When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

05.24.2007
Que Bonita Bandera

The Bengie Molinas just swept Houston. That’s a slight exaggeration, but The Pork Barrel of Boricua provided the necessary offense in games one and three and helped Timmy The Bellhop work through an evening when he didn’t have his A+ stuff (just A or A-minus), and one bad inning could have spiraled out of control.

All the talk of a catcher’s influence on a pitching staff, I take it with a few grains of salt, preferably sprinkled around the rim of my margarita glass. There’s only so much a guy behind the plate can do, whether it’s calling pitches, putting them in the right spot, or preventing stolen bases. Mainly it’s on the pitcher. But as a pitcher, I also know the rhythm of a game can get out of hand. Focus is critical, and a good catcher will help a rattled pitcher regain it. How much credit does Molina get for the Giants pitching success this year? Let’s discuss.  

But there’s little argument that Bengie Mo has greatly helped the Giants score the most runs in their division. Say whah — most runs in the NL West? After all the complaints about their feeble offense? ‘Tis true, but it speaks more about the rest of the NL West than it does about Giant batsmanship. My thoughts about the team needing another power bat aren’t changed one whit.

A few tidbits about Molina’s knack for clutch hits this year:

With men on and two out: .323 BA / .382 OBP

With runners in scoring position: .389 BA / .450 OBP

With RISP and two out: .474 BA / .545 OBP

Here’s a great stat: Once the count gets to 0–2, Molina is hitting .286. 

Mike Krukow keeps telling an anecdote about Molina saying that once he gets to two strikes, he pretends that he’s 5’2”. He thinks small, he thinks putting the ball in play.  

ESPN’s Buster Olney points out this morning that the A’s tormented Zito in his return to Oakland Friday by stacking the lineup with lefties, who proceeded to go 3–for-4 with 5 walks against Zito. Sure enough, lefties have almost always done better than righties against Zito, sometimes barely (2003, 2006), sometimes overwhelmingly (2004). Last night, Houston sat left-handed bats Mike Lamb and Luke Scott (as well as the switch-hitting Lance Berkman), and the ‘Stros turned in their third straight feeble night on offense. Zito’s next start should come next Wednesday at Shea vs. the Mets, who have a lot of lefty bats.

Let’s see if Willie Randolph sits the badly slumping Carlos Delgado (bats left) against Zito, whom Delgado has never hit well. Also watch to see what happens with Endy Chavez and Shawn Green, lefty bats who are off to blazing starts.

*** 

P.M. UPDATE: Quote of the day from my brothers-in-snark at FJM:

“Trying to score runs with Juan Pierre as your leadoff hitter is like trying to suture a wound in a moving car. You might still be successful -- but why make it so hard on yourself?”

Every so often during Pierre’s 5–year, $44 million contract, he will do things that make his supporters say, “See?”, like he did in the 2003 World Series by bunting for a few hits and stealing a few bases. Then he will go back to getting terrible jumps in centerfield, taking bad routes to fly balls, throwing with his wet noodle of an arm, and making the bad defense not worthwhile by continuing his lifelong pursuit of egregious out-creation. And I will say HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NED COLLETTI YOU DUMB-ASS.

Which leads to this thought: Dave Roberts isn’t much better defensively, so he better get on base a lot when he comes back from the DL.



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[May 24, 2007 1:19 PM]  |  link  |  reply
trilljester said

That triple by Bengie was hilarious last night. The ball sticks in the fence, and then the cutoff man (I'm not sure if it was Everett or Biggio) fumbled the ball around, but I doubt they would've had him at 3rd, Bengie was hauling around like a Mac Truck. hahahahah!

[May 24, 2007 3:19 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Boof said

No, he was hauling a Mack truck on his back.

[May 24, 2007 3:31 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

Not to mention the terrible route Palmiero took to the ball. If he had turned to look he might have caught it by the warning track.

[May 24, 2007 3:43 PM]  |  link  |  reply
trilljester said

Phil Garner is determined to get Palmiero into EVERY game at some point this year. That was a classic case of a guy never playing RF at Mays Field before.

Speaking of newbie RF's, how about Fred Lewis's contributions last night. Nice to see a youngin' being patient at the plate.

[May 24, 2007 4:19 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ogc said

To show Lewis' achievement in patience in its proper light, when he came into our farm system, a major knock on him was whether he could take a walk or not, and he's been great at it, for the most part.

From Baseball Musing's work on defense, Roberts is very good defensively in LF: http://www.baseballmusings.com/archives/018644.php

Unfortunately, he's playing CF for us (no data on how he did in CF in 2006, but in 2005 he was below expected outs: http://www.baseballmusings.com/archives/013107.php).

Winn was actually rated pretty well for CF in 2006: http://www.baseballmusings.com/archives/018645.php

He was also rated above average in RF in 2006 too: http://www.baseballmusings.com/archives/018647.php

Though just behind Vlad, who I've heard some describe as a butcher in RF sometimes (or it could have been bitter Expo fans).

[May 24, 2007 7:10 PM]  |  link  |  reply
giantsrainman said

I agree that Pierre's OBP skills are very lacking for a leadoff hitter.

But, according to the stats (and experts) he is a very good defensive centerfielder. He is rated 5th best in all of baseball with 600 or more innings last year according to TigerTales' Combined Fielding Matrics.

http://detroittigertales.blogspot.com/2007/01/average-fielding-ranks-for-center.html

[May 24, 2007 7:23 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Josh from Hollywood said

giantsrainman, I don't care how many defensive stats you show me, Juan Pierre is not only one of the worst CF in baseball now, he's one of the worst ever. All you have to do is watch one series, and you will see him misplay at least one ball horribly. In fact, he's misplayed 4 or 5 just against the Giants this year. In the series in SF alone, he was resposible for turning three easy fly balls into hits... For Rich Aurilia alone.

There are lies, damned lies, and then there are baseball's defensive statistics.

[May 24, 2007 9:22 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

I'll keep an open mind to defensive statistics, but in this case, I'm extremely skeptical like Josh. Pierre is universally acknowledged as a bad CF. And statistics definitely don't take into account his arm. Like Roberts, Pierre in CF allows a lot of baserunners to go from first to third on singles.

[May 25, 2007 11:46 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Erin said

I hate Pierre. And I started a "Pierre Watch" on my site, just to keep everyone updated on what he's not doing as a leadoff (or #2) hitter.

His OBP is currently .303, and I've seen him misplay two balls in one game already this season. He sucks.

And his middle name is D'Vaughn.

[May 25, 2007 12:36 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

>And his middle name is D'Vaughn.

Better than "Lucky."