Giants PQS: Updated To June 18

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the 2006 season as of June 18, as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book.

Giants Starters' PQS for 2006 Season (as of June 18, 2006)

Matt Cain - ( 33% DOM, 33% DIS): 3, 4, 1, 4, 5, 0, 1, 3, 3, 3, 0, 4
Brad Hennessey - ( 0% DOM, 20% DIS): 3, 2, 3, 1, 2,
Noah Lowry - (12.5% DOM, 25% DIS): 3, 1, 3, 2, 5, 2, 3, 0
Matt Morris - ( 46% DOM, 15% DIS): 3, 4, 3, 1, 4, 1, 2, 3, 2, 5, 4, 5, 4
Jason Schmidt - ( 71% DOM, 0% DIS): 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 3
Jamey Wright - ( 29% DOM, 21% DIS): 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 4, 5, 4, 0, 3, 0, 3, 3

Giants overall - 38% DOM, 18% DIS out of 66 games pitched

NOTE: I think technically, under the system, Lowry's first start and Morris' start where he promptly got ejected, should count against their totals, but I think under the extenuating circumstances, they should not, basically because this system tries to ferret out how the good performances by a starter and none of those games were zeros because of a poor performance. Lowry got injured early in the game; and Morris got ejected early in the game.

Latest Comments

The Giants starters overall have been pitching well in their games. A DOM near or around the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great and above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching. So, generally, the Giants pitching has been doing OK this season and has been bordering on good overall:

1. Schmidt has been very dominating and he has returned to elite status, joining those with a DOM greater than 70%. And he has not even had one disaster start yet. He's returned to his dominating ways in time to become a free agent. As I noted in another post, Sabean said that the Giants are looking to try to re-sign Schmidt in the off-season but I'm not sure if it's to honestly try and re-sign him or to get the draft picks in compensation.
2. Morris continued to improve, running off a string of dominant starts since the last update, bringing his streak to 4 starts now. As a result, he has brought up his DOM% to 46%, which has been his range (40-49%) for the last few years of his career, after he had his arm problems and had to become more of a finesse pitcher. Being a hyper-competitive personality, perhaps he was too amped up to control his pitches - I noticed that he couldn't really strike out a lot of batters, not even once in a while, like he did in previous seasons, which until recently would be a sign that he's pretty much done. He didn't reach 5 K's in a game until early May and just had his first start with over 5 K's, which I am taking as a sign that he's finally either calmed down or figured things out.
3. Lowry, despite apparently doing well his first start, it was just OK as the underlying PQS metrics says he is lacking in quality. Unfortunately, he could not build off of the dominating start he recently had and had a poor string of games, culminating in his disaster in his last start. I'm beginning to worry about Lowry because he hasn't really been the same since his injury. Even last season, when he started off poorly, he still had 50%DOM/22%DIS in the first half of the season, which in retrospect was a sign of his dominance coming in the second half of the seasons (67%DOM/0%DIS second half), and there is not that many starts until we reach the half way point for this season. I don't know if he is pressing because of his newly signed big contract or if the injury affected him more than he thought or what, but he has not been himself at any point this season and we need him to straighten things out by season's end because we need him in the playoffs, should we make it.
4. Matt Cain was doing well early, with a few dominant starts, but maybe the lack of overt success (i.e. wins and low ER) got to him and he started messing around with his mechanics or something, leading to all the disaster starts. However, after skipping one start to work on his mechanics, along with a relief outing, he has pitched much better since then. The 1-hitter was particularly good, though it didn't qualify as a dominating start because of the high number of walks and relatively low strikeouts, but that was against an Oakland team built to do exactly that so that probably wasn't all his fault. And after a disaster start against Pittsburgh at home, he had a dominating type of game in Arizona, which would be the opposite of what one would expect. Hopefully he can build off of that start going forward, starting with tonight.
5. Wright is doing as well as could be expected, but he was also just one out away from a DOM start when the umpire blew the call and gave the other team a baserunner. He then gave up a bunch of hits - had the umpire not blow the call, he would have gotten a DOM. In any case, he has been pitching well enough for the team as the number five starter, making up for Morris not being the Morris we expected to get when he was signed. Luckily Wright's performance covered for Morris and now it looks like Morris has returned to normal, about the same type Wright returned to normal (unfortunately). But he is as advertised, someone who can deliver about 30-39% dominating starts, an average pitcher who will have his ups and downs - I had been hoping, per pre-season posts, that he could be more than that with San Francisco, pushing himself up to the 40-49% range that marks a good pitcher but so far he has not been able to deliver that yet. Maybe it takes a while for pitchers to get used to AT&T Mays Fields like the way batters have to spend some time there to get used to hitting there: on the road, he has a 3.10 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, and .223 BAA with no disaster starts, whereas at home he has a 6.18 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, and .302 BAA with three disaster starts (he has two dominating starts in each).

The rotation is shaping out nicely. Schmidt has been on a tear for a while now. Morris and Cain just tossed dominating games. And Wright has been the most consistent pitcher outside of Schmidt and helped carry the team while the other three starters have been struggling with one thing or another. Only Lowry appears to be still struggling seriously, which will keep win streaks short, along with Wright struggling to figure out pitching at home.

But the Giants should be getting good performances overall going forward. With all the key hitters back in the lineup, the Giants could start climbing up the NL Western division towards first place over the next few weeks. Particularly with Winn getting close to July, when he starts to turn things on, historically, during his career, and Bonds apparently getting healthier and hitting better. Being only a couple of games out despite being at the bottom of the division helps as well.

Methodology Explanation

Please look at my link to the side for my explanation of Baseball Forecaster's methodology.