing.
10:20You get what they're doing.
10:20They are preventing, they're attempting to prevent a reliever from coming in with a three batter minimum and having an advantage on a stretch of the lineup.
10:30That's part of the thought process.
10:33Right.
10:33So, I get that.
10:34Again, does it always work?
10:36No.
10:36Do I get it?
10:37Yeah.
10:38I get it.
10:38Well, and Yaz had three hits, so he's in the seven hole and he had three hits, so that feels to me like a win for that maneuver.
10:45And, you know, Casey Schmidt, he had one hit and the big strikeout when you rather would have had somebody else at the plate, I'm sure.
10:52Bomo also said this just about Devers' first day in general.
10:55You have to realize that he's been in Boston his whole career and now all of a sudden he's here and we're all excited about it.
11:01You know, it's a completely different environment.
11:04It's a completely different team.
11:05He doesn't really know anybody on the team and shows up and already a fan favorite, you know, gets a couple good at bats, a couple hits, drives in a run for us.
11:14You know, there's a lot going on emotionally and we just assume that everything's great and, you know, it's hard to do what he did today.
11:22So that's what impressed me the most was just how comfortable he looked in a completely different place for the first time in his career.
11:30Yeah, I mean, you know, whether you want to look at it through that lens and give Rafi Devers a lot of credit for being in a new place,
11:37I think there's something to be said for it, even in a small sample, just because of, you know, what we're talking about with regard to Willie Adamas this year.
11:47Like, we've given Willie Adamas three months of, hey, relax, this is brand new and this is hard and he's pressing.
11:54And Devers came, Devers, second at bat, he's already like, oh, that's Triple's Alley.
11:59Now he only got a double out of it, but hey, there's Triple's Alley and he's already rocketing a couple of line drives to the outfield.
12:06Yeah, and he's a guy who you can just see is a really smart hitter and, you know, from all the reports I've heard and the people I've talked to,
12:14he really started to adapt his swing to Fenway where he was able to realize, oh, that big green thing is only about 310 away and I can just pepper it with line drives.
12:24And one year early in his career, I think he had 52 doubles and that's just a Fenway special where you're just slapping it off the monster.
12:31And now with this ballpark, you start to figure out not only where can I get it out of the park, but where do the hits live?
12:38And already in game one, he's like, that right center looks pretty spacious.
12:42Let me see if I can drive it out there.
12:43There was a stat I saw the other day, yesterday, and I got to go find it.
12:48Five to seven years or so, I think Devers might actually lead Major League Baseball in extra base hits.
12:54Over the last five years?
12:56Something like that.
12:57Five, seven years, whatever it is.
12:58I think he's right up there.
13:01He's right up there with Judge.
13:02He might even be number one because of what you're pointing out because all those monster doubles.
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