Tagged: Ian Kennedy

GIFPost: Tuesday Night Fights in LA

Just your average Tuesday night in LA between NL West rivals, and I guess you could say this all started when Ian Kennedy had a pitch hit Yasiel Puig in the nose. Zack Greinke would later hit Miguel Montero in the back and the benches would empty to nothing more than some words and some slowing down of the game. Then Ian Kennedy decided it was his turn to take matters into his own hands by throwing back at Greinke, whom would not start in the 8th inning… a curious move by Don Mattingly, to say the least.

You’ll see Miguel Montero below not really doing any loud shouting with Greinke, which shifts the focus more to Ian Kennedy.

Speaking of Kennedy, he’s just gonna casually walk outta here

Look for #31 and how he just kinda disappears while the Dodgers look for his head

Puig had some words

Ronald Belisario would get his swings in

Diamondbacks coach Turner Ward got some action with the banister of the camera well near the visitors dugout

And a close up for the coach

Mark McGwire also got steaming ma and Matt Williams had to receive the brunt of his words of rage

Something about road apples

Poor Matt Williams, just listening to McGwire vent

Here’s Williams getting Don Mattingly out of there.

Kirk Gibson would be ejected since there were warnings issued, and Joe Paterson would hit Mark Ellis later in the game, although nothing in terms of brawls or ejections happened. The lesson to be had here is Ian Kennedy could have really hurt Zack Greinke, and if Greinke’s aim isn’t slick, he could have hurt Miguel Montero. This is not something that is good in baseball. It will grab the headlines, generate site hits, but happy will I be when the day comes that I don’t blog about this anymore.

Lineups Posted: Grinding #DBacks look to out-will slumping #SFGiants

The Diamondbacks are tied with the Rockies for first place, while the Giants have had trouble finding the win column of late, losing five in a row and eight of their last twelve. Opening Day starters Matt Cain and Ian Kennedy will square off as the Giants hope they can beat the intangibles out of the Snakes and take some quick revenge for losing their last series at home to them. In case you’ve been lucky enough to miss this stretch of losing, it has been a combination of the pitching, defense, and getting the hits with RISP for the Giants. Normally, most fans would be less irritable if it were just one or two of those, but to have all three of those facets of the game plaguing the Giants right now is bringing about some panicked breathing around the internet tubes.

The lineup for the visiting Gigantes:

So today isn’t Marco Scutaro‘s day off and Brandon Belt is batting 8th. Also, a note on Sandy Rosario and Jose Mijares:

and for the home team Diamondbacks:

Remember, Didi Gregorius was put on the 7-day DL for a concussion yesterday retroactive to Saturday so he’ll miss this series.

Cain and Kennedy will both get to embark on their sixth start of the year, and the month, so I’m going to put up their game logs for April. Starting with Cainer:

Date Opp Rslt DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA BF Pit Str
Apr 1 @ LAD L,0-4 99 6.0 4 0 0 1 8 0 1 0.00 23 93 55
Apr 7 STL L,3-14 5 3.2 7 9 9 2 2 0 0 8.38 20 66 39
Apr 12 @ CHC L,3-4 4 7.0 7 2 2 2 6 2 0 5.94 30 113 72
Apr 18 @ MIL L,2-7 5 6.0 7 7 7 0 4 3 1 7.15 26 98 67
Apr 23 ARI L,4-6 4 6.0 5 4 3 1 6 1 0 6.59 25 90 60
28.2 30 22 21 6 26 6 2 6.59 124
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/29/2013.

I’m not sure I like where this pattern is going, especially if last start was supposed to be his “good” start, and this is another start where he’s had five days of rest. Hopefully, Cain has worked out whatever kinks there were in his delivery. Having even three of his pitches show up and be excellent would be an improvement over the starts of his I’ve been able to see (can you tell I missed Opening Day?). At least Matt Cain hasn’t been walking everybody, while still getting his share of K’s.

For IPK it looks like this:

Date Opp Rslt DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA BF Pit Str
Apr 1 STL W,6-2 99 7.0 5 2 2 1 8 0 0 2.57 25 94 67
Apr 7 @ MIL W,8-7 5 6.0 7 4 4 1 4 1 2 4.15 26 90 62
Apr 13 LAD L,5-7 5 5.2 10 6 6 4 4 1 0 5.79 30 108 68
Apr 19 @ COL L,1-3 5 6.0 3 3 3 3 6 1 0 5.47 24 106 66
Apr 24 @ SFG W,3-2 4 6.0 4 1 1 2 4 0 1 4.70 25 106 72
30.2 29 16 16 11 26 3 3 4.70 130
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/29/2013.

