Your 2010 Giants: Deja Vu All Over Again: Who's Their Dre-ddy?

Nothing like a sweep to get the nasty taste of getting swept by the 'Dres out of your mouth. Them getting swept by the D-gers is nice too, though that keeps the D-gers only 1.5 games behind us and 2.0 games out of the lead. I don't like the D-gers winning, but when you sweep, you gain on somebody and that's good.

Now they get to face the 'Dres again, but on their home turf, get another chance to slay the monster in the closet. Every year there always seem to be a team that, for whatever reason, just beats up on the Giants. The 'Dres has been that team this year. Solving beating them would do wonders for not only our record but for getting into the playoffs. The Giants are 21-9 outside of playing them, though to be fair, outside of Houston too, they are 15-9. With only a two game series, it would take a sweep to gain anything, and it will be a tough series again.

Game 1: Clayton Richard vs. Matt Cain

Hard to tell what's going to happen with Richard. He was not a heralded prospect in the minors, only getting prospect status late in his minor league career, jumping to #5 in 2009 ChiSox Top 30 by Baseball America. As BA noted, he "rarely was considered more than a fringe prospect before 2008." But with a sinker that can get a lot of groundballs, he was able to take leaps and bounds and has been a good pitcher over the 2009-10 seasons in the majors with his stuff. But Minor League Baseball Analyst only rated him a #5 starter and BA wondered if he'll be better off as a reliever.

Still, he has been doing well, and if anything, has been very unlucky against left-handed batters this season. His low K/9 and K/BB (plus high BB/9) is countered by his strong 1.78 GB/FB ratio. The key plus for him is his low HR/FB he's had so far this season, only 2.7% vs. 10.9% his past two seasons (11.3% with San D last season), so unless Bud Black has figured out a way for Richard to be unlike any other pitcher in the majors, that imbalance in homers hit per flyball should correct itself this season. However, that does not mean the Giants will be the one to correct that.

He's a better pitcher at home but Cain has been a good pitcher on the road the past two seasons, so like last week, this should be a good matchup, may the better man win (of course, that means Cain :^). I think I would lean towards Cain though, he has dominated in San Diego previously, and as I noted, he's improved on the road, and Richard should be expecting regression in homers sooner or later.

Game 2: Mat Latos vs. Jonathan Sanchez

Latos, on the other hand, has been a highly touted prospect, BA had him #2 last season on the Dres' Top 30 and Minor League Baseball Analyst rated him a future #2 starter. However, BA noted that his "questionable maturity" caused him to fall in the draft but that his "raw stuff is ridiculously good." (which manifested itself in last week's thrown ball breaking Dave Flemming's car's sunroof, which could have severely hurt or killed someone; about as smart as people who fire their guns into the air when celebrating) They also noted that "he ends to reject structure, lacks a commitment to improve and rubs teammates the wrong way with his flippant attitude." (if I didn't mention it, the reason he throw the ball out of the ball park was because fans in the stands were yelling at him to throw them a souvenir ball and he thought it was funny to throw it to them like he's doing them a favor but throw it over their heads instead, out of reach).

But immature adolescents can do well in the majors and he has, which probably justifies his behavior in his mind. And his minor league stats seem to support his performance in the majors thus far. He gets a ton of ground balls, as well as also getting a lot of infield flies as well, so his low BABIP will not necessarily regress over time. He has also been unlucky with the long-ball this season, so that regression will help him greatly, as it's at 15.2% HR/FB when the mean is 10%.

However, while his ERA is better at home, he's shown much better peripherals on the road. His minors suggest that he's not as good as he has been on the road nor as bad as he's been at home. But he's been on a good streak, with consecutive shutouts (2 hitter and 1 hitter), so he's probably going to be tough again.

But so will Sanchez, who has pitched very well against the 'Dres - he seems to have their number - and so it should be another great battle, hard to say who would win, but given Latos two great games, have to lean towards him.

Giants Thoughts

So there will likely be a split this series, but given our bad streak so far against them, we could get swept again. That's baseball sometimes, just goes back and forth for a team, and some team for some reason got your number.

But the Giants has been good overall against the other teams, winning series against teams we might face in the playoffs if we make it (Braves, Colarado, Marlins, Phillies, Cards), and luckily has beaten up on the Astros, which makes up for for their futility so far with San Diego.

Plus, outside of the Giants, San Diego is only 16-15. So, as the season progresses, I expect us to pull away from the 'Dres, as their pitching staff gets off their hot streak, reverting closer to their career numbers, and their poor offense costs their good but not great pitching to lose games.  I like Kevin Correia, but if he's the ace of your staff, you are going to fall back down to reality at some point.

