Your 2015 Giants: What the Offense Needed Was A Belt of Belt Belting

I commented elsewhere on Brandon Belt's contributions, making it into a post here (with updates, natch!)

ogc thoughts

People have been upset about Belt's streakiness, but I think, at least lately, it is mostly to do with injuries, and that his recent short bad spell, was just that, and that he showed his maturity as a hitter by getting out of it so fast.  As everyone knows, Belt's hitting have come and go and come back, but early in his career, it was weeks if not months before he figured out how to get back to hitting goodness. This time, he only took 3 games or so.

And many people don't realize that he was hitting well for weeks before his cold streak, there are few hitters who don't go cold over a 3 game streak. He was really cold for his first six games back from injury, but starting April 18th to May 10th, he hit .407/.493/.576/1.069 in 69 PA, 19 games (16 starts). Even with the 3 bad games in there, from April 18th, still hitting .347/.427/.496/.913, which is still elite level hitting. And, of course, the last three games sent his OPS skyrocketing even higher, he is now hitting .395/.464/.640/1.103 in 25 games, 95 PA since April 18th.

Whereas people didn't really pay much attention to how well he was hitting probably until he reached .300 batting average on May 8th, weeks later.   Meanwhile, from April 18th to April 30th, roughly two weeks, he already was hitting .400/.516/.480/.996 and helping the offense immensely.   But people didn't really start to pay attention until 3 weeks after he started hitting the way that he can, which is very well.

Which is why the Giants have believed in him from the time they drafted him, to while all the prospect experts starting to get excited about Belt and acted like they discovered him, to while he struggled because he would not implement most of the Giants recommendations until late in the 2013 season, after which he hit .346/.406/.576/.982 (which is very close to his hitting since April 18th once he got healthy and got back into the swing of things). And even last season, he was hitting .264/.317/.504/.820 until he was HBP. And if you combine his last bit of 2014 once he got his stroke back, plus his playoffs, his numbers will be somewhere in the mid-to-high 800's OPS.

Belt Return Made Sandoval Expendable

People were all worried about losing Pablo's production, but his OPS the past few years weren't all that good, he was streaky as well.   Meanwhile, Belt has been one of the Giants best hitters for years now, even when he was struggling at times in 2012 and 2013.  Thus, not having Belt last season was actually a huge blow to our offense, which many don't seem to notice since they eventually made the playoffs anyway, and basically, in 2015, he replaces Pablo in the middle lineup, which means we actually got an upgrade offensively vs. 2014, not a downgrade. That's why I haven't been worried about losing Pablo's bat.

Unfortunately, we lost Pence's and we got exposed having McGehee hitting 6th instead of 7th or 8th when both Posey and Belt didn't hit for much power. But now Belt has been hitting for power, Posey too, plus Pence is now back, and as long as we got our top guys in our lineup - Aoki, Panik, Pagan, Posey, Pence, Belt -  our offense should be pretty good, definitely above average in his low scoring environment.  And I would argue that Crawford has moved himself up to being a top guy in the lineup, making it that much more potent, top to bottom.

Belt Has Been the Key to Our Winning Again

And Belt has been crucial to our winning, batting 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, depending on the pitcher, lineup, and where he is currently.   Since Belt started hitting April 18th, the Giants have gone 16-9 with him in the game, 17-9 in total, 14-8 in games that he started in.   His hitting ignited our return to winning.

Some might say Posey was the catalyst of that, but Posey was not a big part of that.   From April 18th to April 30th, when the winning began, he only hit .300/.333/.400/.733.  And from May 1st to May 12th, Posey hit a nice but not great .313/.436/.438/.874, as a 125 ISO does not drive in that many runs, as evidenced by his 1 RBI (but 8 runs scored, per his great OBP).  His .333/.333/.583/.917 with two homers in the past 5 games have helped a lot though, as he drove in 7 RBI, while scoring 3 runs.

We Are All Brandons

If there was anyone also key to winning again, it would be Brandon Crawford .  Since April 18th, he has hit .345/.439/.607/1.046 in 98 PA, 26 games played, 24 starts.  4 homers in 84 AB, with 16 runs and 20 RBI was pretty sweet too (Belt himself only had 15 runs scored, 12 RBI and 3 homers).  Together, the Brandons have led the team to our great winning since the losing streak ended, them plus our good starting pitching in that time frame, scoring 31 runs and driving in 32 RBI in those 26 games.

In the 26 games since the end of the losing streak, our starters have had 13 DOM starts and 4 DIS starts for a nice 50% DOM and 15% DIS.  This is good pitching.  And they had averaged 60% DOM in the last three turns of the rotation (their streak ends with this turn, as Bumgarner, Vogelsong, and Heston didn't have any DOM starts, with Hudson and Lincecum yet to pitch).

But that pitching, while good, was not good enough for a team to build a nice 17-9 run, that was only supportive.  It was the Brandons' collective great hitting, both over 1.000 OPS since April, that has drove this winning stretch, scoring and driving in all those runs together.  Though, as always, it takes a team to win, and, in addition to the good pitching, good hitting from Blanco, Posey, Duffy, Panik greatly contributed, as well as timely hitting from Maxwell, who contributed 11 runs scored and 14 RBI (and 3 HRs) since April 18th, though he only had an OPS in the low 700's.