A Tale of Three Pandas and un Petit du Cain

As people know, Pablo Sandoval has had a struggle of a season, but has come back from the struggles to be on one of his hot streaks.  Here's how I analyze his season so far:  in three parts (and the last part in two segments).  Also, news on Cainer and his regular stand-in.

ogc thoughts

SuperSandoval!

As noted, Sandoval has busted things open, kind of like this:

His season has been characterized as being one of struggle and then production.  I see there being three parts.

Part one of Sandoval's adventures this season was what I would call "Gift of the Miggy."   During the off-season, he was being mentored by Miguel Cabrera, who told him if he is to be a great hitter, he needs to take more walks.  Nothing new to his ears, I'm sure, but I suppose it was the way Miggy said it.  :^)  That characterized his first part of the season, where he hit .186/.284/.322/.606 with 2 HR in 59 AB, and 8 walks vs. 12 strikeouts, which is a great walk rate, exceptional especially for Pablo, who rarely saw a pitch that he didn't want to swing at, for a very good 0.67 BB/K ratio and OK 80% contact rate, but remember, this is probably still small sampling for any stat.  Still, this walk rate has to be so many standard deviations from his regular rate that it was significantly different, and indicative of Pablo trying to take more walks.

Part two of his seasonal adventure was what I would call "Panicking Panda."  He took the advice but while he was walking more, he wasn't hitting (not really surprising, when you are up there trying to learn to do something  new, you lose all your muscle memory and are stating from scratch), so it appears that he tried to switch gears and return to his usual hacking ways, thanks for the noble try to take walks, but we need you to hit like you naturally do.  Hard to mark exactly when he reached part two, given small sample sizing issues, so I took the start of this period to be after the walk in the prior game, plus the start of consecutive games of strikeouts, basically his walks went way down and his strikeouts way up.

His swing is a way of life, very zen, and he needs to work his way back out of the jungle that is his brain pathways, much like he has always had to do every time he returned to MLB pitching from a visit to the DL, he needs to find his swing.  That generally took about 4-6 weeks.  This time he took less time and in this second part, he hit .145/.203/.218/.422 with .205 BABIP, 16 K's in only 55 AB ( 29% contact rate, really bad) plus no walks and no homers, covering 16 games and 3 weeks of time (April 17 to May 6).

Part three, his current sojourn, is what the picture above depicts, "Super Sandoval."  His bat finally started to time MLB pitching and he's squaring the ball.  He's hitting .339/.344/.613/.957 with .321 BABIP (that's actually low for him) with only 6 K's in 62 AB (roughly 90% contact rate, which is great) and 4 homers (15.5 AB/HR rate, roughly 40+ homerun seasonal rate).  Only one walk, but that's classic Panda.

And really, I am stretching his good period a bit, there is actually two parts in that.  I usually count his having a multiple extra-base hit game as the turning point for switching into Panda-mode.  That was actually May 16 (almost exactly a month from April 17).  If you look back at all his down periods, the signal that he's out of the woods is a double tap of extra-base hits.  In that transitional phase, from May 7 to May 15, he had a good contact rate (3 K's in 33 AB, 91% contact rate) but no power, hitting .333/.354/.394/.748, with 0 HR.   From May 16, which is when he got two extra-base hits, he has hit .345/.333/..862/1.195 with 4 homers in 29 AB.

For his power, during his MLB career, has come in spurts.  He didn't do much in 2008 and early (first two months) of 2009, but then he started blasting them.  In 2010, he had spurts of power (like his first month) interspersed with periods of no power, as personal turmoil (divorce, custody battle, mother's near-death situation in San Bruno) played havoc with him, as well as his weight, and he ate his way out of the World Series lineup, pushing Sabean to say it's up to him and the first "Camp Panda", where he worked to lose that weight.  That led to his great 2011, except for the first of his hamate bone breaking, then injuries like his second hamate bone breaking and hamstring issues, put him on the DL, pushing him back to start to regain first his batting stroke in the majors, then his power stroke.

He appears to have come round circle again this season with that cycle of down, recovery, and then up into the air, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's super-Sandoval!

Cain to Skip Start, Petit to Start Instead

As the news notes, Cain will skip his start - again.  This time due to his hamstring injury.  He has already missed two starts this season, for his sandwich making adventure where he survived a knife cut, and his last start was cut short by his hamstring injury, so I would say three starts missed, or at least interfered with.  And, who knows, he could miss the next one too and get DLed briefly.  But that's not the news to me.

The news is Petit will be taking his spot - again.  This will be his fourth emergency start this season, third was for Hudson's hippy hurt.  Much was made about how the Giants don't have much depth in the starting rotation, and some were not sold on Petit.  I'm not sure what they were not sold on.

Petit has been a very good starter with us.  Whatever problems he had before as a prospect and MLB pitcher, either maturity, Giants coaching, or both, has led him to finally capitalize on the skill set he possessed when he was a regular on Top prospect lists when he was coming up.   He has done very well for us in the minors, and then for us in the majors.

He has had 6 quality-level starts out of 11 starts for the Giants.  I would give him at least one or two more, for while he didn't pitch the requisite 5 IP necessary for PQS dominance, he was pretty close in terms of performance, just didn't make the required IP, which he might have made but Bochy took him out, partly because emergency starters are not usually prepared to go so many innings, so many pitches, you usually need to work up to that.  Petit appears to have a bit of a rubber arm, like Lincecum, and can just come into a game cold and start pitching well.

So depth or no depth (given how poorly our crop of minor league starters are doing this season, including our supposedly next starting pitcher in line, Escobar, we have little depth in the minors), Petit has made that "flaw" of our minor league system a non-question by taking the ball whenever needed and not only eating innings for us, but throwing good quality games as well.  The Giants the last two seasons have been 8-2 in his starts for us.

Your 2013 Giants: Pre-Fanfest News

News from Chron and Merc.

Posey Extension Openness

Biggest news for me is that the Giants and Posey stated publicly that they are open to discussing a long-term contract this spring.  Of course, that don't mean that they will come to an agreement, but it is good that it is at least out in public, the Giants generally don't talk about such stuff unless they are serious about getting it done (like with all of Cain's extensions, Lowry's, Sandoval's, Bumgarner's).

Posey Handling Affects Belt

Meanwhile, the Giants plan to keep on keeping on:  their 2012 handling of Posey will continue into 2013.  He will continue to see a lot of time at 1B, and given how well Belt played last season, the Giants plan on moving him to LF a lot of those times if he continues to earn it.  So Blanco should not get too comfortable starting out there in LF.

I still think the Giants should just make Belt the LF, so that he gets acclimated to playing there full-time, and sign someone who can play 1B well and hit well enough to play there most games.  I always thought Ishikawa would be perfect for that, but there must be other lefties who play defense well at 1B while hitting OK.  Besides, we know that either Sandoval or Posey will end up starting at 1B some day, so Belt's hold on the position is tentative at best, anyway, in the long run.

No Extension for Lincecum

I was hoping maybe for something, but this made the most sense.  Sabean does not envision a contract extension for The Kid (see his new look? check this link) before the season ends.  Lincecum is in poor negotiating position due to his poor 2012 and thus his side will not be as interested in talking unless you are ignoring his 2012 and acting like it never happened.  The Giants, meanwhile, don't want to give him a big contract if 2012 is a precursor to Tim's future performances, as his seasonal performances have been in a downtrend.  But if he has a good season, and he needed to get into great shape this off-season to do that, I think, the Giants probably would kick the tires with him at the end of the season, in order to try to sign him during the period they have exclusivity to talk with him.

Given how he was about money before, though, I expect him to test the free agent waters and get $25M+ per season from some team for 4-5 years, I can't see any team giving him that big a contract to his age 35 (which a 6 year contract would do).  I don't see the Giants doing that.  But I hope they offer him a big short term deal, he claims to like short term deals more, around $27M for 2 years plus an option (let's say $26M for 2014 and $27M for 2015), see if we can entice him to stay that way.

Unfortunately Pablo Needs to Slim Down

This is such an old story.  Sounds like they are playing nice in the press and saying that they think that he can slim down in time for the regular season.  I'm just glad he has no more hamate bones to break, though I'm no Doctor, is there another bone in the hand that can break from swinging a bat?

Romo IS the Closer... Unless He's Not

Bochy made it clear that Romo will be the closer in name and function during the 2013 season, this is his position as he earned it with his performance down the stretch and in the playoffs.  There will be no closer by committee, which his new contract paid him like.

