Still out of town, so I didn’t get to hear Mike Krukow say, “Just another ha, ha, hahaha … LAUGHER” after this one, but just imagining it is enough. I also got to watch bits and pieces of the bottom of the 9th on my hotel room’s shaky wifi. Well, I got to see the pitch that struck out Chris Denorfia for the first out of the inning, but that slider crystallized things quite nicely. Sergio Romo, the man with trick knees and a trickier frisbee as his out pitch, can close games after all.
Maybe “closer’s mentality” is baseball code for “can sometimes be a jerk.” Because Romo is the nicest guy I’ve come across on the San Francisco Giants, and there’s got to be some reason why one of the best relievers in baseball over the last couple of years, both statistically and anecdotally, has been pigeonholed as an 8th inning guy who can only face right-handers. Just like some have wondered with the James Harden of the Oklahoma City Thunder is used as a sixth man in order to keep his salary down, maybe the Giants are trying to suppress Romo’s future earning potential by keeping him out of the 9th inning. Or, it could be this:
But I digress. The Giants kept from letting one tough loss at Petco turn into two tough losses in a row at AT&T Park South, thanks to Romo, a Brooks Conrad-like play at second base by Logan Forsythe, and the first home run in 289 at-bats for a San Francisco Giant.
With Gregor Blanco’s success almost mirroring what Andres Torres did as he rose through the Giants’ outfield ranks, maybe Brian Sabean has a new template. Find a speedy outfielder who gets on base quite a bit but can’t hold a Major League job. Presto, leadoff hitter deluxe!
Madison Bumgarner didn’t have his best game, allowing two runs in the bottom of the first after the Giants scored three in the top of that inning. He also walked four Padres after only giving up three free passes over his previous four games. Since, as I mentioned earlier, I didn’t get to see much of this game for myself, I asked Twitter whether Bumgarner was having an off day control-wise or if home plate umpire CB Bucknor’s eyes were deceiving him. From the responses I got, it was a bit of both (with several fans ripping Bucknor, which was to be expected).
Regardless, the Giants won in the same fashion that they lost several games earlier this season, and those wishing the Giants would give Romo a shot to be the regular closer received some more ammunition. Oh, and both Melky Cabrera and Brett Pill had 2-hit days, which definitely counts as an opposite ends of the spectrum sort of thing.
