ogc thoughts
Fire and Brimstone
Per reports (including NBCBA Pavlovic), new SF Giants manager Tony Vitello took the blame for the poor start (two consecutive shutouts) by noting that a few days before the start of the season, he had an impromptu “fire and brimstone” speech that he thinks is making the team try too hard now.
For someone who Posey said is a people person, that was a big swing and a miss because even professionals grip their bats hard sometimes, and given the microscopic attention being given the Giants, since, as Vitello noted, he’s the guinea pig, he should have understood that there was already underlying tensions in the roster because these players want to prove Posey was right to hire Vitello, as well as their normal competitive instincts to want to win. Putting additional pressure on the team ahead of the home opener was a rookie mistake, and perhaps a college mistake. Such a move might work in college with more impressionable young players, but with grown men who has lived a little, it might make some grip the bat harder.
Webb was also under extra pressure as well, on top of that, wanting to prove that his selfish decision to participate in the WBC would not affect his performance in the season. And for Adames, he wanted to prove that he can continue his great hitting at the end of 2025, as well as not have a slow start, which has also been a hallmark of his career so far. And Devers wanted to get to a fast start with his first opening day with the Giants. Similarly for the Giants acquisitions in the offseason, Arraez, Bader, Mahle, Houser. And Bailey wants to show he can hit well again, Ramos as well, plus defensively. And Lee wants to show he’s a better player, his opt out is coming after his fourth season.
Speaking of Houser, it looks like, because of the two days of rest happening before the Padres series, the Giants will push Houser back one start, to allow Webb to pitch with his normal days of rest. It was Webb, Ray, Mahle for the Yankees series, then Roupp on Monday, Webb on Tuesday, and Houser on Wednesday.
Hopefully with the extra day off, and going on the road, the Giants can flush the sweep out of their heads and start fresh in San Diego.
Good Signs
Meanwhile, while the Giants lost game 3 and was swept, there were some good signs. Aside from Webb’s performance, the pitching was pretty good to great, as well as the defense. The Giants held the Yankees to only 3 runs in the last two games. The Giants will win a lot of games if the pitching can regularly deliver 3 runs allowed games.
The starters (Ray and Mahle) did about as expected, but the bullpen delivered a lot of zeros, with only the homers given up by Borucki and Butto. And as unproven as this bullpen is, most of the bullpen are roughly around 30 YO, so they are experienced professionals.
Also, I saw reports about Arraez that, while he has poor range, he made a couple of good plays. Discussions of his defense led me to look into his stats and suggests that he should be able to hold his own there. While he had a horrendous DRS (-9) in his first season, he was +5 since then playing 2B. And he did have two bad seasons playing 2B, but those were the seasons he didn’t play 2B much. He not only had his career high hitting when mostly starting at 2B, it was also his highest DRS (+4) that season as well. And he has 2 DRS this season already!
An interesting move (as reported by Baggarly) made by Vitello in game 3 portends a much more aggressive approach to games. He pinch ran for Willy Adames with Jared Oliva, the journeyman bench player who has elite speed and surprisingly won a bench role. Adames was the tying run, but wasn’t pinch run for right away, when there was no outs, but after there was one out.
Adames, unsurprisingly, was surprised about the move, and his answer suggests that he wasn’t on board with the move. And that’s probably because he is a good base runner who has good speed himself.
But Oliva is an even better and faster base runner, and if Bailey had gotten a hit, Oliva would likely have made it to third, if not score if it was a double. And that’s good baseball strategy, made by Vitello, playing for the tie when you are the home team.
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