East-West matchup

The 2009 Atlanta Braves "underperformed" their Pythagorean projection by FIVE games, finishing 86-76 (3rd place), 7 GB the NL-champ Phils. They were 5th in the NL in RS with 735 and 4th in RA with 641. Braves fans can be forgiven for thinking they "shoulda beena contendah" with those numbers. This year's lineup features aging stars like Chipper Jones and Troy Glaus as well as young studs like Brian McCann and Yunel Escobar. The Giants assigned their über-prospect Buster Posey to the minors, but the Braves put 20-year old Jason "Heymaker" Heyward in their Opening Day lineup and he hit a 3-run HR his first time up. Here's a look at the everyday lineup with their 2009 wOBA and CHONE 2010 projected wOBA:

Melky Cabrera, LF (.331, .358)
Martin Prado, 2B (.355, .351)
Chipper Jones, 3B (.354, .377)
Brian McCann, C (.359, .373)
Troy Glaus, 1B (.228, .356) Glaus was out most of 2009, his career wOBA is .367
Yunel Escobar, SS (.357, .352)
Jason Heyward (rookie, .325) Here are his minor league numbers.
Nate McLouth, CF (.350, .355)

Note that wOBA or "weighted on-base average" is scaled like OBP, that is, .400 is outstanding, .330 is average, .300 is poor. This looks like a pretty good hitting team, and I'm curious how our pitching will do against some tough outs instead of the fodder we (mostly) saw in Houston.

The pitching matchups are Tim Hudson against Jonathan Sanchez in the Opener, and Derek Lowe against our No. 5, Todd Wellemeyer, on Saturday. The website says TBA for the weekend games--I wonder if the Giants will move Timmy up because of the off-day today. I don't see why this early in the season. I'm going to miss Saturday's game so I hope Tim pitches Sunday when I can watch.

Hudson's best years are behind him. CHONE projects only 19 starts but with a 3.74 FIP. The Braves, though, think he can still pitch and signed him to a 3-year, $28M deal this off-season. He had Tommy John surgery last year. He doesn't strike a lot of guys out, but he doesn't walk people either and gets his outs with ground balls. Derek Lowe is even older than Hudson, and is also a groundball pitcher, known for his sinker. CHONE projects 30 starts and a 3.87 FIP. Interestingly, the Braves signed Lowe to a 4-year, $60M deal before the 2009 season. That seems insane for a good-but-not-great oldster (his ERA+ last year was 88!) Relying on overpaid, past-their-prime guys seems like a big red flag for Braves fans, but their young bucks Tommy Hanson (22, pitches today) and Jair Jurrjens (24, pitched yesterday) seem like good bets to build around. Kenshin Kawakami, formerly of the Chunichi Dragons, rounds out the ro' and I expect we'll see him Sunday. I know next-to-nothing about Atlanta's 'pen, but I could say the same about every team except the Giants. Billy Wagner is the closer, another ancient (but effective) guy.

Bring 'em on!

--M.C.

p.s. Check out the photo of Eugenio Velez and his mis-spelled jersey! I didn't notice this on TV.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!

