Well, we got *Nolasco’d” last night. He does it to us every time. It’s probably a combination of Nolasco’s confidence and bad luck. These aren’t the same guys he’s faced before but we *looked* the same against him. Besides Panda, it was an impotent attempt.
I am hopeful that Nate’s 1 for his last 21 will finally wake Bochy up and get Blanco out there for a few starts. Ugh, there I go again, complaining about the LU. I have to keep reminding myself that it really doesn’t matter what the LU is. There is no way to know what a replacement player would have done against Nolasco in the same situations.
Maybe it’s just the combo of Nolasco and Cain. Matty has pitched 23.1 innings over his last 3 starts and he’s gotten 1 run of support from the offense. That’s a joke.
Pa(Gone!) extended his hitting streak to 15 games, the longest current streak in either league………
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
speaking of offense, or lack of same, what are SF numbers at home this year? I don’t remember a lot of runs in the Philly series, and we didn’t hit much vs. Pads either. I know Panda has a couple HRs; I’m wondering about splits home/away for some of the more reg players with more ABs.
Btw, chron yesterday actually mentioned fangraphs in a short article about Sando, talking about how many pitches he was seeing per AB.
Cain must love “Torture “.He’s probably the only pitcher(besides Harvey Haddix ) who could lose a No-hitter. Their run support for him throughout his career is beyond “Artrioucs “, just so thankful he is a level headed gamer that wouldn’t go “Full Bore Balastic ” like Zambrano would.
Yeah his huge contract can sooth alot of misery of a life support offense in his starts.But he deserves every penny of it with his class on the field as the ultimate warrior. Raise my glass and toast Matt Cain!!!
a classic ratto line taken from his article on CSNBayArea regarding what Bochy wants to say, but can’t:
“And I don’t know how many new ways to say it without just snapping and ending up on the roof in my underwear with four loaded rifles and a cedar chest of ammunition.”
Thank god we have zito going tonight. oh, wait . . .
I read that, too and was LMAO…
At least Pablo hit something.
Good news, bad news; Brandon Crawford leads the team in doubles.
some at home stats, plus recent numbers:
Melk .244 avg .289 OB .655 OPS 3 for last 16 1 rbi
Craw .138 4 for 29, 1 for last 14
Hector .154 2 for 13 0 XBH
Nate .276 .300 OB .679 OPS lately 1-9 (and of course would have to go 3-19 to be 4-40)
the good news:
Pagan ,333 .371 OB .887 OPS
Pablo .297 .380/540 .890 OPS
Posey .333 .371/515 .887 OPS but 3-14 2 rbis lately
The *team* is 15th in tne NL with 27 runs scored in 10 games. BA is 9th at .249. OBP is last at .285. OPS, 10th .675
HR last with 5…
These are home numbers.
yeah, thx. I had a feeling they weren’t very good..OB dead last, ouch.
BTW, another poster likes to to list where they stand in the majors, not just the NL. Those numbers make it sound even worse than it is, but are not relevant.
Yeah, being last in the NL is so much better.
This other poster likes 29th so much better…and wrongo about getting on base-they are last in the NL in OBP.
The point being, they don’t have as much problem getting on base as they do driving them in . . .
Weatherproof game: Mariners at Rays. San Francisco and Los Angeles each will be in the 60s with some clouds, but dryness prevails in both California cities. Intervals of clouds are on tap for Atlanta and Cincinnati with temperatures in the high 80s. St. Louis will be a little breezy, but that won’t keep the mercury from reaching 90. Three cities have thunderstorms in the forecast, so there may be some images of tarpaulins on cameras filming stadiums in Washington, Chicago and Kansas City.
what about baltimore
Flav, you mean Boston, right? They are playing Boston . . . Cloudy and mid-50s (no rain, but coming tomorrow).
A ray of hope for Z vs Fish
Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes are a combined 2-for-27 (.074) against the Giants’ Barry Zito in their careers.
others;
Bonafacio 3-10
Kearns 2-13 1 hr
Infante 3-18
Stanton 1-3 hr
Sanchez 2-7
yeah, I saw that when I was deciding on who to pick in my Beat the Streak contest this morning. Quite surprising and encouraging…..