That said, the Giants will handle him with care because he has had physical issues previously in his career, plus the extra throwing he did in the playoffs.  On top of that, he's going to throw in the WBC as well, away from the Giants coaches and thus could be handled in a way the Giants would not appreciate.  So if you have an extra spot on your fantasy pitching staff in 2013, you might want to grab Affeldt or Casilla to get the occasional extra save, particularly if you have Romo on your team.

Bumgarner Figures It Out

Madison had late season struggles (much like Lincecum) but whereas Tim's problem was with his conditioning (I really hope he fixed that this off-season, why didn't the writers ask him that?), Bumgarner said his was due to fatigue that was due to poor mechanics.  He worked on his mechanics over the winter and feels that he did all he could to fix things.

He talked about how much he learned about his mechanics over the past few years early last season.  He noted that he just threw when he first became a pro, and had very little idea on why and when he was successful.  He has learned since turning pro when he is throwing right and when he is not, and this interview suggests that he knows himself very well now, and thus he pronounced himself fixed for 2013.  We will see.

Zito Wants to End his Career With Giants

Wow, given how poorly he's been treated here by fans, that's a shocker.  But he does love working in the Bay Area, it seems, and I think he recently moved up here, with his new wife, if I recall right.  If he gives us a great deal to make up for his current contract, I would be open to it (say $3-5M per season for 5 years?).   Otherwise, I think our young guys coming up should be ready enough by 2015 to take over for Zito in the rotation, unless he wants to turn to relieving in the bullpen.

Theriot Turns the Turnstile

Looks like he won't be back.  He wants more playing time than he can expect to get here in SF.  The Giants spoke to him at the Winter Meeting and never heard back from him.  Honestly, I would not mind this as it leaves an opening for Nick Noonan to maybe make the team sometime during the season and probably places an Asian on the team again (Japan League vet Tanaka is in camp battling for MI position; he said he wants to start eventually, but did he know about Scutaro's contract?).  Probably Arias and Tanaka are the two MI to begin the season, but Scutaro is old and Holliday is still playing for the Cards, so you never know what happens to the 2B.

Surkamp on Track

LHP Eric Surkamp had TJS last July and hopes to return this July.  He's throwing at 90 feet, so I assume that is good since the mound is 60 feet 6 inches from home plate (did you know that the reason for this distance is that in the original schematics, 0 inches was written in, but I guess he curled it and the guy laying out the field read it as 6 inches.  FACT!).

TJS today is so routine and many players return to not only throw as well as before, but some could throw even harder.  But it is no sure thing so I'll keep my fingers crossed for Eric, he seems like a nice guy from the interviews I've read.  Some are OK after a year, but some require two years to fully recover.  Since he did not rely on his velocity before, I would guess that he can return sooner than later in terms of matching prior performance.

Brett's Earned It

Sabean on right-hander Brett Bochy, who will be in camp: “He’s earned it. He had a real nice season going last year until fatigue set in. We’ll have to watch him in the beginning. All these relievers, whether a prospect or somebody trying to make the team, half the bullpen is pitching in the WBC so they’re going to get a chance to be out there.”  Nice of Sabes to praise his buddy Bruce's little boy!  :^)

Spring Training Next Week

Go Giants!!!  Defend your World Championship!!!

Pablo Sandoval is HR Power Hitter

I had a longer post I wanted to write and detail the data, but I just had to get this out:  Sandoval is a legit homerun hitter.  I am getting so tired of seeing the Fox and ESPN "analysts" harp on and on about Sandoval only having 12 homers this year.  HELLO?  Do any of you do ANY research at all about any of the players?  He was clearly injured and you would think baseball people would know that the hamate bone surgery saps power, but no.

DrB once posited that he thought that Sandoval is going to reach 40 homers one year.  I then did the research on his homerun rate and determined that he has shown enough homerun power that it would not be surprising if Sandoval did reach that figure one of these days.

And what I did did not take a lot of brain power or effort.  It is embarrassing in today's world of the internet, lots of free information, and easy analysis, that people going on TV as "experts" and spouting drivel like this.  They are such mediots!

I'll post my analysis another day, when I have more free time...

Your 2012 Giants: Game 2 of the World Series

Wow, the Giants couldn't have had a better game.  A good Zito outing.   3 homer game for Panda.  As I documented in my other post, Verlander and Zito continued their trends with Umpire Gerry Davis.  Lincecum had a nice shutdown reliever appearance.  That is Giants wins in Zito's last 14 starts.  He now has 2-0 record with 1.69 ERA in 16.0 IP.

I'm a bit tired about the announcers talking about the Giants having no power.  Panda has power, he just was injured this season.  Plus Posey and Pence have a history of power, plus Belt some too.  I also noted a couple of other errors they made (and I only watched the last half of the game) via Sulia and Twitter.  And it sucks that we have to see A.J. Pierzitski on the crew, really, there was nobody else available?

Your 2012 Giants are 69-55: Chopping the Braves

The Giants get to face the Braves for four at home, which is good since they are potentially one of the teams we are battling for a wild card spot, should the dastardly D-dogs leap ahead of us again in the standings.  But it is for four games, so the Giants will need to continue to step up and take the series if they hope to win the division title and avoid the difficulties that being a wild card now engenders.

ReCained Confidence Building

Over a week ago, Matt Cain said with his actions, "I ain't taking this anymore" and took things into his own hands.  As I noted in this post, on May 12th, he not only pitched a good game, he drove in 2 runs and set an example for the rest of the team by upending the secondbaseman in breaking up a double-play.  Shades of Ty Cobb!  I suggested that maybe he has redefined what it means to be "Cained" (which many fans use in describing when the Giants don't score enough runs for him - and sometimes others - to win a game).

Bochy dubbed Cain's efforts as "old school" and I wondered in my post whether it fired up the moribund Giants, which, even before Sandoval got injured, was basically playing around .500 all season.  Now, more than a week later, I think it has.

Your 2012 Giants: Season So Far (10-9)

I'm noticing a mostly downcast dauber on the part of Giants fans and media.  Of course, that is probably strongly influenced by being only 2 outs away from being swept by the Reds.  Still, there are good things as well as bad things.

Your 2012 Giants: Say Hey Panda and other notes

Apologies to the content police, I just want to publish this post and not deal with links to sourcing.  I will note that I read the usual suspects, Baggs, Hank, Alex.

Also, blogger screwed up (AGAIN! They forced me to use their new tool format and so far it STINKS!) and didn't publish when I scheduled it to, as this should have went out during lunch, before today's game, so all the stats below are for before today's game's stats.

Your 2011 Giants are 68-60: Longest Home Series

As Giants (and Giants fans) lick their wounds as they limped home, the Giants actually did OK on this tough road trip where, seemingly, the team lost someone to the DL or to a day-to-day injury every other game.  They went 4-6 against tough teams, Florida, Atlanta, and a not as tough team, Houston.

Houston was greatly disappointing, but, first, we faced a true ace in Wandy in game 1, so that would have been tough to win in the first place, even with Ryan Vogelsong going.  That made a series win that much harder since it required needing to win the last two games.  Second, the pitching did very poorly, not even holding Houston to 3 runs or less in any of the games, though I must give a shout out to the bullpen for their 9.1 shutout IP which enabled the team to win that important swing game.  And you know what?  The BABIP gods decree that lousy teams like Houston will win games at least a third of the time, you just never know when that is going to happen.  Sometimes that roulette wheel stops spinning and the ball drops in 00.

Had Vogelsong, Madison Bumgarner, and Dan Runzler been able to put together a good start, the Giants might have won the series.  Particularly Bumgarner, where even a 4 run start would have delivered a win.  As much as many Giants fans beat up on the offense for the Houston series loss, it was the pitching that cost us that series, the second game was very winnable.

Long and Winding Home Stretch

The Giants are coming up on a long stretch of home games, the longest of the season, as reported by Chris Haft.  They have 18 home games out of the next 21 games, while Arizona has 10 of their next 20 at home (i.e. they only have half at home).  If the two teams win at their current home and road performance so far this season (including the Giants winning 2 of 3 in SD, who they have had problems with before, but are 6-4 against them this season), the Giants should go 13-8 and D-backs go 11-9, and the Giants would be tied against them at the end of the stretch.

