Left for dead a month and a half into the season, the San Francisco Giants are finally starting to show signs of life. The Orange and Black won their fifth consecutive game on Wednesday night, beating the Dodgers 2-1, with a chance to earn their first series sweep of the season with another win Wednesday.
So, what has changed? According to Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow, part of it has to do with the ball simply bouncing the club’s way for the last week or so. When that starts happening, everybody’s spirits are lifted, something he’s seeing in the clubhouse.
“Baseball just being baseball,” Krukow began. “The breaks they could not find anywhere earlier in the year, now all of the sudden they are coming their way. To their credit they are taking advantage of them. You know a team makes an error and it creates a scoring opportunity for them and they get a hit. A guy goes on a hit and run, there’s a ground ball that goes right over the bag there’s Crawford standing on it, boom, step on the bag, double play. It just takes away that one little bit of mentality when you’re going bad and you say, ‘what next,’ and now it’s like ‘hey, who’s going to be the starter tonight?’ And that’s exactly what’s happened in their clubhouse. It happens so quickly, where you just get that little bit of confidence that something good’s going to happen and guess what it does. It’s amazing.”
Speaking of confidence, 26-year-old Ty Blach seemed to have it in spades on Tuesday night, allowing a single earned run in seven innings of work. Blach has been slotted into the rotation with Madison Bumgarner on the shelf, but if he keeps pitching like this he may earn himself a permanent spot. Krukow is not surprised.
“He can pitch. He has had a relatively fast track. He had four years in the minor leagues, but two years at the Triple-A level. They sent him back there a second year after he had a good year, and he responded by winning 14 games. He comes up to the big leagues with an attitude of I belong here, I’ve earned the right to be here, which is essential. He commands both sides of the plate, he’s got three or four pitches he can throw and he’s got the guts of a burglar. He’s a quick pace guy, strike thrower, the defense likes to play behind him…He knows what he wants to do and it’s not a surprise. He’s going to have a good career.”
Listen to the full interview below.
