Wednesday, October.24/2012

The Post Season almost ended for Marco Scutaro in Game #2 in St. Louis as Matt Holliday slid late to break up a double play. Scutaro stayed in that game and collected a key hit before being pulled as a precautionary move. He would come back and play from games 3-7.  —Photo Courtesy of giants.com

Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Writer): Follow @chuckbooth3024

I am pleased to always write about a player that has appeared one of my #UnheraldedAwarenessWeeks on Twitter.  For those that don’t know what that is, every week I pick a retired player and a current player to talk about and share info, stats, stories and funny anecdotes about.  Marco Scutaro was one of those players in September.  My buddy Patrick (who hosts a PODCAST I do MLB Expert Interviews on called ‘The Big Ticket Show‘) was the first one to say this signing was good.  I did remember that Scutaro was able to plate a 100 runs for the Jays in 2009 despite only playing in 144 games and also provided solid offense out of the Shortstop Position.  He was hitting in low .300’s at the time of the trade on July.27 to the San Francisco Giants from the Rockies.  I wasn’t as sold on the guy heading to AT &T Park to play half of his games at home.  I quickly came on board when he started tearing it up in his 1st week as a Giant.  Boy did I ever turn out to be wrong with him batting in San Francisco too, where he hit .352 in 33 games at AT &T Park in 2012.  That is an incredible average for what is one of the toughest parks on player averages in the Major Leagues!

With his 3rd organization since Jan.21 of this year, Scutaro has provided the necessary spark to the Giants lineup that was voided with losing Melky Cabrera. At 37 years old, he should be able to garner one more multi-year contract

Scutaro ended up being the best trade deadline acquisition in the Major Leagues this year.  Not only did he hit .339 in the second half, he also hit .402 in the month of September and the last 3 games of the regular season in October.  After going 0-12 in the 1st 3 games against Cincinnati in the NLDS, Scutaro has put a 9 game hitting streak together-and he had 6 multi-hit games in the NLCS en-route to being named the NLCS MVP.  He has pivotal game changing hits in Game #2 (where he also got run into by a hard and controversial slide by Matt Holiday before leaving) and in Games 6 and 7.  Scutaro tied and LCS record by recording 14 hits in 28 AB for a .500 Average. while scoring 7 runs.  The man has also contributed solid defense at second base, a position the Giants have struggled to fill since Jeff Kent left almost a decade ago.  Read the rest of this entry →