Unfortunately, that won't be enough to win the division because after that Arizona has 9 at home and 6 on the road while the Giants only has 3 at home and 10 on the road.  And winning the division is the Giants only road to the playoffs as Uggla's hot hitting streak led the Braves to an 8 game lead in the wild-card race, rendering that race moot unless they suddenly lost 10 games in a road like the Padres did last season.  The Giants must win the NL West to get into the playoffs.

And the journey, while not easy, could be easier or extremely daunting, depending on what happens in the final six games between the Giants and the D-backs, 3 at each home, including a series in Arizona just before the season ends.  If the Giants can come out ahead 4-2 in those games, that would tie them up with Arizona, then the team winning the division would be determined by how they do against the rest of the schedule, where the Giants have a slight advantage in non-NL West teams, facing Houston for 4 games and Chicago for 3 games, both at home, while the D-backs got 4 on the road against Washington and 3 at home against the Pirates.  Luckily, the Giants miss Wandy this time, he starts before and after the series.

And the Giants could come out ahead, they are 8-4 so far this season against Arizona.  That is what they need to do in the remaining 6 games.  But winning at home will be hard as Collmenter, Saunders, and Kennedy are the pitchers slated for them in that series.  We have Sanchez/Runzler, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum currently as our opposing pitchers.  Since the day before is a day off, I think the Giants will skip that spot in the rotation and go with Cain, Lincecum, Vogelsong, which would give us a much better chance of winning that series.

In any case, as we all should know by now, the Giants will win or lose depending on their pitching rotation.  The reason we went 2-5 in the last seven games is because the pitching let us down a lot (the offense wasn't great either but we expected that we would need to win by pitching).   The pitching lost 2 games it would normally win because the Giants scored 4 and 5 runs in those losses, which the pitching usually wins with.  Winning just one of those games would have gave us a successful 5-5 road trip and only half a game behind in the standings.

As it is, the Giants are only 1.5 games back.  That is not insurmountable.  They could easily pass them up with a good stretch of pitching, much like they did SD last season with a great stretch of pitching, which they needed because they were so much further behind last season.

The Offense:  Getting Better But Needs to Get Even Better

The offense has been perking up lately and that will help.  Brandon Belt has been awkwardly hitting well for power while also striking out a storm.  The striking out is fine if he is hitting for power, but not so much when he's not, because that is what we need from him, power with a capital "HR".  He has done well in that regard in his latest call-up, hitting .256/.333/.581/.915 so far.  But before any of the Giants fans get sucked into the glory of all that, before yesterday's nice 4 hit game, he was batting only .184/.279/.474/.753 with 12 strikeouts in 38 AB.  He's not "all dat" yet.

The real hero of the second half, after the All Star break, is Pablo Sandoval, who is hitting his Panda-like .320/.364/.547/.911 with 7 HR (leading the team) in 128 AB with only 19 K's and an OK 11 walks.  And that is in spite of injuries he has sustained, which he has fought hard against losing any starts because of the injuries.  That contrasts greatly with Carlos Beltran doing on the 15-day DL for a hand/wrist strain.

But one hitter cannot do it alone (as Barry Lamar discovered), and Sandoval has been supported by Aubrey Huff who has been hitting .284/.344/.457/.800 since the break, with 4 HR in 116 AB.  In particular, since July 22nd, he has hit .311/.375/.500/.875 with 3 HR in 90 AB, only 14 K's but with 11 walks.

But the Giants will need more.   Jeff Keppinger, after a hiccup initially, has hit .289/.316/.378/.694 for the Giants in 90 AB.  He only has 3 walks but he only has 6 strikeouts too.  If he can hit closer to his career .281/.335/.393/.728, then that would be great out of the 2-spot, where he has been hitting.  Nate Schierholtz has been doing his lava hot and arctic cold routine again, but he has been hot lately, hitting .333/.417/.524/.940 in 42 AB with 2 HR, 4 BB, and 11 K's.  That is a lot of strikeouts, suggesting this won't continue, but he has shown the talent to hit well before, so hopefully he is starting to put things together.

Lastly, Carlos Beltran should be coming off the DL on Tuesday, the first day of the home stand.  If he can hit like he is capable, then the Giants offense could be taking off having Sandoval, Beltran, Huff, Schierholtz swinging well in the middle of the lineup.  And he has incentive to do well now.  If he continues to linger on the DL, that is what potential team bidders will have foremost on their minds, not his great 2011 season up until he joined the Giants.  If he can turn it on, though, people will forget about his 15 game DL hiccup and remember his great hitting.  It will be interesting.

And they are the Giants best hopes of offense in the final weeks.  Aaron Rowand has regressed greatly, once again, in the second half of the season.  No matter what he does for physical fitness in the winter - mountain bike riding mostly - he has suffered a sharp downturn in offense in the second half at some point.  This time it happened as early as the All-Star break.  Andres Torres has turned into a pumpkin overnight.  Mike Fontenot has never been that good in any case, he's just a utility guy.  Orlando Cabrera has been useless so far for the the Giants, hitting even worse than Brandon Crawford, who probably will take over the starting SS role once September 1st rolls up and the call-ups are allowed.  Unless, that is, Miguel Tejada can recover the stroke he had before he went on the DL, when he was hitting .299/.348/.449/.796 since June 1st and was a major catalyst for the offense jumping up to 3.9 RS/game in July before he went on the DL.

Cody Ross is the only real wildcard on the offense for the rest of the season, barring some unforeseen breakout by a 40-man roster call-up surprise.  He was hitting very well for the season, in the high 700 OPS range, until the All-Star break, and then he has been horrible, hitting .155/.232/.291/.523 since then.  His 4 HR has helped but we need more out of him.  If he can turn it on soon, that would help the offense even more.

The Pitching:  Keep On Doing Well

Of course, none of this happens unless the pitching comes through.  Unfortunately, a lot of key pitchers on the DL or still recovering:  Brian Wilson, Sergio Romo, Jonathan Sanchez, and Barry Zito.  Still, the pitching has performed great in the second half, 3.05 ERA overall, but there has been a lot of errors behind them, leading to a 3.67 runs allowed per game overall.

They, obviously, will need to continue doing well with the occasional hiccup.  Lincecum has been leading the staff with a 1.13 ERA over 7 starts, though despite that he has only had a 4-3 record.  Matt Cain has a 2.31 ERA but is only 2-4.  Vogelsong has a 3.12 ERA but 4-2 record.  Madison Bumgarner has a 3.31 ERA but 3-3 record.  Those plus Zito's 0-3 and Dirty's 0-2, has led to the Giants 16-20 record since the All-Star break.

The relievers have been similarly good, with only Javier Lopez doing poorly, relatively, with a 3.75 ERA over 15 appearances.  At lot of that was just bad BABIP luck, with 17 hits in 12.0 IP.  Brian Wilson has a 3.38 ERA but been lucky with that, in 10.2 IP, only 10 hits, but 9 walks to go with 9 K's.  We will need him to return healthy when he's off the DL.  Same with Romo.  But hopefully Steve Edlefsen can step in and do a decent enough imitation until they return.  He was great in spring training and while his minor numbers look bad, he also had arm problems he played with until he went on the DL and got it healed up.

Stretch Run:  Should be Fun

I find fighting for the playoffs fun, and as the old joke goes about aging, just consider the alternative.  I've named my blog aptly because I still have OCD tendencies, but one that I mostly outgrew long ago was the need for everything to come out perfectly.  That's never going to happen, you need to look at the overall picture and enjoy the view, should there be one.

And the Giants have a good view, both short term and long term.  Barring injuries, the Giants pitching staff should be dominant for a long time, longer if Neukom ponies up the money to keep Lincecum and Cain (and Bumgarner) with us deep into this decade and give us a super-rotation.  And Bochy seems to have a knack of knowing how to put together a killer bullpen that can shut down the opposition until the offense can eke out a run and win the game.  As I've shown in my research, Bochy has been an outlier manager, statistically significantly good at winning 1-run games.

As far as this season goes, the offense, as maligned as it has been, had been good enough to win a lot of games with until around the time when the Giants picked up Beltran.  Not that he is to blame, but that is roughly when the offense went off the rails.  It did not help that Cody and Nate both went cold offensively at the same time, nor that Torres continued to struggle, or that Miggie, who was one of our hottest bats, went on the DL right around then.  In addition, the catching, which had been hitting well in holding Buster's starting spot warm, both went cold after the All-Star break.  I would guess that the toll of catching so many games finally caught up with them, since neither were used to or conditioned for playing so many games.  Too many of the cylinders of the offense went dead at the same time.

