April 14- Top Five Moments in San Francisco Giants History

Yesterday

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 moments on April 14 in San Francisco Giants history.

1970 at Atlanta, a wild one, the Braves scored 8 in the second - here, it's the 9th, 11-11 after a McCovey homer tied in the game an inning earlier, bases loaded, Ken Henderson hits a grand slam off of Milt Pappas for the final margin of a 15-11 win.  A 4-4 day for Henderson in his best offensive season as a Giant, with a 130 OPS+

Walk off: 1971 home vs Astros, 1-1, two out in the 11th, Tito Fuentes singles off George Culver to score Frank Johnson with the winning run.  In 13 seasons Fuentes only broke 100 OPS+ once, this was not that year.  In 672 plate appearances he only walked 18 times.

1978 at Padres, 9th inning, down 2-1, Jack Clark doubles off Rollie Fingers, scoring Skip James - the Giants go on to win 3-2.  This was the 22 year old Clark's breakout year, he slugged .537 with an OPS+ of 152 and finished 5th in the NL MVP Award.

1997 at Mets, 8th inning, down 2-1, Jeff Kent hits a 2 run homer off Greg McMichael to give us the final margin of a 3-2 win.  This was Kent's third home run as a Giant.  He'd hit 172 more.

2013 at Cubs, 9th inning, down 7-6, Hunter Pence ties the game with a 2 out, 2 strike homer off Shawn Camp.  We go onto win it 10-7.  This is Pence's first full season as a Giant and remains his best with the bat, he had a 133 OPS+.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!

It's a Golden Age - 2017 NBA Playoff Predictions

I'm a lifelong Golden St Warriors fan, as you might know - a Todd Fuller, Joe Barry Carroll, hey, we got Ralph Sampson Golden St Warriors fan.  This is easily the greatest stretch of Warriors basketball - by significant magnitudes the two greatest teams in Golden St history were the last two years and then we get to the 2017 team...

...

...

And it's better.

By Simple Rating System, this Warriors team (11.35) ranks as the best GSW team yet and the 4th best in NBA history ('71 Bucks, '96 Bulls, '72 Lakers) it would be a significant upset for them not to win the NBA Title.

Now, that was also true the last two years, at least by the time the Warriors got to the NBA Finals, where they faced a clearly inferior Cavs team.  So, were you looking for a precedent, where a team this good lost to a team that was not of this caliber, there's one available.  But it's the only one - in NBA history every team with an SRS over 10 either won the title or lost to another team with an SRS over 10 in the playoffs.  Until last year.

So - could happen again.  But don't bet that way.

West
Rnd One: Warriors over Blazers
                 Spurs over Grizzlies
                 Rockets over Thunder
                 Jazz over Clips

Semis:     Warriors over Jazz
                Spurs over Rockets

Western Finals   Warriors over Spurs

East
Rnd One:  Celtics over Bulls
                 Cavs over Pacers
                 Raptors over Bucks
                 Wizards over Hawks

Semis:      Celtics over Wizards
                 Raptors over Cavs

Eastern  Finals   Raptors over Celtics

NBA Finals Warriors over Raptors

April 13- Top Five Moments in San Francisco Giants History

Yesterday

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 moments on April 13 San Francisco Giants history.

Walk off: 1988 home vs. Reds, 4-4, bottom 11, 2 out, Will Clark beats Pat Perry with a homer to right center and the good guys send everyone home happy 5-4.   Will led MLB in walks and RBI in '88 and finished 5th in the NL MVP Award race for the second consecutive year.  Will Clark made $320,000 in 1988.

1993 home vs Marlins, up 3-1 in the 9th, bases loaded, Rod Beck gets Benito Santiago (who hit the first homer in Marlins history the day before) to go 5-4-3 to end the game.  A decade later Beck faced Santiago again, Santiago was a Giant, Beck a Padre - Beck struck him out.

