Giants Offensive Offense

I hear the moans and cries about the Giants offense, and I can sympathize. Particularly after the great hitting we saw on the road followed by the pretty dead offense since we've been home. I've been thinking about that for a while and remembered something that was said in an interview back in 2003.

Grissom noted in an interview that he, Edgardo Alfonzo, and Ray Durham had a heck of a time figuring out how to hit in AT&T. Said that it took them about half a season to figure that one out. And they were all long-time successful professional hitters when they joined the Giants.

That struck a chord with me because that's what happened to the Giants their first season here in the beautiful park by the Bay, they lost their first 6 games there before the hitters, one by one, figured it out and actually ended the season with the best home record despite giving everyone a 6 loss lead.

Spring forward 5 seasons and now we have, one would think (and that was my initial thesis for this post) that it is our youngsters struggling at home while thriving on the road. However, it is the opposite right now, they are hitting much worse on the road than at home:

NewG-Home: .258/.317/.411/.728
NewG-Away: .220/.280/.339/.619

Meanwhile, it is the vets who suck (relatively) at home:

VetG-Home: .267/.327/.393/.720
VetG-Away: .318/.375/.502/.877

Oddly enough, the newbies are actually hitting a little better at home than the vets, though marginally (and statistically insignificantly so).

And, as I'm sure someone will say, this is all small sampling, which I readily acknowledge.

Still, that's why the Giants offense has suffered at home relative to the road this season, their vets are not able to do as well at home as they can on the road. However, despite how poorly the new players hit on the road, the vets, who are the core heart of the batting order in any case, hit well enough to make up for that shortfall when they are away.

Durham and Vizquel are the only vets to hit better at home than on the road. Vizquel doesn't count due to lack of AB. So it will be interesting to see if Rowand can figure things out and hit better at home. However, he's already the second best hitter among the vets at home, so I don't know what amount of improvement there is left.

Among the newbies, Lewis really hits a lot better at home than on the road, helping to counteract the vets. Bowker and Ortmeier too. Castillo as well, to some extent as well.

Thus, for the Giants to do better, it will be up to the vets to start hitting as well at home as they do on the road, and by a good margin.