But the offense appears to be perking up together lately and could get a big pickup when/if Beltran gets off the DL and start playing.  There was a lot of talk in the media when he was first picked up, about how he was mentoring and leading some of the players he already knew on the team, Pablo and Torres, but I think the bigger story is if Panda's recent demand - no other way to put that - to play despite various injuries might inspire Beltran to come off the DL and play anyway.  Beltran has been able to hit right-handed for a while but refused to play until he can bat left-handed as well.  Kung Fu Panda insists on playing even though he can't bat right-handed, insisting to bat left-handed against LHP.

The pitching, despite hiccups at the start of August and in the past week, has been pitching great.  The fielding has not been great, leading to many unearned runs - 11 in August already, 13 in July, only 10 or less in prior months - but that is the beauty of great pitching, it can overcome a lot of baseball sins:  bad offense, bad defense.

And with the next 9 games against bad teams like San Diego, Houston, and Chicago, they could even come much closer to .500 for the month (currently at 7-13), if they can go 7-2 (leaving them at 14-15) for the rest of the month.  Of course, the problem is that the 'Dres have been hot lately, winning 12 of 18, the Giants lost 2 of 3 in Houston and was close to getting swept, and the Cubs are 14-6 out of their last 20 games.  The key thing is that most of these teams are bad on the road, only SD has done well on the road.  So 6-3 looks possible and if the offense can pick up, then 7-2, but if not or the pitching continues to falter, they could end with an ugly 5-4 or worse record.

Then again, the D-backs are facing the hot Nats for 4 games on the road.  The Nats are 36-25 at home and are 12-8 in their last 20 games.  And they beat the Braves at home, winning that series, plus won a series at home against the Phillies as well in that streak, plus splitting with them on the road.  They also won a series against the Reds at home.  So the D-backs will have their hands full in upcoming games as well.

It should be a good pennant race.  The Giants, despite all the injuries, look talented enough to stay close if not take the pennant for the rest of the season.  Arizona is still doing it with some good luck, like Goldschmidt hitting well after their 1B good luck ended, but his BABIP is horribly high, for anyone, and he's not even speedy plus is striking out at a record pace (24 in last 49 AB, only 3 walks), making it all the more likely his BABIP will be crushed sooner or later.  But the funny thing about baseball luck is that it can last him to the end of the season and regress to the mean next season.

In any case, the D-backs have regressed a lot in August, they are only 11-10 so far this month.  The only reason they have taken the division lead is because the Giants lost a lot more games this month.  Their pitching has regressed greatly, particularly with the addition of Marquis to the rotation.  He was suppose to be the NL West killer, as he has been in his career, but he has a horrible 9.53 ERA so far in 3 starts for the D-backs.  Plus Saunders and Collmenter have both regressed this month, as I had noted that they should earlier, 6.75 and 4.30, respectively.  Plus Hudson has regressed some as well.

The schedule looks good for the Giants.  They have 27 out of their remaining 34 games against NL West rivals and they have been 28-17 against these teams so far and are above .500 against the four teams, though only 6-4 against SD with 8 games to go and history noting that the Giants have lost the prior two season series against the 'Dres.  They have 21 home games left and only 13 road games, with 18 of the next 21 games at home.  All the teams are below .500, except for Arizona.

However, the Giants are only 43-40 against below .500 teams, 25-20 against .500 and above teams.  They are one of three teams with records above .500 against winning teams, suggesting that they have struggled to get up against the poorer teams, while taking on the winning teams when presented with that challenge.

Given that there are not a lot of games left, hopefully the Giants can raise their performance against these losing teams in the rest of the season.   They should be realizing that they need to step it up now, whether good team or mostly bad, and go for the throat, like the starting pitching did last season in September, going so many games without giving up more than 3 runs.  Bruce Bochy, as I have noted before in a post, has that killer, go for the win instinct, so they should be getting the message soon if not already.  And Kung Fu Panda should be inspiring them with his desire to play and to win, at all costs and pains.

We might not be leading now, but leading is over rated, just ask the 2003 Giants about that.  We need the pitching and fielding to be going well, and frankly the fielding has been lacking, costing us runs we cannot afford to give up.   The defense has costed us at least one win (which is a two win swing) in August, and we would either be ahead or behind half a game right now if the defense was up to normal standards.  Also, we have been having hiccups in relief, particularly Wilson, due to his arm problems.   Things should be better in September, when we can bring up the young players who are good on defense, and swap them in late in the game.

The media does not help with the fans overall sentiment. They go for the easy story: Giants offense stink. They can't accept that a very good pitcher was on and had a really good game or that even a bad team like the Astros do win some series. They encourage these extreme ups and downs in fan sentiment, I get that from reading the news accounts of this game, I get that from listening to any show about the Giants, but all this down in the mouth stuff is just useless worry.

We get that the offense stinks. Hello, whenever you take all your top hitters out of the lineup, you are going to really stink. Take Pujols and Holliday off the Cards, Ethier and Kemp off the Dodgers, Utley and Howard off the Phillies, they will stink too. We are missing Posey and Huff had been MIA until recently. Plus, we lost Freddy Sanchez, who was an important cog, and Torres has totally not performed at all. Expecting the Giants to replace all that is not realistic. I think the Giants have done as well as they can given the circumstances, without trading away all our best prospects.  You roll the dice and see what happens.

It is not perfect, but life never is.  What I focus on is that the Giants are in position to win the division, this season and for foreseeable seasons.  That is really all you can ask for unless you are the Yankees and maybe the Red Sox.  There are too many injuries and poor performances that can happen and derail your playoff chances.  I think it has been a great season and looks to continue to be great for the rest of the season, barring any catastrophic injury to someone new.  I have enjoyed this season a lot and hope that everyone can enjoy it as well, because it has been good and look to get better.

2011 Giants: July PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of July 2011, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this, which I've provided a link to). Regular readers can skip to the next orange titled section.

This is the Quality Start with a sabermetric DIPS twist, and it gets really easy to calculate once you get used to it. I don't think it's the end all or be all, but then nothing really is that. It is, as I like to say, another piece of the puzzle. A dominating start is scored a 4 or 5 and a disaster start is scored a 0 or 1. DOM% is the percentage of starts that are dominating, DIS% is the percentage of starts that are disasters (any start under 5.0 IP is automatically a 0, or disaster).

Click on title to get full post

2011 Giants: June PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of June 2011, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next orange titled section.

This is the Quality Start with a sabermetric DIPS twist, and it gets really easy to calculate once you get used to it. I don't think it's the end all or be all, but then nothing really is that. It is, as I like to say, another piece of the puzzle. A dominating start is scored a 4 or 5 and a disaster start is scored a 0 or 1. DOM% is the percentage of starts that are dominating, DIS% is the percentage of starts that are disasters (any start under 5.0 IP is automatically a 0, or disaster).

What's Good and What's Not

From my observations, a DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.

Basically, you want to see a pitcher's DOM% to be over 40% and ideally over 50%, and you want their DIS to be under 20% and ideally under 10%. For example, Johan Santana has a 76% DOM and 3% DIS in 2006 (2.77 ERA), whereas Orlando Hernandez had a 52% DOM and 28% DIS (4.66 ERA), and Adam Eaton had a 31% DOM and 31% DIS (5.12 ERA). Read the link, as I noted, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and there you can see particularly how s low DIS% is so important to a low ERA.

If you had to chose a high DOM% or a low DIS%, pitchers tend to have a lower ERA when you have a low DIS% vs. a high DOM% (obviously if you combine both, you have a much better chance of having an elite pitcher).  But I think when the DOM% is high enough, you win more by choosing a high DOM% over a low DIS%, as there are more high quality games pitched overall.

I wholeheartedly recommend buying Baseball Forecaster and learning more about their methods of analyzing baseball. It has been greatly illuminating for me, and if you want to get a taste for it without paying full price, they used to sell their old editions of their annuals on their website for half price or less (plus shipping); but that was before he sold the company off, and I haven't checked recently.

