San Francisco Giants vs. New York Mets Match Review

SF Giants 7 - 2 NY Mets

The San Francisco Giants have once again started off their year in the traditional inconsistent winning pattern, and as a long time fan, we love to see it. Well, not really, but the wins are sure fun in the moment. This matches MVPs have to be: Daniel Susac going 3/3, a walk and succesfull challenge overturning a walk, Luis Arraez with an RBI, triple, single, and a run and finally, Casey Schmitt coming back after a bad game, with 3/3, a walk, and an RBI. Last night was one of my favorite simple strategic examples, score with runners on base. In past year's players would swing anywhere with players on base, not necessarily looking for a sacrifice fly. This game we saw the intentions behind the batting in the 0 outs, two runners on base, leading to two runs. It was amazing to see such a simple concept executed, that the Giants had failed to do in recent years, score with runners on base.

Daniel Susac's at bats did look quite good, great contact and power with the ball, not neccesairly swinging for the fences like Rafi Devers can, but focusing on line drives. Being his MLB debut, after his first couple hits, pitchers were not sure what to throw at him, he remained confident and had great awareness of his batters box, and did not swing leading to a 4-0 walk. Tony Vitello described him as weapon for this team, and only time will tell his consitency, but as a big fan of Buster Posey, one can hope we have a catcher with great defensive ability but with great offensive prowess.

I'm liking what I've been seeing from Luis Arraez so far, I didn't take the Yankees series to heart, it's the first few games in a new series but his game against the Padres on March 31st and today have been exceptional. He's seeing the ball fairly well, and making great contact to get on base. We have needed more steady and slightly above average batters for years now and it seems like this can be a piece of the puzzle.

It's great to see a player bounce back after a rough outing, and Schmitt did exactly that. He was part of a double play from Adames and Chapman, and while that may seem like a standard play for someone in first, overthinking on base is certainly a real problem. I'm glad the past game did not seem to effect him much, and he was able to have a great day out there.

Robbie Ray started off pitching today, and while he certainly has made a change to his pitching this year, adding a changeup to compliment his four seam and slider, his early pitching struggled. Ray walked three of the first at-bats consecutively. and often while having a batter in a favorable pitch count gave up a base hit. Hits and runs are a part of baseball, and as a pitcher, you want to limit that as much as you can, but they happen. It's a great sign after an early struggle, Ray was able to reel in his pitching leading to 4/6 scoreless innings. What's important for the Giants pitchers is consistency, and focusing on the next inning.

Not the best game from Willy Adames, while defensively he was part of the double play, fielded a couple balls, while striking out three times, and walking once. While it wasn't a good game from him, he did his job defensively, which from years past is something needed out of our infield. Not looking at this too closely, as players can have off days, and as we know with Adames his capable of having hot streaks during the season.

I can't forgot to mention Matt Chapman either, his performance last night was stellar on both sides of the ball. He finished with a single, double, RBI, run and a double play, he could always improve his batting average but when you can make that impact, hard to criticize him. Since arriving at the Giants he has been a big part of our organization.

My final remarks are giving Rafi Devers his flowers on that monstrous hit. 404 feet deep center, just clearing the fences. There are some players that should focus on getting on base with line drives, or getting sacrifice fly's when they can for an RBI, but with Rafi, we know it's got to go deep. Buster Posey made this signing for him to be our big hitter, and while the first half of his time with Giants last year wasn't great, he found his form, and currently is batting very well.

Overall, better from the Giants, they need to grow and have more consistency than years past, while avoiding losing streaks. However, I can see Vitello starting to figure out the team's batting order and the role players on the team.

Player Rankings

Pitching:

Robbie Ray: 9/10

Ryan Walker: 10/10

Blade Tidwell: 10/10

Offense:

Willy Adames: 4/10

Rafi Devers: 9/10

Heliot Ramos: 5/10

Luis Arraez: MVP 10/10

Matt Chapman 10/10

J. Hoo Lee: 8/10

Harrison Bader: 6/10

Daniel Susac: MVP 10/10

Casey Schmitt: MVP 10/10