The Giants beat the United States 5-1
I complain about the Giants not being on TV, and then the Giants are on TV. It's magic!
The Giants played an exhibition games against Team USA last night, and look, it was an exhibition so we shouldn’t read too much into the results PSYCH WE’RE ABSOLUTELY READING TOO MUCH INTO THE RESULTS BECAUSE WE’RE A BUNCH OF SUCKERS, EAT IT RATIONALITY!!!
For starters, Anthony DeSclafani is back. Going up against an All-Star lineup, DeSclafani pitched three scoreless innings, working himself out of a 2-on, no out situation in the top of the first without allowing a run. He just breezed through Schwarber-Goldschmidt-Arenado, inducing two medium fly balls and a strikeout to preserve the scoreless inning. He then had no problem with Tucker-Turner-Realmuto in the top of the second, and got Paul Goldschmidt out a second time to end a threat in the third.
It was the exact kind of performance you hope to see from DeSclafani, and let’s ignore that in 12.1 spring innings last year, DeSclafani had a sparkling ERA of 0.73, after which he suffered from his entire regular season.
After DeSclafani, Sean Manaea came into the game, and he threw 3 solid innings of his own, allowing just one run on a Goldschmidt homer. Other than that, though, he got the job done, allowing just two other baserunners. Again, adjusting for quality of opponent, it was a very impressive outing, and, with absolutely no evidence to the contrary forthcoming, we can confidently state that Manaea, too, will have a great year.
After Manaea came Scott Alexander, John Brebbia, and Mauricio Llovera, and with the weakness of the 2022 Giants bullpen still burning a mild psychic scar into our brains, their appearances were going to be crucial. And they all delivered, with Alexander striking out the side in the 7th, Brebbia pitching a score- and beard-less 8th inning, and Llovera wrapping things up with no dramatics.
Sure, they faced a Shane Matheny here and there, the occasional Michael Gigliotti, a soupcon of Carter Aldrete, but all a pitcher can do is get out the guy in the batter’s box.
Yes, they say that pitchers are ahead of hitters at this time of year, but let’s just sweep that under the rug. The pitchers did so well! We don’t want to minimize that just because it would be “appropriate” or “reasonable” or whatever.
The thing is, if we minimized what the pitchers did just because we are well aware that the results of this game are objectively meaningless, then we would also have to minimize what the hitters did. And while in some cases, like Brandon Crawford, who went 0-2, that would be appropriate (I mean, it’s still early March, what does it matter), the Giants also had several hitters whose strong performances mean we can pencil them in for great seasons.
For example, David Villar had been having a rough camp so far. Last night? 2-3 with an opposite field homer off of Kendall Graveman. Graveman’s a good pitcher, so Villar having his number is great news. No, the stats from last night won’t technically count (and even if they did count as Spring Training stats, they still wouldn’t count as real stats, so they’re two levels away from anyone remembering them in a year’s time), but the quality of the at-bats will still provide a nice boost.
Also with a good game: Mitch Haniger, who went 2-3 with a pair of doubles (one off Miles Mikolas, one off Evan Gates). It was a good test for him, since he was able to square up a ball against Mikolas, a quality major league pitcher, and he was also able to stay in there against Gates, a Giants farmhand who had been lent out to the other team for the evening. His mental toughness and flexibility are crucial for major league success.
So you see that last night’s Giants-Team USA exhibition was a rousing success in every way that matters for the Giants, and the ways that it wasn’t a success are irrelevant since there is a lot of camp left. Here in Spring Training, we can easily find the positives in everything and disregard anything else. In fact, it’s our duty as fans. Everything will be great this year. Nothing will go wrong. Giants baseball is back!
DeSclafani looked great to my untrained eyes. I only watched the first hour before changing channels to watch competitive baseball on FS-1 (Australia v Korea) and following my similar divorce with rationality I'm pleased to report that those upstart Aussies are going to win the WBC. It's science!
Loved this