Giants Starters' PQS for 2011 Season

Madison Bumgarner- (63% DOM, 19% DIS; 10:3/16): 0, 2, 3, 0, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4, 0, 5

Matt Cain- (82% DOM, 6% DIS; 14:1/17):  4, 4, 3, 0, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5

Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (76% DOM, 12% DIS; 13:2/17):  4, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 0, 4, 4, 4, 3, 0, 4, 5, 5

Jonathan Sanchez - (53% DOM, 13% DIS; 8:2/15):  3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 2, 3, 4, 0, 0

Ryan Vogelsong - (75% DOM, 17% DIS; 9:2/12):  4, 0, 4, 4, 5, 4, 2, 5, 4, 5, 4, 1

Barry Zito - (33% DOM, 33% DIS; 1:1/3): 5, 1, X, 3

X = start Zito was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.

Giants season overall - 68% DOM, 15% DIS out of 81 games counted (55:12/81)
Giants Month of March/April - 56% DOM, 20% DIS out of 25 games counted (14:5/25)
Giants Month of May - 79% DOM, 7% DIS out of 28 games counted (22:2/28)
Giants Month of June - 68% DOM, 18% DIS out of 28 games counted (19:5/28)

June ended up averaging what the Giants did previously, essentially.  Again, a 68% DOM, 15% DIS pitcher is a one of the best pitchers in the league, and the Giants are doing that collectively as a rotation.  They did not do as great as they did in May, but luckily the offense reverted closer to their prior performance expectations, so they ended up with an even better month, 17-11, than May.

The staff was led by Cain in June, as he was perfect:  6 DOM starts out of 6.  Lincecum, Vogelsong, and Bumgarner each had 4 DOM starts.  Sanchez, showing that something was wrong with him, after 7 DOM starts and 0 DIS starts in 10 starts to start the season, he only had 1 DOM and 2 DIS starts in 5 starts in June, before he finally admitted something was wrong and was DLed.  Zito at that point came back off the DL and had a nice start, he was only an additional strikeout or one less walk away from a DOM start; personally, I would give him a DOM start for that one, as he is statistically proven to be a pitcher with the ability to keep his BABIP down below the mean of .300, so if shifting one of his walks over to hits still keeps his hits equal to or less than his IP, I think that would be fair, because such pitchers tend to walk more and strikeout less relatively.

Amazingly, Vogelsong has still not been a weak link so far in this super-rotation.  His 75% DOM/17% DIS would rank among the best in the majors, yet he is rightfully a back of rotation guy in the Giants rotation.  Of course, as I noted last month, it is doubtful that a journeyman pitcher like Vogelsong will continue to pitch like this for a whole season, but even if he were to fall back to mediocrity, where he is simply OK, this rotation would still be great.  If the pitching staff can continue this for the season, even if the offense don't get much better other than Pablo Sandoval returning to the lineup (which he did in June and has been hot for a couple of weeks now), I don't see any reason why the Giants cannot reach the 90+ wins necessary to get into the playoffs.

June 2011 Comments

To quote myself from last month:  "Wow, to think the Giants starting pitchers could improve on last year's performance. Amazing!"  That was with Dirty's very poor month and Zito's return, and Lincecum's mini-June-swoon.  Unfortunately, July could be the worse month of the season, for a number of reasons.

First, Lincecum's June swoon might be extending to July, though an unverified rumor by a commenter in Extra Baggs noted that might be because the Giants players were out late gambling in Detroit, including The Kid.  Honestly, wouldn't surprise me, although many other commenters think that person was a troll.  He has shown lack of judgement before.  In addition, he did not fly ahead as the first starter of the homestand normally does at the end of the trip, which would have given him extra time to adjust back to our time zone, as Detroit is three time zones away.

As before, we will have to wait and see, but frankly, that first July start appears to be more a case of the BABIP gods giving to the hitters, rather than taking away; for Timmy, he's not like Cain or Zito, his BABIP is around the mean.  Plus, he had 3 DOM starts at the end of June, so perhaps we should cut him a break, he's going to have non-DOM starts occasionally, and it wasn't like he had a disaster start.  Still, maybe it is the start of another bad skein, so you never know.  Appears that my thought that he might have a below 2 ERA is not going to happen.

Secondly, Zito has returned to the rotation, replacing Sanchez.  Dirty had been aces to start the season, not perfect, but 70% DOM/0% DIS in 10 starts is great.  Zito rarely puts up anything close to that nowadays, even with his reported reverting to his Cy Young repertoire with no slider, to give his curveball more UMMPH (relatively).  He has been good, but not great, which is actually great to have in the back of the rotation.  That will bring the rotation down overall as well.

Third, we can't expect Cain to have another perfect month in DOM, he was 6 of 6 in June.  Can we?

Lastly, the biggest issue is Vogelsong.  His career performance suggests strongly that this should not be happening.  Still, he had a DOM start to begin July, and has only had the rare hiccup so far in the 2011 season, he's been keeping up with Lincecum, amazingly.  So until he starts regressing, enjoy the ride.  And what a sweet ride it has been!

Offense Rising, Led by a Slimmer Panda

Meanwhile, while the pitching might regress, the hitting is perking up, led by Kung Fu Panda 2.  After roughly two weeks (June 14-25) of finding his way, where he hit 10-45 in 11 games with no extra-base hits (.222/.239/.222/.461; although he did get a hit in 10 of 11 games and thus was one hit away from an 11 game hit streak), he had an extra-base hit and multi-hit game on June 26 and been leading the team offensively since then:  .366/.395/.780/1.175 in 9 games, 8 doubles, 3 homers, 15 game hitting streak (and he has a hit in 19 of the 20 games he's been back), and, even more impressively, he has a 9 game extra-base hitting streak, with at least an extra-base hit in each game.

The Giants have averaged 5.6 runs scored since Panda started hitting the way he can.  Over the season, the Giants team has averaged 3.98 runs scored in games where Sandoval played in, 3.86 runs scored in games where he started.  As impressive as that sounds, especially compared to the Giants overall 3.63 runs scored overall, the Giants have only been 21-21 in games in which Pablo started, meaning that they have been 27-17 when he was either out on the DL or sitting on the bench to start the game.  And they have only been 5-4 since he started hitting for extra-base hits.

Also, unfortunately, the other hitters have been on and off.  Huff and Ross, while having a nice June overall, were up and down.  And Ross might be down going forward, as he tweaked his hamstring again.

Luckily, Schierholtz and Crawford has been hitting well lately, and both Whiteside and Stewart had been hitting well in June.  Tejada has had some good games as well, as well as power that has been returning, with two homers in the past week or so.

Chris Stewart in last 9 games has hit .261/.346/.391/.737, with 3 doubles, which is very nice when added to the his good defense.  As I noted in comments in the blogosphere, I like Stewart's bat, he had kept his strikeout rate low in the minors, while walking a good bit, so suggests that he might eventually be an OK bat in the majors.  Particularly in light of the fact that catchers' offense usually is the last to mature and develop, as they typically are focused on the defensive side of their performance mostly.  At 29 YO, his bat should be perking up sometime soon, if not already.

In any case, if the Giants hope to run a better offense, they need to figure out their leadoff problem.  Torres isn't doing it and Rowand has been, well, Rowand.   If either can get hot like they've done before, that would cure a lot of ills that the offense has been having in terms of scoring regularly and well.  Sandoval can stay hot for a while, but the others will have to start carrying their weight, particularly Aubrey Huff.

According to a post on Baseball Analytics, Huff's problem this season has been him swinging at low pitches in the zone, as he kills pitches high in the zone, like last season and 2008.  His problem in 2009 and 2011 has been entirely due to his swinging at pitches low in the zone.  Maybe if you can pass the word on to Huff, he might start looking like his 2010 self instead of his 2009 self.

Still, since May 27th's game, he has not been striking out crazy, like he was earlier in the season, so perhaps he has already figured that out and just been suffering from bad BABIP luck.  And he has 5 walks in his last 8 games, vs. 3 strikeouts, suggesting poor BABIP luck as his culprit in recent games, as he was hitting well just before that for a couple of weeks.  A hot Huff and Panda would cure a lot of offensive problems, as well.

Your 2011 Giants are 31-25: Home at Last, Now Beat D-Rox

Wow, that trip was looking like it was going to be the worse.  Losing Posey was obviously a huge downer and I was worried that the team would sleepwalk through the road trip because of that.  And they did look a bit like that in Milwaukee losing 2 of 3, but then it appears now that Brandon Crawford's slam woke the team up a bit, and they came into St. Louis and won 3 of 4, ending their road trip with a 4-3 record, which is great for the road, as the vast majority of teams end up under .500 on the road for the season.  Any winning road trip is a good accomplishment.

