Passing the ERA torch

After last night's shelling of Ryan Vogelsong, I'm beginning to wonder if I should get out of the prediction game. It's also possible that I need to start betting against my instincts. Anyway, despite last night, I'm willing to say that this will still end up a good series.

That of course will depend highly on the offensive showing tonight. Jordan Zimmermann, after Vogelsong's .5 ERA spike, is now the National League leader in ERA at 2.35. He's had a fantastic year, and is somehow avoiding Cy Young discussions; possibly being overshadowed by his team mate Stephen Strasburg.

Taking the hill tonight for the Giants is Madison Bumgarner, the man who's career is starting much like Matt Cain's and Justin Verlander's, with one exception: it's been better. This year he sports a 3.01 ERA with great strikeout numbers.

What I'm trying to say is that I like Madison Bumgarner. He's a lefty slinger, and by God I love them leftys (Kirk Reuter, forever in our memories).

I hesitate to ever predict wins and losses. Frankly, in baseball anyone can beat you at any time. But tonight we see the return of the Panda, and I'm still holding that this series will end up brighter than our last with the Nationals (a low bar I know).

-Bean

League Average = First Place

A big league manager's dream for his bullpen is to have the starter throw nine innings. In his last start, Gio Gonzalez did just that for the Washington Nationals. After watching an hour or so of the talking heads, I've been hearing about the upcoming dominance that Gonzalez is about to feature in tonight's game, so I thought I might compare tonight's starting pitching. Furthermore, I thought I'd compare the offenses that each pitcher will be up against.

First, Gio Gonzalez. Gonzalez is in the midst of a career year by the peripheral metrics. His SO/BB ratio is up around .76 above his career average. Similarly, his hits per nine, walks per nine, and dingers per nine (technical term) are all down measurably from last year, and his career average. Gonzalez is sporting a 3.32 era this year, which is the only measurable metric that is up from previous years. The only issue Gonzalez has run into this year is allowing more extra base hits than before, and falling prey to the "Big Inning".

He'll be facing what is essentially a league-average offense. Up from last year's abysmal offensive performance, the Giants now are seventh in baseball in hits. They've taken approximately the league average in walks, have an above average steal rate, a higher than average strikeout rate, and below average power.


On the other side of the Diamond, Ryan Vogelsong, the National League ERA leader. His season has been even more impressive than last year's effort. He sports a 2.27 ERA, and is generally roughing up every offense he's run into. His complete season of quality starts has been well documented, and it's seemed that even the best hitters are using foam bats against him.

His peripheral metrics are all solid. His K/BB is over 2, his K/9 is around 7, his BB/9 is 3.0. He has pitched exactly 143 innings, which is about twenty innings above league average.

The offense he'll be facing is, despite the hype of Bryce Harper, a less than average one. The Nationals strike out more than all but the Houston Astros, and the Oakland Athletics. Furthermore, they are 14th in baseball (league average) in batting average. Their on base percentage is 16th in baseball, also essentially league average. Even their slugging percentage, the traditional metric of power, is only 13th in baseball.

Other metrics follow the same trend: the Nationals are a power team, they love hitting dingers. Unfortunately for them, they are only relatively successful. Fortunately for them, their stellar pitching has awarded them with the best record in baseball, in what is a reasonably tooled division.

This series looks to be somewhat less lopsided than the last series the Giants had with the Nationals, the record of which shall forever remain unspoken.

-Bean

Hunter Pence delivers unto thee: his first Giants dinger

So it was a great day up in Giants Town. Today, there were most of the things that Giants fans like to see:

1. Brandon Belt went 4/4 with a pair of doubles, and one walk
2. Buster Posey, was Buster Posey. He continued to improve upon his formidable slash-line of what is now 332/406/547.
3. Hunter Pence was the hero of the game with a three run dinger. A further note might e that two of his outs (one of which being a disappointing double play) were line drives. As players go, Hunter Pence is above average. If last year's performance is to be believed, he's far above average. The Giants have been hoping that he'll get it going. We can hope for the best, which means forgetting all about the last eleven games for Hunter.
4. Sergio Romo continued to be The Man. His strike out per nine is all sorts of crazy, and by that I mean 10.1 before tonight's game, in which he struck out the side for the save.

So, what we have here is another series win and a head of steam headed into the Nationals series. Tomorrow I'll go over the series match-ups, which portend all sorts of pitching shenanigans that will hopefully be void of Brad Penny in any capacity other than Bench Breaker-Inner

-Bean

Last Place Teams Make Me Sweat

The inaugural post for The Giants' Series Weekly is happily here. This blog is about the Giants, so get used to that. If you're still here, then you'll get your fill of stats, Buster Posey worship, and shameless predictions on the games to come. So without further delay:

This series, starting in about three hours (7:30 Pacific) is against the last place Colorado Rockies. As teams go, these Rockies aren't exactly the '55 Yankees. The Giants, as well as any first place team, probably feel like they should win any series they play with Colorado this year. And so far, the Giants are six and two against Colorado. Furthermore, the Giants have vastly outscored the Rockies, who have the worst ERA (5.42) in all of the National League.

The Rockies' staff has issued 3.9 walks per nine, and allows the opposition a staggering .293 batting average clearly is vulnerable. On the other hand, the Rockies have the second best offense (BA 268, OPS 768) in the National League by every metric other than Runs Scored, a metric the Rockies are ranked third in.

In the upcoming series, the Giants are rematched against Tyler Chatwood, who's eight starts this year have been typical of the Rockies staff. He has allowed nine walks, 23 hits, and twelve earned runs in just 16.1 innings of work. The good news for the Rockies, is Tim Lincecum, and Barry Zito, both of whom are, recently or otherwise, shadows of their former Cy Young glory.

The only real issue for the Giants in this first game is Tim Lincecum. Not accounting for Tyler Chatwood dealing the majors' 23rd perfect game, it's likely the Giants will score a few runs. Odds are if Tim Lincecum can keep the ball down in the zone, this will be a happy blog later tonight. Otherwise we might mistake AT&T park for Coors' Field just for an evening.

-Bean