Game Recap: Giants 6, Padres 1

-- Andres Torres has been on sort of an extended slump of late, hitting .197/.293/.291 since July 1; so naturally, whenever he busts out one of these three-hit games (in addition some smart baserunning and nice defense in centerfield), I get a little excited. Even with his recent struggles, he's been good for average production. He's no slugger, but this is a guy that had 61 extra base hits last year, so I expect the power will eventually manifest itself some more. He's ultimately half the player he was last year...which still makes him an above-average centerfielder. I'll take it.

-- Hit streaks are nice, but Pablo Sandoval drew a couple (okay, one unintentional, one intentional) walks. And that's all I really care about -- that the one guy in this lineup capable of being productive at the plate continues to do so.

-- I have no idea why the Giants called up Hector Sanchez. But he walked in his first major-league plate appearance, which is noteworthy. Other Giants to have one plate appearance in their major-league debut, and walk in that PA:

Player	Date
Doug Clark	2005-09-14
Randy Gomez	1984-08-21
Chris Bourjos	1980-08-31 (1)
Gary Alexander	1975-09-12
Jack Clark	1975-09-12
Jake Brown	1975-05-17
Monte Irvin	1949-07-08
Alex Konikowski	1948-06-16
Phil Weintraub	1933-09-05
Harry Rosenberg	1930-07-15
Earl Webb	1925-08-13

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/16/2011.

The first three guys on the list had rather short careers (played in a combined 41 major-league games). The next two, Gary Alexander and Jack Clark, had pretty good plate discipline throughout their careers, posting respective career walk rates of 10.6% and 15.3%. Now obviously this has no predictive value whatsoever, but it's interesting to see nonetheless. Anyway, Hector was doing okay in Triple-A Fresno, but he just doesn't seem ready for the majors. We'll find out.

-- Anyway, a nice day for the offense in a not-so-friendly hitting environment. The one stat the sticks out in my mind: six walks, five strikeouts.

-- The Giants now own a 5-3 record against the Padres on the season, meaning I'm winning that bet with RJ's Fro.