“So you’re saying there’s a chance,” is what I can hear from you. While Cain has allowed double the HR that Kennedy has, clearly, outside of his last start, he hasn’t been as sharp as he can be, although he seemed to be fine against the Giants. Funny how that goes when you’re in the midst of a losing streak. I’m sure the career numbers of Kennedy versus the Giants have been and will be widely discussed as the game goes on.

Tonight’s game will be at 6:40PM PST, and my weather app says it will be somewhere around 97-99 degrees at gametime in Phoenix. It’s not even May yet!

Series Preview: #DBacks (66-69) vs. #SFGiants (76-58)

Justin Upton and the Diamondbacks have found winning to be out of reach recently and hope to change that as they slither into AT&T

Since August 14th, the Diamondbacks have had trouble reversing trends right away, as they’ve been winning/losing in consecutive games. The results: lose 2, win 4, lose 2, win 2 (more impressively it was a double-header), lose 6, win 2, lose 2. That’s an 8-12 stretch, so it’s understandable that they’ve lost ground against the Giants, who’ve gone 13-5 over that same set of dates. Interesting that on August 14th, we go back to the days of the Giants being tied for 1st place in the NL West with the Dodgers. Even though the Diamondbacks are 10.5 back, they still have 9 games left against the Giants, and while it’s extremely unlikely the DBacks make up 9 games, they can still play spoiler. The Giants return from a roadtrip that featured some NL Central cupcakes and now the San Francisco Orange & Black begin the final stretch of the season against only NL West opponents.

Monday, September 3rd: LHP Patrick Corbin vs. LHP Barry Zito

One sentence summary: The Giants’ fourth consecutive day game features Corbin, who’s given up 5 HR in his last 3 starts, and Zito, who had his shortest outing of the season against Houston, possibly playing through some upper back pain.

Tuesday, September 4th: RHP Ian Kennedy vs. RHP Ryan Vogelsong

One sentence summary: August wasn’t the friendliest of months to either of these two starters as Kennedy saw his second worst ERA month of the season (4.54), while Vogelsong had by far his worst month of the year (6.32), as both look to change things up with the coming of September.

Wednesday, September 5th: RHP Trevor Cahill vs. LHP Madison Bumgarner

One sentence summary: Cahill also had a heightened ERA in August (5.08) but wasn’t necessarily getting dominated like Vogelsong was; meanwhile, after Madison had his worst outing of the year since the first series of the year, he faces the team that gave him that first bad outing in the Diamondbacks.

And Now, the Bats

Hard to imagine that guys like Paul Goldscmidt ever go cold, but he’s not his normal self in the past week (.223 wOBA, .368 wOBA overall — best on the team), and said unhotness also applies to names like Justin Upton (.268 wOBA L7, .327 wOBA overall), Chris Young (.232, .321), and Jason Kubel (.263, .356), despite 3 HR between Upton and Kubel in the past week, including a couple bombs against the Dodgers. Mostly-utility-infielder John McDonald (.450, .297) has been the biggest contributor recently although in only 15 PA, with Miguel Montero being the biggest regular contributor of late (.321, .362). The Diamondbacks have a total of eight guys with double-digit dingerz on their squad, led by Jason Kubel (27), and Aaron Hill (20). Three guys have 13 SB on their squad led by Lincecum-killer Paul Goldschmidt, Justin Upton, and Gerardo Parra.

The Cubs series wasn’t the sweep many fans had hoped it would be, but some guys added on to what they’d be doing in Houston. Guys like Angel Pagan (.457 wOBA L7, .340 wOBA overall), and Hunter Pence (.405, .326). Gregor Blanco (.143, .308) may see his playing time reduced as Bochy rides the X-line straight to Veteranville, and Brandon Crawford (.162, .272) may be in the midst of regressing, but I imagine he starts taking the field back over Arias since Joaquin can’t keep his August pace up forever. On a team starved for the big flies, Buster is one HR away from 20 (as is Hunter), and we’re still waiting for round-trippers from Panda and Belt. Pagan (23) and Blanco (20) both have a high number of SB, and I’m sure it’ll be watched to see if either of these rabbits can rack up 30 for the year.

Series Prediction

Get familiar with these boys, because you’re going to see a lot of them in September, and you just hope you’re playing them at the right streaky time.

Monday: Giants win (Giants ride homer — like an actual home run — to victory)

Tuesday: DBacks win (Ian Kennedy out-pitched Kershaw, will out-pitch Vogelsong)

Wednesday: Giants win (Madison takes his revenge out on Arizona)

Thursday is a day off before the Giants and Dodgers get going for their second to last series of the year, and the last one at AT&T.