Last in OBP and HRs… ouch. Yet ok in average and even OPS. In some part of my mind, this just seems like a much better hitting team than last year, which some might say isn’t saying much but nonetheless was the main goal in the offseason… to improve the hitting. It’s ok to complain about the lineup, Craig, it needs some changes, Bochy knows that and will continue to look for and hopefully find the right combinations. He said it himself, something like “We’re just not clicking yet.” That was a week or so ago. It’s May now… time to start clicking.
Away from home they are 1st in the NL in runs, 2nd in BA, 5th in OBP, 3rd in OPS, 1st in HR. Obviously, the team can hit. Even last year they were actually middle of the pack in almost all categories away from home, including the most important, runs (7th).
I would think this makes a case for home and away line ups more than left-right. Problem is, that means more speed at home and the only speed guy not starting is Blanco ( Burriss has started most games). Arias looks to be to faster than Crawford, so maybe that, too. Of course, Arias and Blanco should probably be starting all the time anyway..
Agree about the home/away lineup strategy. So home is a pitcher’s park, but it’s home, you play half your games there, must learn how to work that, which does mean gappers and speed. Insert Arias and Blanco as you said, Pagan settles in, Burriss gets more than most starts (sorry, not a Theriot fan), the lineup gets shifted a bit, and the different dynamics would likely produce different and hopefully better results.
All this lineup stuff is not new. It’s just that now there are so many places to complain about it. Old Giant fans like me think of the 60’s teams and might believe that it was Mays, McCovey, Hart, Cepeda, Bonds, etc. every single day. Believe me there were plenty of boxscores with guys like Marshall, Burda, Henderson, and so many others that would make me shake my little head in disbelief…
Thanks, Loo…comforting knowing that it is not a current trend…
Also, the Alou brothers were always being put in and out. Same with Jim Ray Hart for a couple of years with Davenport. More things change . . . more they stay the same. Pfffft.
This is current, all games (home and away) in the NL, only:
BA – .259 (6TH)
OBP – .311 (8th)
SLG – .411 (4th)
OPS – .722 (8th)
So, middle of the pack, at worst.
The telling stats that really kicks their ass (and was glaringly apparent last night) are:
RISP – .193 (15th)
2 out, RISP – .176 (14th)
Bases loaded – .231 (9th)
So, overall their hitting stats are not bad…that is until they put runners on base. They just flat out suck in the clutch…so it is amazing that Bochy HAS NOT been on the roof yet with the guns and trunks of ammo.
Chi, you can’t combine home and away, IMO..because they are so radically different. The OBP is a prime example- they are last at home, 5th on the road. The overall 8th is of no import when they are home. Fact is, even last year, their problem was not hitting as much as hitting at home. Last year they averaged 4.1 runs away (7th), 2.9 at home( last, of course ). They need to figure how to maximize production at home.
Then it doesn’t make much sense to combine all the away games either, since playing in San Diego and LA is a helluva lot different than playing in Colorado and Cincinnati.
Agree with Mac . . . Please explain why not Mike. Moreover, what would they do differently “to maximize production at home?” Chi’s stats make perfect sense in my opinion.
I’d be happy to break it down even more when they’ve actually played in the pitcher’s parks you’ve mentioned. For now, the home/away comparision is appropriate.
First trip to San Diego isn’t until June 5-7, so I guess we’ll have to wait awhile.
Twin – I get what you are saying about home and away. The point I was trying to make was a simple comparison of their overall hitting stats, and how they fall-off when they have RISP.
James made a good point about the RISP issue…cannot build a line-up to hit well with RISP, etc. Again, the point I was trying to make was simply that they have sucked in the clutch when there are ducks on the pond. Sure, they very well may suck more or less, depending on whether or not they are home or away. But overall…they just cannot seem to get timely knock with RISP.
