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

06.04.2007
Thirdsies

A third of the season officially passed us with Saturday’s loss. I have general thoughts, but first, a few specific comments on the Phils series so far:

Jack Taschner was bad yesterday, walking Chase Utley and throwing a fastball down the middle to Ryan Howard. But yesterday’s loss didn’t gall me — good hitters will sometimes prevail. They beat up Lincecum, Utley refused to budge on Taschner’s sliders, and Victorino hit a decent pitch the other way for a cheap home run. The loss Saturday didn’t burn me too much, either. If Noah Lowry had shut down the Phils, you’d be saying, Wow, that Lowry, when he’s on he’s a tough guy to hit. Not: What’s wrong with the Phillies’ bats? So give credit to Cole Hamels. Sometimes good pitchers prevail. And he is very, very good pitcher. A victory today would earn a series split in a ballpark that usually gives the Giants fits: I’ll take it. Then two of three in Arizona, and it’s a .500 road trip. Not earth-shaking but respectable in the microcosmic view.

Post-game: I’ll vault into the macrocosm.

***

P.M. UPDATE: How Zito gave up no earned runs today, I’ll never know. He pitched brilliantly when he wasn’t pitching terribly. Ray Durham didn’t help him out much, either. Without Durham’s error on the DP ball in the 5th, Zito probably could have gone an extra inning.

I’ll give the Giants credit for this: Zito may be overpaid and under-velocitied, but he’s damn fun to watch when he’s on. I noted this years ago even though I was no A’s fan. That big curveball dropping from the sky and across the plate is as much a fan-pleaser as a high Cain fastball or a Vizquel double-play pivot. Part of his salary is marketing dollars, no doubt, but as long as he’s healthy and winning ballgames, he’ll earn his keep.

Let us now talk offense. Don’t let the 31–15 run differential in this series fool you. The Giants gut-punched a mediocre pitching staff in a bandbox ballpark. The coming series against Arizona and Randy Johnson, Brandon Webb and Livan Hernandez will be much more telling.

First order of business: no panic. If Roberts returns this week and the Giants fail to creep a little closer to the top of the division by, say, the third week of June, it wasn’t meant to be. Please, no short-term offensive reinforcements if the team is seven games out. Until the current crew makes things more interesting, I promise I will not demand a trade for a hitter even if they’re shut out three straight times in the desert. Just tie me to the mast and, whatever I do, ignore my commands.

Things could be a lot worse — like in the Bronx, where the season has irretrievably, uh, strayed. And in Chicago, where Lou Piniella’s agent should try to ink Lou to a mouthwash endorsement. I’ll throw in the ad copy: “Give ‘em hell, but keep it fresh.”  

Out here, it’s just a run-of-the-mill freak show.  

If Sabean can fleece another GM and build for the future with a Noah Lowry-for-Carl Crawford type of deal (ha), fine. Otherwise, sit on your hands a while longer, Brian.

First-third MVP: Bengie Molina and Barry Bonds.
First-third Cy Young: Matt Morris.

Hard to argue that Bonds isn’t most valuable to the Giants, but I’ll give Molina a co-pilot award for being so clutch and being the only worthy bat in the order after Bonds for most of the year. As for Morris, he’s pitched at least 6 innings in all but one start, he’s given up more than 3 earned runs only once.  
Also on the Network:



[June 4, 2007 6:17 PM]  |  link  |  reply
someguynamedg said

"Hard to argue that Bonds isn’t most valuable to the Giants, but I’ll give Molina a co-pilot award for being so clutch and being the only worthy bat in the order after Bonds for most of the year. As for Morris, he’s pitched at least 6 innings in all but one start, he’s given up more than 3 earned runs only once."

Jesus when you put it like that my love of Matty Mo grows and grows....

[June 4, 2007 6:31 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Luke said

I agree with the Matty Mo Cy-Young candidacy, which is exactly why they need to trade him to the Yankees. Even though they are so far behind, there's no way Steinbrennar will take it in the shorts for the rest of the season. There's also no reason for the Giants to hang on to Morris for the rest of his expensive contract if they're going younger in the years to come and if they hang on to their pitching core. Buy low and sell high!

[June 4, 2007 6:31 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Luke said

I agree with the Matty Mo Cy-Young candidacy, which is exactly why they need to trade him to the Yankees. Even though they are so far behind, there's no way Steinbrennar will take it in the shorts for the rest of the season. There's also no reason for the Giants to hang on to Morris for the rest of his expensive contract if they're going younger in the years to come and if they hang on to their pitching core. Buy low and sell high!

[June 4, 2007 6:31 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Luke said

I agree with the Matty Mo Cy-Young candidacy, which is exactly why they need to trade him to the Yankees. Even though they are so far behind, there's no way Steinbrennar will take it in the shorts for the rest of the season. There's also no reason for the Giants to hang on to Morris for the rest of his expensive contract if they're going younger in the years to come and if they hang on to their pitching core. Buy low and sell high!

[June 4, 2007 6:31 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Luke said

I agree with the Matty Mo Cy-Young candidacy, which is exactly why they need to trade him to the Yankees. Even though they are so far behind, there's no way Steinbrennar will take it in the shorts for the rest of the season. There's also no reason for the Giants to hang on to Morris for the rest of his expensive contract if they're going younger in the years to come and if they hang on to their pitching core. Buy low and sell high!