Now they get to play at home for a nice 10 game homestand and 16 of 22 at home, plus 3 of those road games are in Oakland, so you can make the case that they are home for 19 of the next 22 games.  Playing on the road has been what has been keeping the Giants record down significantly relative to the other teams in the NL West:  they have had only 21 at home vs. 35 on the road.  They will get 10 of those games back now, bringing them close to 50-50, but still under by 4.  Given how hurting their offense has been, yesterday's game notwithstanding, a 6-4 homestand would be nice to get.

And up first are the D-Rox.

Game 1:  Nicasio vs. Cain

Juan Nicasio:  Nicasio, displaying a mid-90s fastball and a fearlessness that impressed the Rockies' brass throughout his Minor League career, held the Cardinals to one unearned run in seven innings in his Major League debut -- a win last Saturday.

Matt Cain:  After a solid early April, Cain is just 1-4 with a 4.80 ERA in his past eight starts. He acknowledges he is giving up too many two-out runs, including three in six innings in his last outing at Milwaukee.

Somehow, Nicasio was only the D-Rox's 8th best prospect according to Baseball America's pre-season rankings, but his numbers in the minors have been amazing.  Still, he was doing all that while just about at the average age for the league, so it's not like when Bumgarner was doing even better at a younger age, but still impressive, I think.  Since he just had his first start and it was great, not really much to say other than he's a RHP and thus we will see our LHB lineup:  Torres, Tejada, Sanchez, Huff, Schierholtz, Ross, Crawford, Whiteside.

Don't worry about Matt Cain.  Again with the win-loss, but his ERA is totally inflated:  his last 5 starts were DOM starts (where his PQS was 4 or 5), so he has been fine for the most part, just suffering from some bad baseball luck.  And even when he is going good, he's going to pick apart what he is doing wrong.  The Cainer is doing fine, thank you.

Still, fastball and fearlessness suggests that our offense might not do too much against him.  Hopefully Huff is over his big contract and starting to be himself:  four homers in two games is a pretty good start towards that.  

However, Cain has been super this season so far, 78% DOM/9% DIS, that is what elite pitchers put up, and for elite pitchers, when they start, you expect to win.  Give slight edge to Giants for Cain and playing at home, but I don't know how many times unknown pitcher comes in and shuts down the Giants (though they finally did nicely against the Cards' unknown pitcher yesterday).

Game 2:  Chacin vs. Bumgarner

Jhoulys Chacin:  Chacin was plagued by a rocky start in his last outing, giving up three runs on four hits in the first inning against the Cardinals. The right-hander has pitched well in his career against the Dodgers, posting a 4-3 record with a 2.40 ERA.

Madison Bumgarner:  Bumgarner has recorded seven consecutive quality starts, posting an ERA of 2.12 in that stretch. Yet he believes he hasn't established full consistency. Bumgarner has struggled at home, where he's 0-2 with a 5.49 ERA.

Don't know why the guy is talking about the D-gers, Chacin is playing the Giants, dammit!  :^)  Chacin is arguably the D-Rox's best starter right now, he has continued doing what he did last season, which is spin great starts.  He has had 5 straight DOM starts and has had only DIS start all season, out of 11 starts.  

But he's facing Bumgarner, who has had a nice string of DOM starts since flailing early in the season.  He has only pitched once in SF, spinning a great one-hit shutout for 7 IP.  And he has held the Giants to a 3.21 ERA in Colorado as well.  With so few outings, the best I can say is that Huff has 2 HR in 9 AB against him (also 3 K's).  

This is going to be a battle between two great young pitchers with something to prove about taking on the other team's good pitchers.  Should be a great battle, could go either way, a push.

Game 3:  Hammel vs. Vogelsong

Jason Hammel:  Hammel's hard-luck season took a worse turn in his last start, a loss to the Dodgers on Monday night. Hammel gave up 10 hits and seven runs in 4 2/3 innings, but most of the hits were of the soft variety.

Ryan Vogelsong:  Vogelsong will be pleased to return to AT&T Park, where he has allowed one earned run in 23 2/3 innings spanning four appearances (three starts). That's a remarkable 0.38 ERA. Yet Vogelsong is only 1-1 at home due to insufficient run support.

Hammel has not really pitched that well on the road (or frankly, at home either) during this career.  His nice season so far appears to be an improvement both home and road vs. career, but he's not really doing that well from a K/BB basis, so I have to think that he's been lucky so far on the road.  He has pitched well in SF before, though, 4 starts, 2.66 ERA, 3.3 K/BB.  And he pitched well here last season, 6.2 IP, 5 K's, 1 R/ER.

Vogelsong has been a miracle, plain and simple.  He amazingly has kept up with the staff in terms of DOM/DIS and nothing in his current numbers suggest that this is an illusion, but his career numbers totally suggest that he is pitching way over this head right now.  How can a pitcher who struggled so much in the minors last season that he got dropped by two teams suddenly become an elite starter (over 7 starts) at the major league level?

Well, I don't look gift horses in the mouth (Giants already have stated that Zito is not guaranteed a starting job when he returns, that he is pitching now to win that job back) and will assume he will continue to do well until he doesn't.  I was going to call this game for the Giants because of how well Vogelsong has been pitching and my low opinion of Hammel, but it goes both ways, somehow Hammel has had the Giants number the past two seasons, so I'll have to call this a push also, with lean towards Giants for home advantage.

Giants Thoughts

We are now 4-4 in the post-Posey period (though much of that was on road so strong bias to .500), and luckily enough, Pablo Sandoval was impressive in his batting practice yesterday, so he'll be headed to San Jose today for a few games to get his timing back, then to Fresno for a couple there, before rejoining us.  He could be back sometime next week then, depending on how it goes.

That could spell the end of the Miguel Tejada era, if you can even call it that, as he has not hit at all for any stretch of time, really.  Crawford has shown a good enough offense (in fact, good so far) plus his sooo good of a defense (he was considered MLB ready defensively when he was drafted) that he's probably going to hold the starting job for at least until Panda returns and a while longer, probably, though he has cooled off considerably (I know SSS) since hitting a grand-slam homer in his first major league game (one of six in MLB history, second Giants after Bobby Bonds).

Still, Tejada most probably will be kept at least until the end of June, if I had to bet.  As nicely as Burriss has done, he still hasn't hit one extra-base hit or a walk, so despite a nice .286 batting average, he has a horrible .572 OPS, which is not much more than what Tejada has been providing.  So I think that Burriss is the one going down when Sandoval returns.  However, if Crawford can continue hitting OK until Fontenot returns and Tejada continues to hit this poorly, Miguel could get DFAed at that point.

The Giants are leading the NL West by half a game but not over who anyone would have thought before the season:  D-backs.  Colorado is actually 4.5 games behind us and if we win this series, would push them further back.  A sweep would put them back 7.5 games and put a real crimp on their contention plans, but unless Huff keeps on hitting so many homers, that's probably not going to happen.

D-backs Are Dyno-mite!

I was worried about the D-backs because they actually ended the 2010 season well (relatively) with Gibson managing them, and had a number of young starters doing well for them, though above their heads a bit.  I considered them to dark horse to challenge the Giants because of that and because I thought the D-gers did not do enough to replace Manny's production (they haven't) plus Uribe, their big acquisition in the off-season, has mainly stunk for them and the 'Dres killed their chances to compete by trading A-Gon.

And really, their starting pitching has mostly stunk, so it was not even that pushing them upward right now.  It is equal parts of nice starts from a trio unexpected to start for them - Joshua Collmenter, Zach Duke, and Micah Owings - and hitters doing better than expected - Juan Miranda, Ryan Roberts - plus a lights out bullpen.  In fact, they already DFAed near-perfect-gamer Armando Galarraga and dropped Barry Enright from their rotation.  And I have to think that Joe Saunders spot in the rotation is slipping away as well.  That's three of their opening day starters.

It also helped that they swept the falling Astros on the road and swept the equally bad Twins at home.  But I have to give them props for doing that to teams you hope to do that plus they also took two of two from the Braves, won series against the D-Rox (3 of 4!) and Marlins as well, in recent series.  So it has not totally been flukes.

They have had a slight home advantage (3 more at home plus 3 more to make 6 above) that won't equalize until the All-Star break, so that has helped, as well as the Giants strong road schedule, so if things play out as it has been playing, the Giants should pull away from them a bit by the ASB.  But they are playing a number of under .500 teams to then as well, so we will see how that plays out.  Though luckily for us they are playing the Marlins, Indians, White Sox, and Cards as well, plus Giants.  I think the Giants should be able to slowly move ahead as the home/road imbalance equals for the Giants.