When they are scoring 2.7 runs at home vs. 4.9 away it’s obvious that the away numbers aren’t relevant when they’re playing here. And I already noted what changes could be made at home, although they are limited.I can’t believe anyone would think that the combined numbers are relevant- they score 2.7 at home, not 3.95 ( the combined number).
I agree with Mac’s comments about combining all of the away games. One reason the Giants could historically score less runs at home is the ballpark as opposed to those of all of their opponents. You can slice and dice the line-ups to try to accomodate for this.
Here is an interesting stat called “Park Factor.” As you can see, our yard favors the pitcher more so than any other park (at least in light of this stat). Given this, then I would expect to see the difference between our hitting stats at home vs. away.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor
That line still makes me chuckle. i’m also thinking that melky needs a day off. start blanco tonigh, burris at second etc. as for nate, the balls i saw him hit last night were hit hard (grounder up the 1st base line with 1st baseman playing close to the line and a line drive that he got under just a little too much). Only one strike out last night (posey) which is a big improvement over the near constant swinging over back foot sliders that we saw the last couple of years.
“The point being, they don’t have as much problem getting on base as they do driving them in . . .” You can’t build a line up to do well hitting with RISP. You can build one that hits well for avg. Better yet, you can build one that gets on base and hits for power. It’s still very early in the season, but at look at where the Giants are in NL runs scored. Then look at the the OBP and OPS.
Flav, I screwed up . . . Baltimore is playing in New York and the forecast is “Chance of Rain
30% chance of precipitation today and 40% chance of rain this evening.”
Well, for all the lineup changes over the past few years, the consistent shittiness of RISP is infuriating. The other day, Pagan doubled, Melky ground out to the right side, and Panda drove him in with a sac fly. I damn near had a heart attack. I can count on one hand hwo many times they’ve done that in 2 years.
Posey himself last night left 7 guys on.
Schierholtz? He’s in the well as usual after his little hot road streak. Play Blanco at home, Nate on the road.
Chuck is pissed!
They’re still 6-4 at home because the team ERA at home is 1.96. Obviously that will go up, so the hitting at home needs to as well. We know it’s a pitcher friendly ballbark, that doesn’t mean things can’t be done to get more production. The power spot at home is to LF and nothing has been done to replace Uribe and Burrell, we’re just not going to do it that way. Speed is the answer and we’re not taking advantage of it. As I posted, Blanco and Arias would add more and Pagan needs to start using his speed stealing bases. He’s on pace for 12, a tad short of the 50 he talked about.
Part of a previous post…
Here is an interesting stat called “Park Factor.” As you can see, our yard favors the pitcher more so than any other park (at least in light of this stat). Given this, then I would expect to see the difference between our hitting stats at home vs. away.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor
Twin has hinted above about some potential LU changes the Giants could do in light of our yard.
Anyway…thought this was an interesting stat and thought it would get lost in the earlier posts on home/away.
And those changes are good away also- Arias and Blanco in, Crawford and Nate out. And yeah, Nipper- those “damn lies” are stats that aren’t understood..
I’m not ready to give up on Crawford…am okay with a platoon. And as mentioned by someone earlier…I would rather see Burriss get the brundt of the starts at 2nd over The Riot.
There are stats and then there are stats!
Early Knuckleheads of the week….Jeremy Alffeldt and Amar’e Stoudemarie.Gotta go with Amar’e what a douche bag.
Actually I may have to reconsider about Jan.When the hell does a guy that makes millions not have a freaking high tech fride with out a ice machine? He put a pack of frozen veggies on his knee.God Lefties are truly flakes.
That works.
Junior Seau dead of suicide at 43. wow.
Just saw that…so damned sad.
Suicide in SD? Yikes.
Yes, quite sad about Seau, especially his family and friends. Another reminder to us all about what Flav posted last week regarding Huff . . . We have little or no idea who these people really are or what issues they confront. Having money and/or fame doesn’t inoculate you from the issues everyone else faces.
Agree…he also had 3 kids. Wishing his family and friends peace during this difficult time. RIP, Junior.