[June 4, 2007 6:32 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Luke said

Whoops, sorry about all the posts. My computer is being screwy.

[June 4, 2007 7:12 PM]  |  link  |  reply
pantalones said

I agree, Lefty. If they crawl back in it somehow, try to add a bat and/or a reliever at the deadline. If not, sell.

And I agree with Luke all four times. There is a lot of talk about how the Giants need to draft a hitter who can help out in 2009 if not 2008. Given the fact that there are exactly zero hitters in the big leagues right now who were drafted in 2006, this doesn't seem very realistic to me. A more realistic way to get a young hitter who can help in 2008 is to sell high on Morris, Winn, Molina and/or Klesko. (Although Winn seems happy here and is unlikely to waive his no-trade clause.)

[June 4, 2007 7:28 PM]  |  link  |  reply
pantalones said

More food for thought. I am always skeptical about pythagorean win percentages (formulas that determine how many games a team should win based on their runs scored and runs allowed). When a team loses as many close games as the Giants have, their flaws (bullpen, consistent hitting) are exposed and it's tough to believe when the Pythag standings tell us that they're a much better team. Still, over time these numbers have consistently indicated future winning percentages better than the current winning percentages have.

With that in mind, here are the basic Pythag winning percentages for NL teams after today's game:

.642, San Diego
.629, NY Mets
.558, San Francisco
.555, LA Dodgers
.533, Arizona
.531, Chicago Cubs
.527, Atlanta
.522, Milwaukee
.493, Philadelphia
.488, Florida
.435, Cincinnati
.424, Pittsburgh
.421, Houston
.420, Colorado
.389, St. Louis
.363, Washington

[June 4, 2007 8:19 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Frank said

Yeah, that's very interesting, Pants, and it has to be SDs unbelieveable pitching. How good is their pitching and how much of it is pitching in Petco?

[June 4, 2007 8:39 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Josh from Hollywood said

That is very interesting Pants, but don't you think the Giants are exactly the kind of team that screws with the pythagorean system? They have an untrustworthy pen, and an inconsistent offense which is unable to do the little things which often win close games (i.e. move runners over, score them from 3rd with less than 2 out, etc.), yet every once in a while they somehow score 13 or 15 runs in game, or get 9 in an inning to make it appear as if their offense is better than it is. They're kind of like the bizzaro '97 Giants, who won all the close ones but lost several blowouts on their way to winning the division despite having a bad pythag record.

[June 4, 2007 9:31 PM]  |  link  |  reply
pantalones said

That's exactly what I think, Josh, and I kinda hinted at it in my post. My heart tells me that I've been watching a .500 team at best this this season.

But I suppose it's natural that most teams look like their won-loss record. Wins tend to cover up flaws, and losses tend to overemphasize them. You can't convince a Brewer fan that the Cubs have a better team right now, and you can't convince a Cubs fan that his team isn't hopeless.

Pythagorean zealots (and I am certainly not one of them) will tell you that the inefficient bunching of our runs is a fluke. The fact that we rarely lose blowouts means that we always have a chance to win late, and it some point we just might start doing that on a regular basis. And they would probably scream at you that the '97 Giants were historically lucky.

I just checked the June 4, 2006 standings to see how pythagorean predicted how the teams would finish. It wasn't very conclusive... 16 teams ended up closer to their actual winning percentage, and 14 closer to pythagorean. Run differential successfully predicted a few collapses (Cincy, Boston) and a few resurrections (Florida, Seattle), but was too optimistic on Cleveland and the Dodgers, and too pessimistic on Milwaukee and the Mets.

I'm losing what little enthusiasm I had for this stat; I'd happily sacrifice it for a 26-1 loss and a dozen 3-2 victories.

[June 4, 2007 11:41 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

Look at it this way: the Giants took the weekend test match from the Phillies by an all-in of 31 to 15.

[June 5, 2007 12:31 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Anonymous said

Great post, Lefty, and the tie-you-to-the-mast command is not just for laughs...your words on May 30: "As soon as the opportunity arises, trade [Ortiz] (or Matt Morris, or Noah Lowry) for a big right-handed bat." The hardest thing will be the just-one-more-player move, the Sexson or Willy Mo trade. Don't untie the ropes no matter what he says! However if a big dumb cyclops offers us a Crawford...?!? Who looks good and young in the Yankees' system?

Those Rodriguez blond dame masks are really cruel, and really funny!

[June 5, 2007 2:12 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

>the tie-you-to-the-mast command is not just for laughs

No, not at all. I'm inconsistent and irresponsible. I'm a junkie looking for a fix: one last score, man, and the pennant is ours!

[June 5, 2007 2:19 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Roger said

Pantalones, it's not terribly realistic, but there's certainly at least one hitter from 2006 who could be in the majors right now (Longoria) and will be soon and there's actually a few from 2005 (which would be our 2009 from now), including Ryan Zimmerman who was in the majors three months after being drafted (also Troy Tulowitzki, Alex Gordon, Ryan Braun).