Giants play-by-play broadcaster Mike Krukow takes no side from manager Gabe Kapler this time.
Kapler said after the Giants’ 8-2 victory Tuesday that Shaun Anderson had no intention of throwing at the head of Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout in the ninth inning. Krewow, who grabs 14 seasons in the major leagues, saw the two wrong pitches in real time, felt different.
“I did not like them, they were head high,” Kruk said Wednesday morning on the show “Murph & Mac” by KNBR. ‘I do not think a man who has better than average control can not expect you to come in the late innings of a baseball game in the big league if you do not have the opportunity to throw strikes. He threw two fastballs, one that stood around his head and then he did it with one behind his head. And that I am not appreciated at all. “
To make one thing clear, Krukow does not believe there was an order from Kapler, any other coach or player to Anderson who told him to throw high and tight on the three-time AL MVP. If anything, it was that Anderson chose to do it on his own.
“I do not think anyone told him he would do it, because in the first place Gabe Kapler told us that he (Trevor) Gott, (Tyler) Rodgers, (Tony) Watson just wanted to throw. That, okay, they used everyone else in the pen up to that point, and the last man without using those three boys was Anderson, so he’s going to throw the ninth inning. That there is no way of ordering from the bank.
“I will not say it 100 percent, but I’m pretty sure those two pitches were aimed at them. The fact that they were head high, I did not like at all.
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Giants third baseman Evan Longoria was hit in the back with a pitch in the top of the fifth. Did Anderson take revenge for that?
Kapler wanted to make it immediately clear in his postgame press conference that this was not the case.
“We do not throw people. It is not who we are.” – Gabe Kapler on this field from Shaun Anderson to Mike Trout pic.twitter.com/0evekh0dlX
– SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) August 18, 2020
Krukow certainly hopes that is the case, but he believes that Anderson’s places near Trout’s head were not a coincidence.
“I think at that point they were 8-1 up in a game going forward, they have to win this game,” Krukow said. “This is the biggest win of the year. They come from five losses in a row, three were games they had to win and they lost them in terrible ways. Now they need this game. I think for him to reconciliation for Evan Longoria was drilled earlier in the match – and it was bad, he hit the ribs with 97 – I think the goal was behind the field, and the fact that he threw it there on the head, I yet ‘I do not think it was the time, the place, and the fact that he threw it behind his head I did not throw.
‘When he says he slips, he slips, but I just see how I read it. And I did not think it was done correctly, and I think it was something you could have done at a later time. They play them tonight and tomorrow. If the thing of Longoria worries you, do it tonight or tomorrow.
“But you do not do it in a game where the bulls beat up and you do not do it around the head. End of story.”
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For what it’s worth, Angels manager Joe Maddon did not think Anderson had any intention on his fields. However, he casts some shadow on the Giants reliever.
“That’s just a young man who’s not ready to be here,” Maddon told reporters after the game. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Oh yes, the Giants start a home game with two games against the Angels on Wednesday night after facing the Halos twice on the road.