I’m looking forward to meeting snarkk in a couple of hours . . . No guarantees, but perhaps our combined Flap Mojo will provide Zito with an incantation that will be sufficient to silence the Marlins bats.
my advice is to drink heavily.
Silence the Marlins bats? Uh Cain did a pretty good job last night. We need some Mojo to get the Giants bats going…ESPECIALLY when the have RISP…
Didn’t Seau drive his car off a beach cliff a few years ago? That should of been a major red flag that he needed help to cope with his issues.
Sad story….RIP Junior ….
apparently he was arrested, but not charged, last night for assaulting his girlfriend. I’d be interested to see if that group that looks at ex-football player’s brains gets involved.
Today’s lineup:
Blanco RF
Pagan CF
Cabrera LF
Sandoval 3B
Sanchez C
Belt 1B
Arias 2B
Crawford SS
Zito LHP
I was wondering when we would see Arias at 2B…he actually has quite a few more starts there than at SS (at the ML level).
Buster gets the day off. Belt with another start.
Buster had a pretty horrible night last night. Not surprised to see him get a rest.
Not good last night for 3 of the younger players, which is a bummer. Posey with the doubleplay and at least one strikeout, Crawford with the whiff on the hit and run, and Belt just overall didn’t seem to have a good at-bat all night, if I remember correctly.
But still, giving Posey the night off doesn’t make sense to me. They had Monday off. How bad he looked last night shouldn’t be a factor at all. He’s a starter with a top 10 batting average.
Well, it’s either Buster or Belt at 1B since Sanchez is Z’s designated catcher.
Ah, I forgot about the personal catcher thing. No doubt the Giants don’t want to mess with anything with Zito right now.
The Giambino!
Hopefully the night off for Posey isn’t because of soreness.
I got real nervous on that little pop up between Cain and Posey. Both guys ended up in awkward positions.
Yeah I forgot about the Zito/Sanchez deal.
Well, he wasn’t running real hard on the DP, he could be sore.
Strange story out there about how 8 members of the 1994 SD Chargers team that have died. All under the age of 45. Either by disease, misadventure, or now suicide.
http://deadspin.com/5867720/death-is
This was written before today’s events.
The original Temptations didn’t fare very well either…
Who started that “personal catcher” crap?
McCarver/Carlton?
Liberace/Scott Thorson?
I like the retro unis the A’s are donning tonight. They look sharp. I never say anything complimentary about the A’s. I hate those fuckers. Cody Ross just turned a can of corn into a RBI double. He must have graduated from the Angel PaGONE School of Defense.
I always like when our Blogmeister Sensei employs eponymous verbs, as in “we got Nolasco’d.” I’d like to see the Marlins get, um, what, DavidFreesed or what, Longoriaed, or — give me a Giants name — Andrestorresed, version late 2010.
Pawlie, you’re the man. No one would take the time to acknowledge that or probably even notice it except a grizzled old *wordsmith* like yourself.
I’ll always remember that Pawlie took the time and effort to send me an e-mail explaining the difference between “uninterested” and “disinterested.” I always appreciated that gesture.
It is my impartial and disinterested opinion that when the Giants come up to bat w/RISP I become uninterested as I already know the bleak outcome.
Aw, man, I remember getting tangled up in that “disinterested” vs. “uninterested” thicket. I went all prescriptive-purist, and Twin went descriptive-realist. Ironically, I tend to shrug my linguistic shoulders and conclude we cannot halt the tides of language change. (I gave up on the purist, old-school take on “hopefully” decades ago and still hate “impact” as a verb. And I like the distinctions that Dennis illustrates.) BUT … BUT those who run to a reputable dictionary and say, “Lookie here” will win in the sense that the dictionary will reflect current usage, even “bad” usage. (I tend to prefer the American Heritage Dictionary because of the simple fact is has a Usage Panel.) So, I may sound like I’m all over the lot on this, because I am.
