For the second straight season, the Los Angeles Lakers have made a major splash during the NBA offseason by reaching an agreement to acquire the most coveted piece available on the market. While it was the acquisition of LeBron James that took the league by storm and shook the landscape of the league's signature franchise last season via free-agency, this time around it was a move made by trade that enabled the Lakers to acquire their newest member just days after the conclusion of the NBA Finals. Joining James and company in Tinseltown for the upcoming 2019-20 NBA season will be six-time All-Star and former first overall pick Anthony Davis who was acquired over the weekend from the New Orleans Pelicans. Though pairing LeBron with the talented 26-year old big man is the latest step in the Lakers' efforts to end their longest postseason drought in franchise history, it didn't come cheap as they certainly paid a hefty price in return.
In exchange for the three-time All-NBA swingman, the Lakers sent a package deal to the Big Easy that included PG Lonzo Ball, SF Brandon Ingram, SG Josh Hart and three first round picks, including the No. 4 pick in next week's Draft. Add those names and picks to a roster that already includes former Laker Julius Randle and All-Star guard Jrue Holiday and will soon add Duke sensation and consensus No. 1 overall pick Zion Williamson, and the Pelicans appear to have themselves a nice little squad of their own. The deal which can't be made official until July 6, is a major win for a Pelicans franchise that would've seen Davis walk via free-agency following the 2019-20 season otherwise. While the Lakers did ship off many of their young assets, they did however manage to hang onto forward Kyle Kuzma who has easily been the most productive player among L.A.'s young core over the past two seasons and was initially believed to be one of the main pieces the Pelicans were asking for in the package deal. And as if the Lakers weren't already in win now mode given the window is closing more rapidly than ever for James who will be entering his age 35 season and the second year of his 4-year, $153.3 Million dollar pact with the team, the addition of Davis coupled with a pair of key injuries suffered by the Warriors' Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson could result in a major shift in power out West.
While the race for Anthony Davis appeared to be only a three-team race between the Lakers, Boston Celtics and New York Knicks, L.A. proved to be the only team with enough ammunition willing to pull the trigger. While the Knicks simply didn't have enough assets to garner the Pelicans' attention, Boston's unwillingness to include the promising young talent of Jayson Tatum made the Lakers' offer the most attractive as they eventually came out as the winners in the Anthony Davis sweepstakes. However, the Lakers' reloading phase won't stop there as they'll now focus their attention on acquiring another possible max-contract player with such names as Kemba Walker and Kyrie Irving leading the charge. Or could it be someone who's slipped under the radar like Jimmie Butler? While it remains uncertain who will be joining LeBron and Davis in the purple & gold for the upcoming season, one thing that is certain is that newly hired head coach Frank Vogel's Lakers team saw their stock rise just moments after the trade news broke, as they currently sit as the odds on favorite to win the NBA title next season at 7-2 according to the Caesars Sportsbook in Las Vegas.
But for now, the trade serves as some long awaited good news for Lakerland following a tumultuous season both on and off the court for the once proud Lakers organization that has had its fair share of bumps and bruises and has been rather out of wack over the past 6 months. From the botched trade to land A.D. down the stretch before the NBA trade deadline that sent the team into a downward spiral, to the firing of head coach Luke Walton, to the very publicized rocky relationship between front-office officials which ultimately led to Magic Johnson stepping down and resigning from his position as the team's president of basketball operations, and everything in between.
Follow me on Twitter: @FraserKnowsBest
After opening the month of May with a series-finale win over the archrival Dodgers to take the rubber-match, the San Francisco Giants took to the road to visit two of the more unforgiving ballparks in the league to a pitcher in Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark and Colorado's Coors Field. And after falling behind early to the Reds who jumped out to an eight-run lead by the third inning, the Giants appeared to be in store for a long evening in the Queen City. Instead, San Francisco managed to tie their largest comeback in franchise history after storming back to erase the eight-run deficit with crooked numbers in the 4th, 6th and 8th innings before a solo home run off the bat of Stephen Vogt with 2-outs in the 9th inning, tied things up at 11-all. In his first game in a Giants uniform and first game at the big league level since recovering from a right shoulder injury that kept him out of baseball for nearly two years, Vogt finished the game a triple shy of the cycle and was the hero of the game until Evan Longoria stole the spotlight with a solo home run that decided the outcome in the 11th inning. It would be a rather fitting win for San Francisco who had to pull a rabbit from their hat to log their first win in Cincy in three years, having previously lost seven straight at Great American Ballpark while being outscored by 43 runs.
