The Giants lost three straight for the first time in 2025, getting whipped twice in San Diego and then falling flat on Thursday night against the lowly Rockies. That game featured Tyler Rogers giving up two runs in the 8th that ultimately decided things. Rogers gave up only one run across 16 appearances (15-1/3 IP, 55 TBF) in the month of April! He's been mostly Mr. Automatic and a big part of the bullpen's contributions to the Giants excellent opening month.
The team bounced back over the weekend with a clean sweep of the three games. Friday showcased a great start (7 2 0 0 2 8) from Robbie Ray in a 4-0 win. That's two really strong efforts from him back-to-back. It seems like it is all about walks for him. If he cuts those down he gets better results. When Ray pitches like that you can see why Farhan Zaidi could think he'd be a nice lefty complement to Logan Webb. (Speaking of Webb, he had a great start today.) On Saturday Matt Chapman's grand slam in the 5-run 6th punctuated the 6-3 win.
This afternoon in San Francisco Willy Adames had his best day with two big bombs and an RBI double. That last one chased German Marquez in the 5th. The Giants piled on in the 7th and finished the 9-3 win with 13 hits and a 6-for-12 mark with RISP. That made it easy for Webb (7 6 1 1 2 6) who got eight ground balls and two double plays.
It's off to Chicago to face the 21-14 Cubs. Game time 4:40 Pacific, Landen Roupp starts.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
5 comments:
It was nice to score some runs for Webb for a change. Giants made 2 errors on Sunday. Will need to play cleaner baseball vs. the Cubs. I still think the giants strike out way too much, and the pitch selection from some of their hitters leaves a lot to be desired. If Roupp and HIcks do not start getting some better outings I can see Birdsong, and Harrison at some point moving into the rotation. It was interesting in Saturday's game, Hicks was not giving up anything, and then he started being just slightly squeezed at the corners and could not survive it. But low and behold the umpire did the same to the Rockies, and their ptichers could not handle it either. It shows that many pitchers when they get squeezed, do not handle it well. Walker got a pitchers call to end the game getting a called strike 3, on what was probably a ball. He also got a great call in his save last month against the Yankees, when he got a called strike on Judge that flummoxed Judge. Hoping the giants can stay in the race for the long run.
Harrison called up, Trivino DFA'd.
38 K vs 8 W for Harrison in 26 IP at AAA. Only 2 HR allowed. Let's hope that continues for him!
MLB is trying to get umps to get better about "edge" strikes. They want to see the zone shrink to the rule book size and not give pitchers called strikes on the borderlines. It's not talked about, but it's happening. Pitchers are getting "squeezed" and they have to come in more. MLB wants fewer strikeouts and more balls in play. I can't argue with that.
Ultimately the automation is coming, be it full robot umps, robot-assist, or a challenge system. Players have to be ready for that. The strike zone will be more consistent. Tom Glavine won't get that outside pitch anymore! Mostly, guys like Patrick Bailey will be less valuable as "pitch-framing" will fade away.
I actually think the umps are doing a much better job at calling balls and strikes this year. Not too many ultra-terrible calls, and certainly not that many during any game. This must have a lot to do with the impending possibility of having ROBO-ump balls, and strikes calls. There were some umps that I worried about a lot when they were behind the plate during giants games. Used to be Angel Hernandez. But I still do not like it when Phil Cuzzi is behind the plate. I wonder what the giants record is when Cuzzi is the home plate umpire. I would love to see team records when certain umpires are behind the plate. Sure it is not as bad as it was before instant replay.
It's probably do-able. Baseball-Reference has a query feature that might work! That data is somewhere, maybe Baseball Savant has it.
The umpiring is about as good as it can get. Humans can't get 100% perfect. These guys are amazing but the ball is too small and too fast and the players are too good. They need the technology to help them out.
A more consistent strike zone will benefit hitters more than pitchers in my mind. That's good for the game. We need to see fewer whiffs and more batted ball action.
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