Nicknames Are Cool With Me

I've seen some people say that they are sick of the nicknames, but then lump Panda into the mix.  In the history of baseball, nicknames have made the game:  it isn't quite the same if I'm talking about George Herman Ruth instead of Babe Ruth.  And my youth wouldn't have been quite the same without John "the Count" Montefusco.  And Panda came organically, as well as making a lot of sense, if you ever saw the Kung Fu Panda movie and heard a Sandoval interview.  

The outrage, which I understand and agree with generally, is how some sportscasters have to force a nickname on almost every player.  That I can live without.  But don't diss the good ones, like Panda.  And it creates great marketing too, I think, and remember:  every panda hat sold means the Giants can do more with their baseball team.

Your 2011 Giants: Play Ball! Beat LA Edition

Well, it's finally here:  opening day 2011 and the Giants fans get to celebrate all season long about our 2010 Giants World Championship.  But then there is the not so little matter of defending your title in 2011 and they face a gauntlet of road games, with 22 road games out of their first 31 games, which is a real oddity:  you would think the MLB would overload on home games to max attendance for the Giants fans at home?  Must be a D-ger schedule planner!!!

Speaking of which, the Giants get to celebrate their title in front of the D-ger homeboys and girls to start the season.  Apparently there are fans planning to fly over Chavez Ravine with plane banners to send a message to the Giants and the D-ger fans.  Many fans are planning to go in full World Champion regalia.  I only pray that cooler minds prevail and there is no violence committed against Giants fans, as there was a few years back in their parking lot.

With no stats for the season to use, I'll be relying on past performance and using PQS to provide commentary on each game.  And, of course, using the text from the MLB's Probable Pitchers webpages.

Game 1:  Lincecum vs. Kershaw

Tim Lincecum:  Lincecum has had mixed success in season openers. He was dominant last year in Houston, striking out seven in seven shutout innings. Lincecum clearly wasn't himself in the 2009 lidlifter, allowing Milwaukee three runs in three innings.

Clayton Kershaw:  Development of a slider has made the 23-year-old that much tougher for opposing hitters. He was 9-2 against the NL West and compiled a 1.55 ERA in four starts against the Giants last year, including his first complete game and shutout.

Wow, Kershaw has a new slider, Lincecum has a new slider, should be a low scoring game.  I hate when writers look at two bits of data and make a comment, you need to take a bigger picture view, plus know the history.  Lincecum's 2009 was his first opening day start and he has always had the jitters in his first time experience, well, except for his excellent start against the Braves in his first playoff game, though one could argue that he was in playoff like games all through September.  Every first he has had as a major leaguer (except for that one), he has had to get over his nerves, his adrenaline rush, and so far he has had them, including his first start in the World Series, when the playoffs got different.

I've been saying that Lincecum will be extra tough this season and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets his ERA under 2.00, which probably isn't likely, but still, I wouldn't be surprised.  He should be that much better than his Cy Young seasons, now that he got the slider to go with his changeup.  Not that Kershaw will be easy for the Giants batters, but Lincecum should be that much better, even with the home advantage for Kershaw.   I would also throw in that D-ger Stadium is one of the extreme pitcher's park forever.

Hard to believe, but Kershaw was even more consistently dominating in 2010 than Lincecum was during his Cy Young seasons, but his problem is that when he's bad, he's really bad, with a large percentage of the starts where he wasn't dominating, he had a disaster start, it was pretty much either/or for him in 2010.  And as noted above, he pitched really well against the Giants last season.

Should be a tough, low scoring team that either team can win.  I think Lincecum will be that much better, mainly because I don't think much of LA's offense, whereas I think Pablo Sandoval is back and that Brandon Belt could be the extra factor in juicing up this offense.  Of course, this is but one game among 162, so they could have zero offensive contributions.  But overall, I like the GIants lineup, particularly if Belt delivers as projected.  Still, got to give Kershaw his due and call it even, with a lean towards Lincecum.

Speaking of which, congrats to Belt for making the opening day roster and best  wishes to Travis Ishikawa for being designated for assignment.  The Giants have 10 days to either trade him or to release him on waivers.  Then some other team would get him, else if nobody is interested either way, then the Giants could assign him to the minors, but he could say then that he prefers to be released and become a free agent.

Remember, with no options, any team taking him would have to place him on their 25 man roster, so my guess is that most if not all teams will pass on him, as most have already made their 25-man decisions, and the Giants might be able to send him down.  However, I would think that he would ask for his release and try to hook up with another team, starting with Seattle, his hometeam, though that is a risk, because if nobody signs him, he has no way to stay in shape except maybe independent ball.

Another guy needing to make a decision is Marc Kroon as he did not make the roster (congrats also to Guillermo Mota and Dan Runzler for making the opening day roster).  He is reported by the Chronicle to have said he would not accept a AAA assignment, but MLB is reporting that Bochy is lobbying him hard to go down.

If he likes the team and coaches, he should stay, the Giants will cut guys if they don't perform, and frankly, I'm waiting for Mota to be that first one (well, except for Runzler who will go down once Brian Wilson is off the DL, where he was just placed) to be jettisoned, as the Giants have jettisoned non-performing relievers in the past, relatively easily, and Mota didn't really perform that well down the stretch in 2010.  I really wonder if he got the assignment because the Giants wanted most of the players who won the World Series to be on the opening day roster.  In any case, I would think that Kroon could make the roster within a month or two if he can wait; I hope he waits, I really wanted to see him in a Giants uniform in 2011.

Game 2:  Sanchez vs. Billingsley

Jonathan Sanchez:  Sanchez's previous Dodger Stadium appearance, last Sept.5, was a big one: He beat L.A. for the first time in his career, won his 10th game of the season, struck out nine and surrendered three hits in seven innings.

Chad Billingsley:  There's nothing wrong with being a No. 2 starter and Billingsley gives the Dodgers a pretty reliable one. He's averaged 13 wins and 195 innings the last three seasons and during Spring Training made strides with a changeup.

Wow, MLB don't have a photo for Billingsley! Not like he's a rook. Sanchez, while not a rook, was promoted to #2 status, one to break up Lincecum and Cain, two because Lincecum and Cain tends to pitch deeper into the game, whereas Sanchez tends not to, meaning the bullpen is rested, relatively before and after Sanchez. He's been a headcase before, letting nerves and adrenaline rage uncontrolled, so it's hard for me to say how he'll do here. Generally, he has been clobbered in LA, but as noted above, he pitched a beauty against them in LA last season, so maybe our little boy is growing up before our eyes.

Billingsley, while drafted before Cain, has been a step behind our Big Boy when comparing careers, but his PQS DOM% has been very Cain-like for years, though he had a relatively bad season last year.  But still better than Sanchez overall.  However, again, I really like the Giants lineup, particularly against RHP:  Torres, Sandoval, Huff, Posey, Belt, should be pretty nice.

I have to call it even again, but with a lean towards Billingsley, because of his career consistency and him in his home park.  One of the better Giants hitters against him is gone though, Ishikawa, but Nate Schierholtz has beat on him pretty good, so we might see an outfield of Huff, Torres, and Schierholtz in the lineup, which would add another good LH bat.

Speaking of lineups, it would be interesting to see where that goes.  Looks like it'll be much like last year, but with Belt, here is Monday's lineup:  Torres, Franchez, Huff, Posey, Burrell, Tejada, Belt, Sandoval.  I would prefer to put Pablo Sandoval in the 5 spot sooner than later, he should be better than Pat Burrell and instead of Miguel Tejada 8th, here's an idea:  bat Belt as the last position player.

He has a pretty good head on his shoulders, from all indications, and he works the at-bat pretty well, not swinging at bad pitches.  Plus, he's a good runner, so the pitchers could sacrifice with greater certainty.  Also, Bochy could also go with the LaRussa/Saber experiment and bat the pitcher 8th and Belt 9th, with his speed and discipline in getting on base, he could be like a second leadoff guy.

Game 3:  Cain vs. Lilly

Matt Cain:  The Giants will watch Cain carefully in the wake of the elbow inflammation he endured in spring. Durability has been an issue for Cain, who's one of only five Giants to pitch 200 frames or more at least four years in a row since the club moved west.

Ted Lilly:  He's not overpowering, not an ace, but he's left-handed, he throws strikes and he wins games, double figures in each of the last eight seasons. The last time he signed a big contract, he went 15-8 for the Cubs in 2007. He was 0-1 with a 6.97 ERA.