The franchise-tying 8-run comeback that had happened on four other occasions, coincidentally, have all occurred on the road, with the last taking place on Sept. 4, 1989 also against the Reds. After notching a season-high 17-hits in the opener, the Giants were held to only 5-hits in Game 2 as the Reds avenged the series-opening loss with a 9-2 victory. Game 3 would witness another comeback for the Giants, but this time after being down only 4-runs as San Francisco matched Cincinnati's 4-run first inning with a 4-run 6th before Brandon Crawford's pinch-hit 2-run home run capped the win. The Giants would only manage a split of the four-game series as Cincinnati proved to be too much for the Giants in the first inning, outscoring San Francisco 13-0 in the opening frame as well as clubbing 15 home runs in the series which tied a club record for the most HR's hit in a single series. Another rare feat that was accomplished in Cincy was one by super utilityman Pablo Sandoval who's been used by skipper Bruce Bochy in a variety of roles this season, including off the bench and on the mound. In the series finale, Sandoval became the first player in 114 years to homer, steal a base and pitch a scoreless inning in a single game since Giants Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson achieved the feat against the Reds on May 23, 1905.
Off to Denver, the Giants would call-up the hot-hitting Mac Williamson who's red-hot bat at the Triple-A level would catch the attention of the Giants front-office in time for their series with the Rockies. After clubbing three homers the night before with Triple-A Sacramento, Williamson would continue his torrid streak by launching a home run in his second at-bat of the season to go along with 4 RBI's which helped propel the Giants to a 14-4 win in the opener. Unfortunately, it would be only Williamson's only shining moment after the call-up as he would be designated for assignment and later elect free agency following a 6-for-51 drought at the plate. With inclement weather postponing Game 2 to a makeup date in July, the Giants would partake in their coldest game since 1997 as snow flurries began in the 2nd inning of Game 3. The 39 degree temperature at first-pitch would be the lowest that the Giants would play in since an affair on the north side of Chicago on April 13, 2013 against the Cubs. Seeking his first home run of the season, Tyler Austin would record his fourth career multi-homer game with a pair of long balls, including a 441-foot tape-measure shot, the furthest by a Giant this year. Austin's powerful bat would help the Giants erase an early 7-run deficit, but the San Francisco bullpen would fail to contain the Rockies' formidable lineup which escaped with the 12-11 win.
Returning home to face the Reds again, the Giants would run into more of the same issues as Cincy continued to put up runs in the first inning. And after receiving a no-decision a week earlier in Cincinnati, Reds starter Luis Castillo was out for revenge. Having established himself as one of the better pitchers through the first month with a record of 4-1 and a 1.76 ERA to show for, Castillo backed his claim with another stellar outing by tossing six scoreless innings of 2-hit ball and striking-out 11 batters to tie a career-high. After allowing a combined 5-runs scored in the first inning of the next two games, the Giants were once again forced to play catch up, managing to do so after falling behind three different times before eventually salvaging the series-finale with a win on Mother's Day to avoid the sweep. Another short two-game set against the visiting Toronto Blue Jays would allow players and fans alike to see a team they're not used to seeing as the two clubs would square off in a rematch after the Giants completed the two-game sweep north of the border in Toronto a month earlier. Only this time, the Blue Jays would have reinforcements with them as baseball's top-hitting prospect in Vlad Guerrero Jr. was not yet with the club when the two clubs last met in late April. The son of Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero displayed his power by blasting the first two homers of his career to help give Toronto the 7-3 victory.
From one top prospect to another, the Giants would see the debut of their top pitching prospect as Shaun Anderson made his debut in Game 2 against the Jays. The 24-year old righty who was acquired from the Boston Red Sox in the trade that sent Eduardo Nunez to Bean Town in 2017, tossed 5 innings while allowing a pair of runs on 2 hits and 3 walks. Anderson who struck out five Blue Jays on the afternoon, wouldn't factor into the decision as the Giants won 4-3, but his manager and teammates liked what they saw in the young farmhand. He would also dazzle at the plate, connecting for a pair of hits to become the first Giants pitcher since 1908 to have a multi-hit game in his MLB debut. In a short three-game road trip to the desert to face the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Giants would be blanked by Dbacks pitching in the opener before ace Madison Bumgarner helped right the ship with an 8-5 win in Game 2. The Giants would need heroics on both offense and defense in order to return home with the series victory, as Brandon Crawford delivered with his glove to throw-out Adam Jones with a close play at first base that nearly sent the Dbacks home with a walk-off victory in the 9th. Meanwhile, Pablo Sandoval delivered at the plate as his opposite-field home run in the 10th helped the Giants take 2 of 3 from their division rivals.