Did an awesome radio interview yesterday w/ KTGR in Columbia, MO, and today w/ 1260TheScore in Syracuse — on cable, too. I tend to get asked the same questions and invariably end up sheepishly retelling the story of Blade and me trading palindromes that night.
Unfortunately they got Cousin’d last year. Buster might have come out of it better if they’d been Niece’d..
Got that right . . . or JonathonNiesed. How’s this one? In the World Series of 2010 Ron Washington got Bochyed.
I don’t wish Cousins ill- but I have to wonder what the coilison and fall out did to him long term. He spent most of 2011 on the DL after that and hit .147 this spring. He’s currently hitting .225 in the PCL.
BTW, I hate games like last night’s. They are enragingly frustrating and turn me into the doomerist of doomers.
The Orioles seem to own the Yanks and the Phils own the Braves. Are the O’s for real? Doubt it. And thank you, Rox, for deating the Dodgers. Are the Astros real? Maybe. Probably not. When will Pujols hit his first HR? do you realize how bad all-the-time interleague play will be next year? Is this getting to sound like a lame Larry King column?
You probably heard the story, but when Larry was down on his luck and down to his last few dollars, he made a trip to Calder and hit a $8,000 trifecta betting his birthday numbers. Used the $$$ to pay child support. Larry’s always had an affinity for the ponies. He’s OK in my book.
I don’t know where Affeldt is, but he better be yelling at Hector after that one. Shit.
Alffeldt is still yelling at his kid for being a kid , jumping in his arms and landing on the DL. Dennis.What a puss because he couldn’t. blame Hector this time.
Alright, hopefully things are fortuitous for the Giants.
got it
I hope I am wrong, but I’m not feeling real good about tonights game. Praying Mount Zito don’t blow.
Zito returns to form
Well as I’m as happy as pigs in a sloppy shit pen.The Dodgers got Giamianized by Jason’s walk off HR.Nice job Jason!!!
More shitty D. Craw’s bobble should have ended the inning with a DP. I thought with the month turning to May things would change…think again Dennis…
I hope Carlos Zambranoes this game, as in Mt. Etna blowup.
Shite, I really don’t know if I have the stamina for the late-night shenanigans tonight. And, no, I don’t mean pornsurfing.
Bad Zito would have given up a grand slam to Stanton after the error.
“The Scream” by Edvard Munch goes for $119.9 million. Barry Zito’s contract goes for $126 million. Coincidence? I think not.
Christ, Pagan can’t get to 3rd on a grounder to RF?
Mets fan told me today that unequivocally Pagan was the worst baserunner he had ever seen. Of course, the observer looked all of 23.
Another epic fail. These guys are getting real irritating.
How bout that PHI/ATL game going to the 11th tied at 13 apiece? I thought those two clubs could pitch.
And our D gets even worse. I didn’t think it was possible, but it did. Unbelievable.
I can’t remember a Giants defense that was this attrocious…bad enough the pitching staff has to worry about the offense, now they fret the D as well.
Zito hasn’t got great command tonight, but he’s battling out there. With better d, it’s 0-0.
Hey, the BA w/ RISP went up again!
And wIth the same result as last night.
Giants were Reyesanized by his D that saved them that inning.Key stop of that Crawdaddy grounder to prevent Belt from scoring.The runs are brutal to come by right now.
Hockey OT playoffs is the bomb. I hope our buddy Loo is enjoying the Rangers/Caps in 2OT.
I’m on the edge of my seat. I picture Loo sitting high in the saddle of his seat a la Laffit Pincay Jr. when he coasted home on Swale in the ’84 Derby.
I watched the ’92 Derby today. Forgot how close Casual Lies came to winning that bad boy
Yeah. That was good ole’ Shelley Riley from Pleasanton. She woulda made another good wife for Brandon Belt. 😀
He’s gonna have to downgrade to Shelly if he keeps hitting like this…..