Should be another close game, the Giants and D-gers are pretty evenly matched for their top three starting pitchers.  As well as Cain has pitched, his DOM% has been lower than Lilly's until last season.  The key to Cain is that he rarely has a disaster start (check the PQS label way down below if you want to learn more about PQS terminology, there is a explanatory link in each post), whereas Lilly has been more prone to them, relatively.

Lilly, however, has a bad history against SF, 5.57 ERA, including 6.97 ERA in two starts last season and 4.88 ERA in home games.  Unfortunately, until a late victory against LA last season, Cain has had a history of futility against the D-gers, though he normally pitched well enough to win.  Lilly has a 3.90 ERA in LA, which is slightly better than his career numbers, so he does derive some advantage pitching there (though perhaps that difference was pumped up a bit by Lilly's lengthy career in AL too).  I feel like I'm jinxing Cain, but given the difference in career results, I have to call this a close game, as Lilly is normally a good pitcher, with a lean towards Cain.

Game 4:   Zito vs.  Kuroda

Barry Zito:  After being dropped from last year's postseason pitching staff, Zito has strived to start fresh this season. He was San Francisco's only starter to work six innings twice in Cactus League exhibitions, indicating that he maintained a solid mindset.

Hiroki Kuroda:  He has added a curveball to the repertoire. He's made the conversion from Japanese star to solid MLB starter with a lower career ERA than Hideo Nomo and Daisuke Matsuzaka. He was 0-1 with a 3.38 ERA against the Giants last year.

Zito is making news today for being hit in his car while driving last night.  He's fine, so far, and has been released from the hospital, but this is something that could have later effects, whether concussion or whatever, so the story is not done here.  I suspect if he is not ready to pitch, the Giants would just go with a bullpen start, going first with Runzler, then Mota, then whoever.  Vogelsong is the go-to guy for a longer term stint on the DL, but for one start, and early in the season, I think the Giants will go with the bullpen route, particularly since they had been stretching out Runzler.

In any case, even without the car crash, I would have to give the D-gers the edge here.  Kuroda has been an excellent pitcher for the D-gers, posting great PQS and even pushing it up a notch in 2010, both in terms of increasing DOM% to an great 68% and reducing DIS% to a good 13%.    Zito hasn't sniffed either in years on a seasonal basis, and barely one or the other on a half season basis.  On top of that Kuroda pitches even better at home, and has pitched well against the Giants in general.  The only silver lining for Giants fans is that the Giants have a 7.47 ERA against him in LA in 3 starts.  But that was two bad starts in his first season, 2008, he dominated them down late in the season in 2010, 8 IP, 6 hits, 8 K's and 3 walks, but 3 ER, so the D-gers lost.

Giants Thoughts

I'm pretty excited by the 2011 Giants.  ESPN, using ZiPS data, has the Giants winning the NL West division with an 88-74 record, one game ahead of D-Rox.  They have 'Dres at 83-79 and D-gers at 80-82.

I still think the Giants will easily end up with 90+ wins in 2011, and I wouldn't be surprised if they win 100+ games and lead from start to finish, which I've been saying this off-season.  However, with so many games on the road initially, the Giants might fall a bunch of games behind initially so I'm backing a bit off that latter part of the statement.  But it won't take a historic run at the end of the season for them to win in 2011, whether them winning or the leading team losing 10 straight, they should be in it for most of the season.

I'm also pretty excited by Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval.  I think both will come back from their poor seasons in 2010, and even outdo what they did in 2009.  Lincecum, as I've been saying, should be even better than his Cy Young years:  he added a slider at the end of last season, which now gives him a "swing and miss" pitch to both LH and RH batters now.  I would not be surprised if his ERA ends up under 2.00, earning him another historic contract after the season.

I think now is the time to sign him up to a long term contract, but I would bet that the Giants tried but Lincecum's agent refused the offer; fans forget that it takes two to get a contract done, and Lincecum's side has wanted a LOT more than the Giants have been wanting to give up, and I don't blame the Giants for not doing more.  I would bet that Posey's agent did the same as well, I'm pretty sure the Giants contacted them as well.  I think Cain is the better bet to get an extension first.

People just don't get that Sandoval is a bad ball hitter.  Especially sabers, they note his penchant for swinging at balls out of the zone, but they all then forget to look at his peripherals:  his strikeouts and walks in 2010 were right in line with his short career so far:  13.2% for K's, 7.6% for walks.  In fact, if I had just presented his K% and BB% for 2009 and 2010, but without the years, I would bet 999 out of 1,000 people would not have known which was which (it was 13.1% and 8.2% in 2009).

The fact is, the big difference for Pablo in 2010 were two items:  his BABIP and power.  His BABIP dropped to .291, after a career .350+ BABIP, and that definitely you can blame his weight on.  And as widely reported, he lost a ton of weight (almost literally :^).

The other was his lack of power, his slugging went way down, and part of that was because his HR% was cut in half.  Oddly enough, his XB/H% was still OK, at 33% after 39% in 2009, but that also reflected his lost of power, as his doubles, triples, and homers all went down.  Part of that was his big drop in hitting against LHP, but his number of HR against RHP went down as well.

But remember, he was like Panda of old in April 2010, his OPS was 1000+ and all was well, then suddenly he couldn't hit at all for anything for two weeks in May.  That was an up and down pattern that went through the entire season, and as I documented, particularly for the second half of the season, when he flew down to Venezuela to finalize his divorce and when his mother was nearly killed in the San Bruno blast.

He was otherwise Panda-esque when not dealing with personal issues in the second half:  299/.348/.495/.843, with .321 BABIP, 13.8% K%.  And I would point out that he was very Kung Fu Panda like late in the 2010 season, from August 7-30, he had 6 HR in 86 AB, .337/.367/.628/.995 in 22 games.  All this suggests that something (like getting divorce papers or getting into custody battle with ex-wife) happened at the start of May to push him down mentally.  This should not be bothering him in 2011, suggesting that he should be back to Panda of old.

Of course, nobody really knows until the season starts.  One things is that Sandoval has been hitting well in spring training, but not to his full Panda performance:  .280/.309/.480/.789, with 3 homers.  Over a full season, that is roughly 30 doubles, 5 triples, 20 HR.  This is more like the pre-Panda that we saw in 2008 and early 2009, before he busted out for the HR power.

And how can I not be excited by Brandon Belt.  However, I would advise caution to all the giddy fans anticipating Posey 2.0, because Posey 1.0 was hitting .695 OPS after roughly a month in the majors, and that is roughly around the time when Cody Ross comes off the DL.  Of course, Posey took off after that, maybe partly because Molina was traded and now he was the full-time catcher, maybe partly because it took that long to figure out MLB pitchers, Dustin Pedroia was horrible his first month before taking off.  Still, if Belt is struggling when Ross is ready, Belt will probably go down at that point.

However, if Belt starts out like Jason Heyward 2.0, he's staying up and my best guess is that Pat Burrell and Cody Ross will start sharing LF and Torres will get more rest vs. LHP, since he was horrible against LHP in 2010, though that could be an oddity since he's right-handed.  Still, I see Ross getting ABs that way, plus he might sub for Huff in RF since Huff has difficulties hitting LHP during his career, though not last season.

Also, if Belt stays up, that means the Giants will have to chose between Rowand and Schierholtz to release, and I would throw Fontenot into the mix, I think he'll be in the conversation if he's struggling.  Given that the bench will be very right-handed if Schierholtz is released and defensively challenged when Burrell is on the bench, the right baseball choice is to release Rowand.  It doesn't look like he will get his chance to show how good a hitter he is when healthy, and that once he moves on to another team, if released, he will make the Giants look bad, much like when the White Sox picked up Rios from the Blue Jays or even Giants picking up Burrell.

I think that there is an outside chance that if Mota is struggling in April, he could be the one to be released when Ross is off the DL.  The Giants might want to buy time on the Rowand decision by going with less relievers for a month or two, in case another team might get desperate enough to take Rowand off our hands.  And who knows, when Rowand is hot, he would easily push Ross and maybe even Burrell onto the bench.  But hard to do that if he's not getting ABs, that would take an OF slumping in April, mainly Torres or Burrell, I don't see Huff getting sat until later, I think his rope is longer than Torres or Burrell.

Go Giants!  Make us proud in defending your World Championship!