Their dominance of the Giants is the only thing keeping them in the race so far, just one win in each series by the Giants would have resulted in the Giants leading SD by 3.5 games and simply one win period would mean a 1.5 game lead.  The change due to one game is huge.

Though if their hitting prospects like Blanks and Venable starts to hit, their offense would perk up a lot, and they probably miss Everth Cabrera a lot, though he had not done much this season so far before going on the DL.  A-Gon has also been a bit cold too, him heating up would boost things as well.  Nobody has really been hitting well, it is all their wild base stealing that has propped up their lousy offense enough to win games with their good pitching.  Their numbers look amazingly like the 2009 Giants, except that they don't have anybody in their rotation to compare with Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez, Garland has been lucky this season with them, only Latos look like he would be comparable in terms of talent and abilities.

Meanwhile, the hot D-gers, on a 7 game win streak, should get a kick in the gut if/when Andre Ethier goes on the DL for a broken pinkie. I don't see how he can hit with it, in an ESPN article, he noted that he uses the pinkie as a leverage point in his swing, plus, as Torre mentioned, in any case, he will have to have the finger in a splint. I don't see how any hitter can hit with his finger immobilized in a splint, and further, I would think that would invite a lot of inside fastballs up on his hands.

So, again, the Giants get another chance to make a statement by taking two games from the 'Dres. The Panda, in particular, will have to come out of hibernation and start kung fu-ing the ball again.  He appears to be warming up a little the past week, but needs to bring back the power to his swing.  The key thing is that during his cold streak, at least he hasn't been striking out a lot, he's been very good in terms of not striking out a lot, the problem has been that his batted balls have not been falling in like it used to.  His .173 BABIP will not persist.  And in the past week, his strikeout rate went down and he got his first walk in a while.

It also appears that Freddie Sanchez, who has been hitting well in the minors, will get called up today while DeRosa gets DLed.  That would push Downs out of the lineup but hopefully will solidify our #2 spot in the lineup, which has been in flux since Renteria went on the DL (he should be coming off soon himself).  Downs had done well initially but his batting line has been falling in recent games, so the switch would be a good time to do.  Downs saved us when we lost Renteria, so he did well for us.  

While I'm not still sold on Torres, he has been great taking over the starting spot in LF in DeRosa's absence - appears that the Giants are not sold that Bowker is ready yet - and his numbers this year is basically the same as last year.  He has been killing LHP pitching again, but amazingly has been holding his own against RHP.  If he starts regularly against RHP, though, his overall batting line will fall as he's still facing more LHP than RHP and a starter typically faces RHP 3 times as much as LHP.  Still, ride him while he's hot and see how far he can go.

In any case, Schierholtz has cooled off since his 3 hit game, and he will need to heat up again in the next week or two, or he'll go back to sharing the RF job with Bowker.  Hitting in an extreme pitcher's park like SD will not help, nor against two hot pitchers.  But then two games in Arizona should help.  I've been rooting for Nate for a long while now, but he'll need to start hitting to keep the job, he can't get hot for two weeks then go cold for two weeks, like he did last season, if he hopes to hold the starting job.  But as long as Bowker hasn't figured it out either, neither will have a tight hold on the job.  Ideally, though, at least for the long run, both starts hitting, having too many good hitters is always a good problem to have.

I still don't care for Molina batting 4th but with Sanchez back, the lineup probably will be:  Rowand, Sanchez, Sandoval, Molina, Huff, Uribe, Schierholtz, and Torres.  Sandoval should really be our cleanup hitter, a better lineup for right now would probably be this, putting speed up top:  Torres, Sanchez, Schierholtz, Sandoval, Huff, Rowand,  Molina, Uribe.  Uribe has been cold since taking over SS, and I think Schierholtz would see more fastballs hitting ahead of Sandoval and Huff.  Plus, the #3 hitter, unlike conventional baseball theory, is not a key hitting spot, OBP is wasted there, according to The Book, by TangoTiger, MGL and Patroit, the 5th best hitter should go there.  So you could swap Uribe and Schierholtz then, depending on who you think is better, or even put Molina there is you think he is better.  What they found is that the #3 hitter often comes up in situations where there are already two outs, so getting on base is not as valuable there, in terms of scoring runs overall.

What was not discussed was how valuable it is to score first in a game.  I'm not sure how to research this, but I recall a stat somewhere that said that Giants did well when they scored first.  Looking at their record when leading, once they get the lead, the Giants have held it for the most part.  Bochy likes to bat Sandoval 3rd because then he would be sure to bat in the first inning and maybe get something started.  But I just think he'll be more valuable driving in the runs from the 4-spot.