Come on, be honest. When Andy Pettitte was no-hitting the Giants into the sixth inning, it seemed inevitable. I started writing the no-hitter post. It was almost like the Giants had some sort of handshake deal with the Yankees.
Yankees: C'mon, do us a solid. Make Pettitte's last start something we'll talk about for decades.
Giants: You'll get us back, right?
Yankees: Oh, yeah. If you don't get a hit against Pettitte, we'll totally make it up to you.
Yankees: /makes wanking motion, rolls eyes
Giants: Wait, you're supposed to wait until we turn around before you do that.
Yankees: /makes wanking motion, rolls eyes
Giants: But you have a deal!
And with a sweep against the Giants, the Yankees would be that much closer to winning the World Series against the Pirates on a walk-off homer from Alex Rodriguez. It would be the Giants' fault. And that would be rock bottom. Not just for the Giants. Humans, mostly.
Ah, but the Giants didn't lose. They sent the memo about "doing a solid" to the regulars. The team doesn't even have e-mail addresses for Ehire Adrianza, Tony Abreu, or Juan Perez. But it's not like they were going to mess up the plan …
Good work, B Team. Adrianza has exactly one more career home run than I thought he'd ever have, Yusmeiro Petit was fantastic again, and the Giants avoided the ignominy of a sweep in Yankee Stadium. Technically, the odds of the Giants winning in 2018 go down incrementally with each win before the end of this season. But the odds of you being extra annoyed by a Giants loss would have gone up exponentially with another loss. I'll choose the incrementally in the bush over the exponentially in the hand. Or something.
A lot of people paid a lot of money for the privilege of watching the Giants field players who will never even get a Fresno Grizzlies bobblehead, but the Giants won. And it was a danged good game, too. Have to admit, I wasn't expecting that kind of game before the first pitch, and I gave the Giants about a 15-percent chance of getting a hit once Pettitte was through five innings. But the Giants came through. And they're undefeated in the fall!
An Andrew Baggarly tweet:
Yusmeiro Petit has a 2.54 ERA in six starts. He's under club control for three more seasons.
— Andrew Baggarly (@CSNBaggs) September 22, 2013
I'll be honest, I hadn't given a second of thought to Petit's contract status. He's arbitration-eligible after this season, and will be for the next three seasons.
But how long does it take for a starting pitcher to go from DFA fodder to rotation stalwart? More than six starts, certainly. Chad Gaudin made 12 mostly solid starts, and it's not like he's a top priority for the Giants (or anyone else, for that matter) this offseason. So the idea of Petit having years of team control left isn't that exciting.
Kind of interesting, though. I mean, he'll might get a shot to win the fifth-starter job next spring. But if he doesn't, he'll be pretty likely to win the Guillermo Mota Memorial Long Reliever spot. And considering he's 28, with a better-than-microscopic!-which-is-something! chance of turning into Bronson Arroyo, he's probably the best fit for the GMMLR spot the Giants have had in years.
The odds are good that every team is going to need their sixth starter at some point. So, yeah, it's kinda cool that Petit will be around for the next three years if the Giants want him. Put it this way: Before this season, the statistics suggested that Petit was much, much, much more likely to succeed than Gaudin. About two months ago, Gaudin was the fill-in hero and Petit was toiling in Fresno. But one guy strikes hitters out, and he also limits the walks. That's the better bet going forward. And he's also the one with team control.
Man, if only Matt Cain could have pitched as well as Yusmeiro Petit this season. Just like we were all saying before the season started.
Juan Perez is a lot more fun to watch than Jeff Francoeur. There. I said it.
But there's going to be a little bit of a roster scrum next season. Francisco Peguero will be out of options, and there's probably going to be room for just one right-handed outfielder on the bench. Would the Giants option Perez to keep Peguero?
I can't see how. Perez is clearly a major-league player. He's pretty rough with the bat, and that might not ever change. But it's not clear that Peguero is a major-league player, and most of the evidence suggests otherwise. He's even rawer than Perez, too, so he's less likely to help the team in 2014. The Giants would have to take a short-term hit to keep Peguero for the long term.
Not worth it. Becoming a Perez fanboy over here. And if it's neat that Petit is under team control for three years if the Giants want him, just think of how handy it would be for Perez to hit enough to be a viable fifth outfielder for the next five years. He can field, run, and throw. A classic three-tool player. But those three tools are fun to watch.