Today’s Debate: Rooting Order of Playoff Teams (different than @Baycityball)

BWBP

A different team will be crowned in 2011. We'll live with it.

Discussion and disagreement are part of sports life, and after reading a post from @BayCityBall (http://www.baycityball.com/2011/10/02/my-postseason-rooting-order/) I thought this would be a good post for today. The idea is of course, there are eight teams in the postseason and if we had to rank who you would root for, what would that order be? Everyone’s list will be different and who can blame them? There’s some attractive talent (both on the field and in the dugout) for us to be amazed and stupefied at.

1. Tampa Bay Rays – expansion team, lost to the Phillies in 2008, came from a huge deficit to defeat one of the more despised franchises in baseball. They have lovable characters like Evan Longoria, One-A-Day 50+ sponsor Joe Maddon, Madison Bumgarner pitch-a-like Matt Moore (alike in that the Rangers couldn’t touch either of them). Shoot, their version of Eli Whiteside even hit two HRs against CJ Wilson. Awesome

Rays Coach

They weren't supposed to be in the playoffs. Thanks to multivitamins, here they are.

2. Texas Rangers – When the Giants and the Rangers met up last year in 2010, you had a ratings nightmare: no Yankees? no Red Sox? no Phillies? We’ll just have Joe Buck and Tim McCarver do this one. Nobody’s watching, anyway. You also had two franchises starved for a World Series trophy. The Giants got their portion in 2010, but the Rangers were left hanging and from what I heard, the Rangers were very classy in defeat. Their exciting players are mostly hold bats and hit HRs for a living, their staff has the experience of winning so the jitters should be mostly out of the way.

Texas GM

Tempting to tab him as the Game 4 starter, right?

3. Detroit Tigers – The playoff team I probably know the least about. I guess they’re like the Tampa Bay Rays or a Texas Rangers-lite on offense and some other team with their pitching. Justin Verlander? Hot. Jose Valverde? He should make a dance instruction DVD. As for everyone else? Whatever, just beat the Yankees.

The other JV

Two JVs on one team? No wonder they're so good.

4.  St. Louis Cardinals – Just beat the Phillies, Tony La Russa. Use your craftiness when you get back home to even the series at 2 or something. Sprinklers, stadium lights, rain dance, Buffalo Wild Wings commercials, whatever. I laugh a little that Rafael Furcal is on this team.

Cards Coach

We're losing by 1 late in the game. Time for some "Tony Magic!"

5. Arizona Diamondbacks – They’re not far down on the list because I despise their team; really, I’m OK with them. Justin Upton, Chris Young, Aaron Hill, Kirk Gibson. I think he’s done a great job with the team and GM Kevin Towers a wonderful job rebuilding the bullpen. I don’t want them winning the World Series because I don’t know why, but I don’t. I may have this fear that winning the WS would convince idiots to vote Ian Kennedy for Cy Young even though it’s just a regular season award. Edit: Forgot that ballots are submitted before the post-season. Therefore, Kennedy performance in post-season will not change likelihood of getting Cy. Their twitter account is annoying as babies on a plane, by the way.

AZ Mgr

He's been straight up golden for the DBacks. Except in Game 1.

6. Milwaukee Brewers – I am very not fond of a certain player on their team that claims to have an alter-ego that rhymes with “Phony-Flush.” I do not want to see him happy. Does that make me a bad person? Probably, but no one’s perfect. I’m not too fond of Prince Fielder, either, but TofuMan doesn’t both me as much as the current CF. I like Ryan Braun. I like John Axford.

RB8

He's got a crazy long contract for a reason.

In between 6 and 7, please note that there’s a gap larger than the 6 hour drive from Long Beach to San Jose I have to endure at least twice a year.

7. Philadelphia Phillies – I have a strong dislike for the Phillies. They have become the Yankees of the NL. I will laugh at them in 2015 when they are still paying Ryan Howard $25MM to strike out with a sandwich in his mouth.

HA!

There, there, Ryan Howard. You'll have a chance to redeem yourself this year.

8. New York Yankees – Look, they have exciting players. They’re the freaking Yankees. But the only time you want a team like that to win is when: a) it’s your team or b) you’re playing a video game and you’ve constructed a super team that isn’t possible in real life and you don’t have to worry about hurting other people’s feelings.

DV

The Yankees, ladies and gentlemen.

In 2012, the list will be different. Buster ain’t havin’ it.