Your 2014 Giants: 31st Rotational Turn

The Giants 31st Rotation PQS analysis.

ogc thoughts

The rotation rose up a bit this turn, with 3 DOM starts out of 5 (60% is great).  Bumgarner, Peavy, and Petit delivered the DOM, with the Giants winning 2 of 3 (at this time of year, you gotta win all your DOM starts; but it was Petit vs. Kershaw, so it was tough).

Unfortunately, Hudson delivered a DIS start (and a horrible loss to the Dodgers), while Vogie had a MID start, which is a coin flip, generally, and we lost this time.  That gave us a 2-3 record in this turn, not what you want to do as we head into the playoffs, hopefully.

In that regard, the team is looking pretty good, as we have a good lead over the Brewers, with few games left to play.  Barring a complete collapse, the Giants should get one of the wild cards.  But whether we play the home team or not is still up for grabs, as the Pirates make a late surge.

Luckily, both Bumgarner and Peavy look like dual aces right now, so we should be able to keep our heads above water, and Petit pitching well should keep us above Pittsburgh, but Hudson is really screwing up our chances right now.  He might get get skipped a start, and get some rest and get healthy, since he's been having hip problems.

Vogie has also been scuffling and hurting our chances.  We need one of them to step up in their next start and lead us to victory, if we want to have any chances of catching LA, and especially for winning home field Wild Card advantage.  Vogie seems to be our best chance, but he only has one DOM in his last five starts, none in his last three.

Bochy Made Mistake, May Have Cost Us Game

I felt that Bochy made the wrong move in the Petit-Kershaw game.  He went for offense, playing Arias RHB at SS, where he has been poor defensively historically, against the LHP Kershaw, instead of going for defense (and perhaps offense) with Crawford.

That cost us early in the game, as one of the Dodgers hit one to the hole in the second, and Arias was unable to throw him out.  That's a move we've seen Brandon do a million times and be amazed when he throws out the guy.  And that led to a rally, giving them two runs.  If he were thrown out, it would have been one harmless single and 3 outs, no runs.  Without that inning, it would have been 2-2 instead and our lineup challenging their bullpen, which is good, but we have rallied against them before.

We might still not have won, but this allows Kershaw to pitch into the 8th, whereas Mattingly might have been forced to pinch-hit for him earlier to get some offense.   Plus, our relievers have generally been pretty much shutting down teams, when needed.   And, again, we have rallied against LA's bullpen before.

I understand going for more offense as a general rule, but when facing an ace of Kershaw's caliber, you just can't afford to give up any extra runs to the other team, or their ace will bury you.  Which he did.  You need your top defensive team on the field, forget about the offense, because the offense will look bad anyway against Kershaw.  Arias did get two hits, but Crawford has started hitting lately too, and he has proven to be equally good against LHP almost as well as RHP, just look at his splits in minors and majors, very even split for the most part, just slightly better vs. RHP.