In a game I thought would be about pitching and fielding, the Giants scored 10 RUNS on 19 HITS to make all the drama and close plays academic. Matt Cain looked sharp and efficient through the first six innings, but started to miss his spots in the 7th. It took him 23 pitches to get two outs, give up three hits, and allow three earned runs to tie the game and rack up his first ND of 2010. With two on and one out, Dave Righetti had a chat with no. 18 who then struck out J.R. Towles. But lefty pinch-hitter Cory Sullivan got a 2-1 fastball to drive and he hit it hard to right-center. Cain kept the ball in the yard, it was just short of the track, but Rowand took a bad route on it, overran it, and then had to reach back for it and dropped it. It was ruled a triple and that was it for Cain with the score 4-3 Giants. Jeremy Affeldt got Michael Bourn to hit a little dribbler to second but the speedy leadoff man beat it out to drive in the run that tied it (charged to Cain). 98 pitches, 27 batters faced, 4 runs, 3 earned, ZERO walks, 5 strikeouts. Matt got 10 groundball outs, but the fly ball did him in. Aaron Rowand made up for it with 4 hits and 2 RBI, Edgar "The Rejuvenator" Renteria logged a perfect 5-5 day (with a walk), and John Bowker hit a 2-run bomb to RF in the 2nd. Pablo Sandoval and Juan Uribe got two hits apiece, and Travis Ishikawa homered as a pinch-hitter to start the 9th. The Giants scored 1 in the 7th, 2 in the 8th and 4 in the 9th. That's SEVEN RUNS in the final three innings! The Berkman-less Astros were pretty punchless, with Pence and Lee going 1-24 in the series. The Giants got three solid starts. Cain had given up only 3 hits and 1 unearned run on 75 pitches before his trouble in the 7th, overall his Game Score was 53 (Zito and Lincecum were 70 and 76 respectively). In all, Giants pitchers allowed only six runs, five earned. A sweet, sweet sweep before a travel day. Home Opener Friday afternoon with Jonathan Sanchez getting the ball and facing the Atlanta Braves and Tim Hudson. That's a good club and we'll get a chance to see their 20-year old phenom Jason Heyward. Should be some great baseball this weekend.

GO GIANTS!!

--M.C.

That's the formula, part two

Wandy Rodriguez and Barry Zito went curveball toe-to-toe tonight in The Battle of the Quality Starts. BZ kept the Astros off base, only one walk and three hits allowed. Rodriguez obviously didn't get the memo about Giants hitters as he started off the 6th with back-to-back four-pitch walks to Edgar Renteria and Pablo Sandoval. Both later scored when Aubrey Huff laced a single and Mark DeRosa beat out a double-play grounder. It looked like Rodgriguez would dodge another bullet--the Giants had hit into three DPs by that point--but the baseball gods and DeRosa's savvy clutchness saved us. Bengie Molina displayed yet another facet of his supreme gamerosity by driving in a run on a first-pitch foul pop-up to Hunter Pence, whose up-the-line throw home allowed a dancing Panda to score. It was, suddenly, 3-0. Zito struck out the first batter in the bottom half, Michael Bourn, but Jeff Keppinger hammered a ball to the top of the wall in left that should have been ruled a homer. He was stranded on second when Zito routinely dismissed Hunter Pence and Carlos Lee. 90 pitches, 22 batters, 5 K, it was a good night's work--nothing but zeroes for our spendy, greybeard* southpaw. Two starts, 13 shutout innings, I think that's the formula, no? We got a taste of the future with Waldis Joaquin, Dan Runzler, and Sergio Romo racking up outs (2/3 IP each) with serious heat. Zito topped out at 85 mph and all three of those kids were in the mid-90s! In Zito's defense, his 71 mph hook did the job. Brian Wilson looked positively relaxed throwing his usual screamers and other vicious unhittables. Bring it on, man!

2-0 to start the season feels fecking grand, eh? Matt Cain at 11:05 a.m. tomorrow.

Dare I say it? Sweeeeeeeeeeep!!

--M.C.


*Todd Wellemeyer is a few months younger, making Zito the Giants second-oldest pitcher (32 in May). Only the antediluvian Guillermo Mota has more growth rings. Minor quibble: I want Bowker (or Schierholtz) starting, not Torres. Torres is a bench guy. Bowker is our starter, screw the lefty-righty stuff. How the hell will he ever learn to hit lefties if he doesn't get to swing the bat? I was happy to see Bowker get a pinch-hit. Play the man, dammit!

Smokin' Tim

The Giants started their 128th season, 53rd in San Francisco, with one of their all time greatest stars leading the way. Tim Lincecum executed seven scoreless innings, giving up 4 singles (one crushed off the wall) and no walks, while collecting seven strikeouts. His 98 pitch effort featured a change-up in midseason form that was in a perfect counterbalance to a 95 - 92 MPH fastball. There were three or four different times that people swung and missed BY A LOT! I'm talking 6 - 10 inches. Poor Hunter Pence, a really good young star, looked like a doe in the headlights. Their feeble catcher, some stiff named Towles, was so clearly praying for a walk it was shameful. Only Carlos Lee looked like he was getting some good rips at Tim. So what does The Freak do? Late in the game, Tim breaks off a 2-0 SLIDER (!!!!) that handcuffs Lee into a weak foul out. After the game, Tim implied that many of his change-ups were actually sliders, apparently the speed is the same. Can you imagine the fun we will be having this year if young Mr. Lincecum has a "new" pitch? Be still my heart.