Walk off 1996 home vs Cubs, 2-2 in the 10th, 2 outs, 2 strikes, Shawon Dunston beats his old team, pinch singling off Rodney Myers to score Matt Williams.  We win 3-2.  Dunston had spent a decade as a Cub, this was his 4th RBI as a non-Cub and it walks off his former team.

Walk off 2003 home vs. Dodgers, okay, you know how the Giants were crushed at the end of 2002? It's the following year and we're about to go 11-1.  4-4 in the 12th, Marvin Benard hits a 2 out double off Andy Ashby to score Grissom and beat LA 5-4.  Benard was a Pureblood Giant, playing his entire big league career with San Francisco.  This is his last season, he only has 3 RBI left in his career.

Walk off: 2014 home vs. Rockies, 4-4, Brandon Crawford leads off the 10th inning by homering off Rex Brothers to give us a 5-4 win.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!

April 12- Top Five Moments in San Francisco Giants History

Yesterday.

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 moments on April 12 in San Francisco Giants history.

1959 at Cardinals, 9th inning, 3-3, two out, Orlando Cepeda triples off Vinegar Bend Mizell, Jimmy Davenport scores all the way from first and we go on to win 6-3.  Cepeda didn't have a sub 100 OPS+ until he was 37 years old and finishing up his career as a Royal.

1981: home vs Padres, down 6-5 in the 9th, Darrell Evans hits a game tying homer off Gary Lucas. Darrell Evans was terrific, underrated by the standards of his time, he should be considered a borderline Hall of Famer.  121 OPS+ here in '81, We didn't do a lot right in the mid/late 70s but getting him for Willie Montanez in '76 was good stuff.

Walk off: 1981 home vs. Padres, fast forward 5 innings, it's still 6-6, Gary Lucas is still in the game and he gives up the walk off single to Mike Ivie, scoring Larry Herndon with the winning run. Ivie gets traded 8 days later to Houston for Dave Bergman and....Jeff Leonard.

Walk off 1993 home vs. Marlins, 3-3, bottom of the 11th, Darren Lewis singled home Mike Benjamin off of Joe Klink to get one for the faithful.  D-Lew was not a good bat, career OPS+ of 73, it was 71 in '93, and the Giants loved to just keep giving him at bat after at bat.

Walk off 1998 home vs. Cards Bill Mueller draws a two out bases loaded walk in the bottom of the 9th to win the game 2-1.  A literal walk off.  Mueller would fit right in with the high contact Giants of the 2010s, the Belts/Paniks/Duffys - his OBP in '98 was .383.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!

April 11- Top Five Moments in San Francisco Giants History

Yesterday

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 moments on April 11 in San Francisco Giants history.

Walk off: 1973  home vs Astros, down 4-3 in the 9th, Willie McCovey hit a 2 run homer off Mike Cosgrove to send everybody home.  A 35 year old McCovey was great in '73, OPS+ of 162 in nearly 500 plate appearances.  So of course we moved him to San Diego after the season.

1976 home vs. Dodgers, 8th inning, 4-4, 2 on, 2 out, Dave Rader pinch doubles home Speier and Reitz off Mike Marshall and the 6-4 score holds up.  Why'd Dave Rader retire when he was 31?  He had his best career year with the bat in 1980 with the Red Sox, his 130 OPS+ was 44 points above his career average - and then he never caught another inning.

1989 home vs Dodgers, down 2-1 in the fifth, Will Clark hit a 3 run homer off Tim Leary to put us up 4-2 in a game we'd win 8-3.  This was Clark's best season with the bat, a 175 OPS+ on his way to a 2nd place MVP vote.

1999 home vs Padres, 6-6, 8th inning, bases loaded, Jeff Kent scores two with a single off of Donne Wall (after an intentional walk to Bonds) to give us the final 8-6 margin of victory.  In a 17 year career Kent's low OPS+ was 89 in 1996; a year later he was a Giant for whom his 6 year average OPS+ was 136.




2014 home vs Rockies, 4th inning, down 3-2 with 2 outs - Madison Bumgarner hits a grand slam off Jorge de la Rosa. We win 6-5.  This was Bumgarner's third career homer.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!