It was a tight pitching contest between two really great young arms that got decided by the bullpens in extras. Logan Webb allowed only a solo shot to Manny Machado in eight innings. Joe Musgrove allowed only one hit and no runs in his seven frames. FanGraphs has them neck-and-neck in WAR, Musgrove 13th at 2.4 and Webb 14th at 2.3. Only Sandy Alcantara (56.5%) and the ridiculous Framber Valdez (66.9%) are better than Webb (56.0%) at inducing ground balls. Last night Logan had 10 outs on the ground and 10 from fly balls.
Trailing 1-0 in the 9th the Giants got a big two-out hit from Brandon Crawford off Taylor Rogers to tie the game. Mauricio Llovera dazzled in the bottom of the inning to send it to the 10th but the Giants couldn't get anything going and the Padres walked off against Jarlín Garcia in their half.
The Giants are 41-40 at the halfway point in the season. 81 games remain. After a 13-5 start they've gone 28-35 (.444). Here's an interesting look at the team's struggles: they've allowed 358 runs which is exactly league average at 4.42 rpg, but their team ERA is 4.04 and the team FIP is 3.43, fourth-best in MLB. So the pitchers are throwing strikes, suppressing homers and walks, and getting ground balls, but it's not working. They are only league average at getting strikeouts and they are really bad at turning balls in play into outs. We've all seen the fielding lapses and so the gap between runs and earned runs isn't too hard to fathom. FIP is almost a run lower than the results which also suggests the fielders are (mostly) the culprits.
The lineup gets a lot of walks (304, 3rd-most in MLB) but there's not enough thump to turn base runners into runs scored. And there are too many holes. Injuries keep taking out the hottest hitters and too many of the regulars are performing well below expectations. The trade deadline is August 2nd and I'm sure the fans expect some movement from the front office to shore things up. The problem is I don't see an impact player out there that will move the needle enough for this team. They unfortunately just have to play better baseball! And by the end of this month the team could be sellers instead of buyers but I don't really want to think about that.
Right now they've got three more games in San Diego and they need to win some of them. Sam Long opens tonight at 6:40 PT.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
5 comments:
Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs does a breakdown on the Giants. There's a good chart on the hitters that's worth a look. And this paragraph on the bullpen:
Aside from the defense, the biggest performance decline is in the bullpen, which last year owned the league’s best ERA- (74) and second-best FIP- (92); they’re now tied for third-worst in ERA- (107) and tied for ninth in FIP- (99). Jake McGee has gone from reliable closer (2.72 ERA, 3.05 FIP, 31 saves) to palooka (6.64 ERA, 4.04 FIP); his barrel rate has more than doubled, from 6.5% to 13.9%, and he’s been supplanted in the ninth-inning role by Camilo Doval. Tyler Rogers‘ ERA has more than doubled, from 2.22 to 4.74, even while his FIP and barrel rates have barely budged. Dominic Leone has regressed from a 1.51 ERA and 3.08 FIP to a 3.64 ERA and 3.75 FIP. José Álvarez’s ERA has more than doubled, from 2.37 to 5.28, and his barrel rate has quintupled, from 2.4% to 12.0%. I could go on.
So, bad defense and a bad (and over-used) bullpen. That sounds about right. The Giants are also 13th of 15 NL teams in hits, in spite of a decent OBP. That checks with walks as you mentioned. Ruf hit a 2-run hr against Arizona, I heard the announcers say in an earlier game that, of their 25 previous hr, 23 were solo shots. Although I can't easily find where they rank in hits with RISP, I bet it's pretty bad.
It's not, actually. They hit better with RISP, 2 outs, high leverage, etc. I know it's counter-intuitive as it feels exactly the opposite. I think it's the lack of power. They get singles and sac flies when they need doubles and homers. Giants 130 doubles are 20th in MLB, their 93 homers are 12th. Their slugging percentage (.391) is a tick below league average (.395).
Lack of production from the Brandons has been a big hit to the offense. Ruf has not been close to his last two seasons. Luis Gonzalez got hurt. So did Longo. La Stella is too hurt to do much at all, his bat isn't good enough for DH. Yaz was cooking but hit a big slump. Too many holes in the lineup! Too many minor-leaguers taking up spots!
Earlier in the season they were hitting with runners on. Lately they have not. And when they get a hit with a runner on second, they are station to station. Hitting into double plays lately and not taking advantage of scoring opportunities has been the norm. Earlier in the year we looked good on many of these stats. We are regressing to the middle and worse really fast. Of-course injuries have a lot to do with it. Striking out at the worst time and hitting into double plays perhaps is the sign of a very tight and tense team. Or maybe the talent is falling back to where it actually is. Perhaps with half the season to go, if we get back a semblance of a healthy team the giants can easily make a run at the wildcard, but if not they will more likely make a run toward the bottom and a better draft pick. Perhaps Farhan set on his laurels a bit too much after last season, basking in the glory of his accomplishments. Without a healthy solid full starting rotation, and bullpen games once or twice a week, it is not a surprise that the bullpen has been much worse than last year. They have been asked to do way to much. It was the overuse of the bullpen last year that is thought to be responsible for the Padres late season collapse. Their new manager is making sure that it does not happen again. We are clearly at least one solid healthy starting pitcher away from having a solid starting rotation. The poor fielding in the infield, even when they are not making errors has been very problematic. I would venture to guess that the giants are leading the league in giving up infield hits. They have given up rallies when the opponent has not gotten the ball out of the infield, and not like last night against the Pads when they starting walking batters. It is not too late to turn things around, but this team better go on a nice winning streak starting today.
I don't think they anticipated getting zero from DeScalfani. They signed him to three-year deal! And they got Rodon who has been very good. I thought the Cobb pickup was excellent but he got hurt and has yet to find his groove, though much of that is the lousy play behind him. Jakob Junis was a great signing but he got hurt. Wood was expected to log more innings. Webb has been Webb, he leads the team in IP.
They started spring with a full rotation and even some backups like Beede and Hjelle and Long. I don't blame the FO, they did the work to get the guys here, they just haven't performed.
No one thought Jake McGee would implode completely. Tyler Rogers has a 3.28 FIP but 4.50 ERA! John Brebbia has been excellent, and the other guys (Leone, Garcia, Doval) pretty good overall, just not as dominant as last year. And overworked, for sure.
I don't think the Padres "planned" to burn out their bullpen! It just happened because they had too many guys get injured. I think it's the same thing with the Giants. They expected a lot more from the rotation they assembled. They've had to scramble and do things on the fly because of all the injuries and some unexpectedly bad stretches by veteran guys.
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