From JC Parsons and M.C. O'Connor, of Raising Matt Cain:

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Smoke 'Em, If You Got 'Em

That's the formula

Tim Lincecum throws crisp shutout ball and our veterans exude savvy clutchness and the Giants come up winners. They are already starting to talk about 162-0, me buckos. Why can't every game be like this one? OK, I could go without the Medders hiccup, or Leadoff Man's 0-5, but otherwise there was a hell of a lot to like. Lincecum was dominating, again. Seven strikeouts, including the last two batters, zero walks, only 98 pitches to get 21 outs. Filthy, filthy, filthy. Rejuvenated Renteria served noticed with some nice strokes at the plate. Mark "Dingerz" DeRosa won the all-rounder award by getting on base, scoring runs, and making plays. Bengie "6-hole" Molina cracked a low one from Oswalt to get the scoring started, silencing his critics on the blog pages with exemplary gamerissitude and pitch-calling. Hell, I'm not even giving Tim credit for this. This one is all Bengie and his knowledge of pitching. TEN hits, FIVE runs. We got 10 hits! And 5 runs! If we do that every night we will win the West easily. And for all the talk about our fielding, we got some nifty putouts by Rowand and Sandoval, and Renteria and Ishikawa just missed throwing Carlos Lee out to start the 9th on a ball deep in the hole. The replay looked like Ishikawa missed what seemed like a not-too-difficult chance. For him, that is. Anybody get a read on that play?

Great night of baseball! Let's keep it rolling!

--M.C.

Holiday hiatus

It's Good Friday and I'm off work! I've got a bit of a holiday lined up for the weekend so I'll be off-line for the next few days. I'll be back for The Opener in Houston. (That was a seriously ugly outing last night in San Francisco--Zito getting shelled, Rowand flailing at outside pitches, Molina looking even fatter than last year . . . I could go on and on. I'm glad it didn't count.)

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Breaking camp

"We have a real good idea where we are [with the 25]. We've talked among ourselves," said Bochy. "We'll huddle again in San Francisco. These decisions are always difficult, and we have some guys who will be disappointed, because they're in that group who had good springs."

Uh, OK. That means Buster, right? They are certainly going to keep Bowker on the roster, he's hit too well in his 78 plate appearances to ignore. Small sample size, my arse! He's a force! He's a beast! He's the starter! Darren Ford, Roger Kieschnick, and Matt Downs "had good springs" but I don't think anyone seriously considered spots for them on the 25-man roster. I think Torres will stick--I hope so, I like his glove and speed out there patrolling "the greensward" in the late innings. So, who's the elephant in the room? Who had a fair showing in Arizona but will still get the axe? I'm thinking it's Fred Lewis. His .845 OPS isn't earth-shattering, it's rather Fred-like, really, very Lewisian when all is said and done. If "Freddie's Dead" then there must be a spot for Mr. .264/.305/.396 Eugenio Velez. In 7 seasons and almost 500 minor-league games, Sr. Velez was good for a .792 OPS (.295/.342/.450). He'd be damn near the best player on our team not named Sandoval if he could do that in majors. I suspect Ol' Boch likes his "versatility." Last year he played 14 innings in RF, 65-1/3 in CF, 215-2/3 at 2B, and  288-2/3 in LF. He does possess some seriously freakish speed, and I just know Ol' Boch is going to bunt, hit-and-run, run-and-hit, bunt-and-run, run-and-bunt, steal, double-steal, fake steal, fake-bunt, and fake-bunt-and-hit like Roger Craig on crack. Krukow loves "the butcher play" so I imagine I'll hear a lot of gushing from the Kruk-ster about it this season.

Any thoughts on the 25, mates?

--M.C.