Your 2013 Giants: Will This Drop Turn Into a Storm? Panda Homers

What an ace Madison Bumgarner is!  Stops another four game losing streak.  And he's only 23 and we have him signed, looooooooong term.  And to think many people were very against selecting Madison in that draft, angry even that the Giants selected ANOTHER pitcher, when we clearly needed hitting (I'll admit wanted hitting too and wrote that the Giants better be damn sure about this but generally supported the pick; I can still remember the interview with Tidrow and Sabean afterward, and they said that they expected Madison to make the majors in two years, which is very aggressive and advanced, and dang if they were right!).  But I want to talk about the Panda in this post.

Many people have been (understandably) grousing about Pablo's lack of hitting, and the go to complaint is his size.  And it has costed him before, he was benched in 2010 because of that and publicly challenged by the team to get into shape.  And it should not too surprising that a guy his size is DLed that he'll gain weight, because the injury interferes with his exercise routine, particularly leg injuries. 

What I have been noticing is that each time he's been DLed, it takes him a few weeks to get his bat back into his Panda-licious hitting wonder.  After this homer, which has been a sign of him getting his stroke back in the past, I thought I would look at this pattern.

2013

After DLing and returning, he has played 15 games, hitting .140/.219/.175/.394 with a .182 BABIP during that streak, 14 K's in 57 AB, 2 doubles in 8 hits, plus 5 walks.  He just hit his first homer back.  This has been the worse he has been among his warm-ups to getting back into shape.

2012

After DLing for his second hamate bone break in two seasons, he played 18 games before hitting his first homer after returning from DL. In those games, he hit .292/.347/.354/.701 with a .365 BABIP, 14 K's in 65 AB (78% contact), 4 double in 19 hits (21% XBH), plus 5 walks.  In the next 20 games, until his next injury, he hit .284/.325/.554/.879 with a .300 BABIP, 12 K's in 74 AB (84% contact), 12 doubles, 1 triple, and 3 HR in 26 hits (62% XBH), with 6 walks.

After DLing for his hamstring injury, wow, didn't remember him being so cold so long, he took 32 games to hit his first homer.  From August 13 to September 18, he hit .237/.291/.288/.579 with a .262 BABIP, 16 K's in 118 AB (86% contact), 4 doubles and 1 triple in 28 hits (18% XBH), plus 11 walks.  He then hit homers in three straight games and for the rest of the season, he hit .318/.423/.636/1.059 with a .303 BABIP, 7 K's in 44 AB (84% contact), 2 doubles and 4 homers in 14 hits (43% XBH), plus 8 walks.

2011

After DLing for his first hamate bone break, he played 15 games before his first homer.  He hit .262/.281/.328/.609 with a .314 BABIP, 11 K's in 61 AB (82% contact), 4 doubles in 16 hits (25% XBH), plus 2 walks.  From June 30 to the end of the season, 78 games, he hit .326/.368/.606/.974 with a .319 BABIP, 38 K's in 282 AB (87% contact), 19 doubles, 3 triples, and 18 homers in 92 hits (43% XBH), plus 22 walks.

ogc thoughts

Looking over the various DL's, neither BABIP nor contact rate seems to be affected after his return, both show the skills that he had that season, it seems, for those two metrics.  The biggest difference is his power, as evidenced by his XBH% while still getting his bat into shape, and how good it is after he gets back into shape. 

Hitting his first homer seems to be a sign he's out of it, though there was one game for his second hamate break where he got 2 doubles, which is where I was going to start his good stretch, but decided to stick to homers for continuity of the stats across all the DLs.  Else, his bad would have been worse, and his good would have been better, as he got a number of doubles before the homer. 

So hopefully this pattern holds, and the homer he hit tonight is the start of a nice stretch of hitting for the Panda-meister for the rest of the season (health permitting). 

Cain Watch

After a nice string of DOM starts, Cain has had two bad disaster starts in a row.  So his lowered performance since his Perfect Game continues.  Hopefully, this upcoming long rest between starts will rejuvenate his arm some, he will get roughly 10 days between starts because the rain cancelled game dropped his last start of this half, giving him long glorious days of rest. 

Hopefully this will help his arm recover enough, but for something that has lingered from last season (though until the DIS starts, he looked like he might be coming out of it with some great DOM starts), I have a bad feeling that it will continue for the rest of the season, and hopefully, very hopefully, his body will recuperate over this off-season, which looks like it will be longer at the moment (i.e. no playoffs), will do his body good.  And there will not be any WBC to take away any rest either. 

Not that I've given up on this season, but right now, we need to focus on getting to .500 first, then we can think about making the playoffs.