Hoping their winning ways would follow them home to the Bay Area, the Giants would begin a 7-game homestand against the Braves and Dbacks that the team would much rather forget. After dropping Game 1 of 4 against Atlanta, the Giants went into the 9th inning of Game 2 trailing 3-1, but rallied with 3-runs in the inning to walk-off against the Braves, capped by Joe Panik's second career walk-off hit and the third by the Giants this season. But it would be the only highlight of the series as Atlanta won each of the next two to take three of four. After being swept in San Diego by the Padres in which the Dbacks mustered only five runs in the series, Arizona held a team meeting in hopes of putting an end to a slump that saw them lose 12 of their last 17 games entering their series versus San Francisco. Whatever was said in that meeting definitely worked as the Diamondbacks showed no mercy in the series-opener, tying a team record for the second-most runs scored in a game in franchise history as well as the most ever scored by a visiting team at Oracle Park as they ran away with the 18-2 victory. Believe it or not, the Giants would actually hold a 2-1 lead in the game before the Arizona bats really got going, smacking four homers in total. The offensive outburst would be no fluke as the Diamondbacks continued their run-scoring prowess in Games 2 & 3 by winning those meetings, 10-4 and 6-2 respectively, to complete the sweep. With 34 runs in the series, Arizona set a franchise record for the most runs in a three-game road series.
Hitting the road to face two of the three worst teams in all of baseball, the Giants would head to Miami and Baltimore to face the Marlins and Orioles to close out the month of May. But after dropping the first two in Miami, the Giants were on the verge of being swept by the only team in the National League with a worse record than their own. But after being called back up to the Majors to make his first appearance since May 14, pitcher Tyler Beede would help his team stave off the sweep by logging his best outing in the Majors yet. Though he would receive a no-decision, Beede held the Marlins to only 1 run on 5 hits, while waking 3 and striking out 4. With Beede still in search of his first win at the MLB level, one player who did record career firsts was outfielder Mike Yastrzemski who after logging his first hit in the previous series against the Dbacks, tallied his first big league RBI with a game-tying RBI single that scored Brandon Crawford in the 7th inning. Crawford would put his team ahead with a 2-run double as the Giants salvaged the finale to avoid being swept. Visiting Baltimore's Camden Yards for the first time since 2004, the Giants and Orioles would exchange in a rather odd first inning which saw the GMen jump out to an early 5-0 lead before the O's stormed back with a 6-spot of their own. The wild first inning would mark the first time since 2012 that two teams would score at least five first-inning runs in the same game.
Yastrzemski, grandson of Boston Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski, spent 703 games in the Minors prior to being called up last week, serving 663 of those games in Baltimore's farm system before being traded to San Francisco during the spring. Little Yaz is the latest Giant to join the revolving door that is left-field which has now seen ten different players man the position in 2019. And though he never got the chance to play a big league game in an Orioles uniform at Camden Yards, he certainly made up for it by homering in his second at-bat of the game to record his first career dinger which tied the game at 6 in the 2nd inning. But the O's would one-up San Francisco again in the bottom half of the inning by scoring a pair of runs and take a lead that they wouldn't relinquish a second time as Giants starter Drew Pomeranz was hit hard and failed to make it through the second inning even after his team gifted him with a 5-run first inning, their most runs scored in the opening frame all year. The Giants ended up dropping the game by a final of 9-6 which dropped them to 10-16 in the month of May and 22-34 overall, 15.5 games behind the first-place Dodgers.
It was a rough one for the Giants pitching staff in the month of May as their league-worst 7.32 ERA was the poorest combined earned-run average in a full month for any Giants team in the history of the franchise. And no pitcher has struggled more than the aforementioned Pomeranz who after allowing a career-high eight earned runs in Baltimore, has seen his ERA climb to 8.08 on the year over 10 starts as he's registered only one quality start this season. With what appears to be a resurgence from both Tyler Beede and Dereck Rodriguez who pitched in relief for Pomeranz in Baltimore after being sent down to the Minors following his own struggles, it's likely Pomeranz has seen his last start in the rotation at least for now. And things won't get any easier following their current road trip which concludes against the Mets in New York as the Giants return home to host the archrival Dodgers who own the best record in the National League at 39-19.
Follow me on Twitter: @FraserKnowsBest