Zito had walked 6 batters entering tonight. Feeling generous tonight, Barry?
fucking Zambrano has no command tonight. We should have tagged him for 5 by now. I’m not worried about this RISP statistical anomaly since I know it’s going to even out at some point but fuck-n-A this is frustrating to watch………
Hmmm, it looks to me Zambrano has been mixing that below the knees sinker with the “high” fastball pretty well. The rare breaking ball to K Belt was a very nice pitch.
Hmmmm, he’s got a WHIP of 2.00 so far this game. And his ball is all over the place. Using Belt’s flailing swing as an example of his command is not helping your argument……
All 4 hits have been ground balls. He fooled Belt with the breaking pitch, which he had not featured much at that point.
Will you be deducting unworthy hits and RBIs for Belt all year?
It would be nice to see him hit something other other than singles.
He will. Bummer tonight, though. All the other guys are smokin’ it..
Zeetoed. Plan B?
Gawd. The fun just keeps on rolling. Bad D. Lousy pitching. Bubbles at his bubbly best. Abysmal hitting. 3 innings, 6 LOB. . . .
Edlefson gets the out!
Zambrano is going to be hard-pressed to go 5. He’s thrown a bunch. Not that t we’ll fucking do anything about it.
Munter and the heavy sinker! Had to pull that one out of the mothballs
I’m sure the moths came flying out when you grabbed your Members Only jacket the other night.
So, how ’bout them Marlins unis … very colourful logo.
Fuck/ That’s what I mean. Pagan can’t get to 3rd on a grounder to right and this guy makes it on a hit to left.
We’re starting to resemble the teams that used to die when they fell behind by 2. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Boring and tedious.
Weird. Neither the Chron nor mlb/giants page are able to give me the “gameview” thing, so I can’t follow it. Just reading comments here, it sounds like the Giants must be down something 10-0. Just found the score is 2-0. I’m guessing the play on the field ain’t lookin’ too good tonight with such gnashing of teeth here…. ?….
working fine here … you got the right link? http://sfgate.stats.com/mlb/gameview.asp?gamecode=320502126
Thanks, Bill, but even clicking on that link, it says it cannot find the server. Could be my laptop is dying…. who knows. Forget it, Jake, it’s…. Vietnam….
TF made the point earlier about our struggles to score runs at home. Well? Weeeerrrr’e waiting for a solution.
I’m sure Belt is coming to the rescue with his bat full of singles any day now
Actually, I was counting on Pagan with his 3 for 20 with RISP..Maybe he saves his best with 2 out RISP. He’s much better then. .167
Gee, Denny, I can’t get around on a MLB fastball any more or I’d help.
Judge Smails needs to execute this offense.
Hey, Melky. Linda Ronstadt just called. You know the drill. Blue meet Bayou.
Hey! we got a 2-out rally going here. Time for Craw to shine. Maybe not. Fucker on the first pitch.
Shit.
So many of the Giants hitters don’t seem to realize that when there are runners on base, it’s THE PITCHER that is trouble. How about slow down the at-bat, and try to make the PITCHER feel some pressure. Take a pitch, step out of the box, whatever….something….
“in” trouble, I meant.
Exactly, Z. I remember being taught that all the way back in LL. In those situations, the batter is in charge. They need to dictate the AB. Not the other way around…as we currently see…
You guys can laugh at me now, but if, IF, and when Franchez returns to the lineup (2-hole)…
I think it’ll help. I always wanted to move Melky down to 5th in the order.
Angels Jared Weaver….NO HITTER against the Twins..Thank god he’s not in our division.
Beltran with 2 HRs tonight, is he still available..?…
A no-hitter for Weaver tonight as the he and the Halo’s blank the Twins. Congratulations.
Shit. Pablo’s out of the game. He’s hurt.
For the last two innings, I’m going to try sending some Eastern mystical vibes across the Pacific. Either that, or it’s time to start rubbing chicken blood on their bats. I’m sensing a “players only” clubhouse meeting before tomorrow’s game. Pablo hurt? Yikes.
Are you just send Rambo back from Vietnam and have in kick some ass on are hitters.
Whatever you’re sending, keep it coming!
I’m trying…..
Ole!