Your 2013 Giants: Thoughts on Rotation Plans

Bochy released the Giants rotation plans.  To give Cain extra time, as well as Bumgarner with the All-Star game traveling, and Lincecum with his huge pitch count in his no-hitter, the Giants start out with Gaudin, then Cain, Bumgarner, Lincecum, and lastly Zito (of course), though technically there are two games that day, to make up for the rained out game in Cincinnati.

For that old fashion double header, Kickham will be called up to start one game, with Zito pitching the other start.  The first game will be considered a "home" game for the Reds since it is making up their rain out, and people were joking that since Zito has been hammered on the road, the Giants should start him in the second game, which is considered our original home game for that day.

ogc thoughts

First off, I expect the Giants to pitch Kickham in the first game, then send him down and pull up another pitcher at that point for relief.  Not sure who will be riding that Fresno-SF express, but bets are on Machi since I think his ten required days in AAA, after getting sent down, would be fulfilled by then.  Not sure who gets sent down to bring up Kickham, maybe Kontos, since he's been up and down this season, whereas Dunning has been doing well.

Second, people have been worried about Cain's health since he got bombed in his last two starts, and this move just fuels the fires.  The Giants and Cain have said that he is healthy and that there is nothing wrong.  However, Cain should have 9 days of rest between starts to July 19, the first game back, 10 days of rest for his scheduled start on July 20th.  And he didn't really throw that many pitches in that last start either, so it was not like it was a regular start, he got rest that day too.  There is caution about giving a pitcher more rest, and then there is CAUTION, and the difference between 9 and 10 days seems trivial - for a healthy pitcher. 

Third, I counted through all the starts and we have more home games than road games in the second half, 5 in total.  By positioning them in this way, Bumgarner, clearly our best pitcher now, gets the call for the most road games, at 7, everyone has 6.  It also gives both Gaudin and Cain 8 home starts, while Lincecum and Zito end up with 7, so that works out the way we want it too.  The only question then is whether Cain first or Gaudin first, and they went Gaudin to give Cain more rest.  I guess since the results are the same, why not give him more rest?

OK, here's where it makes sense to position Cain this way.  First he gets to pitch in first series against AZ.    Then he also faces Orioles, a tough team now, in the rubber game.  He also draws the first start of the Pirates series at home.  Then here we go, he gets to pitch in Colorado, then two starts later, AZ, following that up with first start of LAD series in LA, then first start of LAD series at home, plus the final game of the season.  That's 8 key/tough starts out of 14, and he faces almost every series against AZ and LAD in the second half.  He just misses the AZ series at the end of August.

And Bumgarner being next after him, he also gets AZ, Nats in DC, Pirates at home also, Rockies on road also, AZ at home also, LAD on road also, LAD at home also, plus he's available to start the first game of the playoffs since we make it that far.  That's 7 key/tough starts out of 14.

Gaudin gets 3 against AZ, plus CIN, BAL, BOS, COL twice, plus NYY, that's 9 starts against good teams, but he misses both of the LAD series.

Which means that Lincecum makes many of them.  Let's see:  Reds, Rays, Nats, BOS, Pirates, AZ, COL, LAD, NYY, LAD (yep, both LA series too, we throw Cain, Bumgarner, Lincecum against LAD twice in two weeks, plus a Zito start).  He has 10 starts against good teams.

And Zito gets the leftovers, however that works out.  Reds, Rays, O's, Nat's, BOS, Pirates, AZ, AZ, COL, LAD, NYY.  That's 11 starts against good teams, so hopefully he's ready to start another good run for us, like he did at the end of last season for us.

Oddly, our back end of the rotation faces more of the better teams, but less of our top NL West contenders, AZ and LAD.  And that is good, a loss to a good team outside of our division does not hurt as much as losing to any of our top competitors, who are the D-backs and Dodgers.   And it is not like we can hide Zito, he has to face teams too. 

The one thing that this means, though, is that the Giants can't throw in Kickham anytime in August to try to give the starters an extra day off, there are only one off days from July 26 to August 28, that's 33 straight days with only one off day within (and off days on July 25 and August 29).  Then the next day off is on September 16, 18 days later.  So that is a brutal run of games, that's why I thought maybe the Giants might stick in Kickham once or twice in that stretch to give the starters an extra day of rest.  But then that would screw up the order of Cain, Bum, Tim facing LAD twice near the end.