Post-game thread: Giants knock Craig Kimbrel around, still lose

Well, they didn't strike out against him. It's the same thing.

So, confidence in Madison Bumgarer...fading.

But I couldn’t tell you why. Well, there’s the hits and the runs and the hits, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what is wrong. The velocity’s there. The control’s a little wonkier than normal, but not oppressively so. It’s just that in every game he’s pitched so far this season, he’s had an inning where he blacks out and wakes up in the dugout. He can’t finish hitters off, they get on base somehow, the kitchen catches on fire, and the lab rats gnaw through the cage and run amok.

Is it something to do with his command? His focus? His mechanics? Or is just a matter of us making too much out of 17 innings? I’m inclined to think the latter, but when four outings in a row end in the same way, it’s just ugly. And it’s hard to rationalize away that kind of ugly. Not downgrading him to sell. Still have him at hold. It’d sure be swell if he could bounce back in his next outing, though. He’s kind of important to the Giants, and he’s been sub-Wellemeyer to start the year.

Other notes:

• Tommy Hanson is good.
• Derryl Cousins is not, though he gets a pass.
• Ryan Vogelsong looked great. I’ll just need about 80 more innings before I can trust him. He had a BB/9 ratio of 5.9 -- 5.9! -- in AAA last year. That’s 62 walks in 95 innings. Maybe he’s better than Mota or Ramirez right now, but I’d trust those guys to be completely meh before I’d expect a 33-year-old to suddenly develop decent command in the offseason.
  
  It will be amusing, though, to listen to people clamor for him in the rotation if Zito and/or Bumgarner continue to struggle.
• That was the most boring game of the season.

Also, that was the most boring game of the season. It seemed like the Giants were trying to filibuster life, and it wasn’t even a three-hour game.