Be still, my beating heart! The Giants have won 5 games in a row. Before you raise the “Playoffs or bust!” banner, playing the Padres might have had something to do with our mini-streak. The Pads lineup isn’t bad, they’ve got some very nice hitters in Giles, Gonzalez, Gerut, Kouzmanoff, and Headley but their pitching staff, usually a strength, is in pieces. Maddux is gone in his yearly trade to L.A., Chris Young has been injured for most of the season, and Randy Wolf was traded to the Astros. What’s left is Jake Peavy and group of ragtag minor league journeymen and other assorted pitching fodder. Petco is a pitchers park, but it won’t turn weak pitching into gold.
So, yeah, the Padres are terrible but the Giants are less-terrible!
One of the bigger news items of the weekend was Tim Lincecum’s continued dominance and his continued ascent up the ladder of great Giants pitching seasons in history. Over the weekend, Lincecum became the 7th Giants pitcher since 1956 to record 200 or more strikeouts in a season. The last Giants pitcher to strikeout 200 hitters or more in a season was Jason Schmidt in 2004, he struck out 251 hitters that year, the most by a Giants pitcher since 1956.
Here’s our list of pitchers that have struck out 200 or more in a season, ranked by year.
| Name | Year | SO |
| Tim Lincecum | 2008 | 200 |
| Jason Schmidt | 2004 | 251 |
| Jason Schmidt | 2003 | 208 |
| John Montefusco | 1975 | 215 |
| Gaylord Perry | 1970 | 214 |
| Juan Marichal | 1969 | 205 |
| Gaylord Perry | 1969 | 233 |
| Ray Sadecki | 1968 | 203 |
| Juan Marichal | 1968 | 218 |
| Gaylord Perry | 1967 | 230 |
| Juan Marichal | 1966 | 222 |
| Gaylord Perry | 1966 | 201 |
| Juan Marichal | 1965 | 240 |
| Juan Marichal | 1964 | 206 |
| Juan Marichal | 1963 | 248 |
| Sam Jones | 1959 | 209 |
Schmidt struck out 200 or more in back-to-back seasons in ‘03-’04. Previous to Schmidt, the last Giants pitcher to strikeout 200 hitters or more in a season was John “The Count” Montefusco in 1975. The 1960’s were time to some of the best Giants pitching in franchise history. Juan Marichal made our list five times for his seasons in the 60’s and joining him was Gaylord Perry, who made the list four times. “Sad Sam” Jones and Ray Sadecki finish our list.
It’s amazing that from 1976-2002 the Giants did not have a single pitcher that recorded 200 strikeouts in a season. Then again, the 70’s and most of the 80’s were pretty tough times for the franchise. Here’s the top 10 Giants pitchers from ‘76-’02 that just missed the 200 strikeouts milestone.
| Name | Year | SO |
| Jason Schmidt | 2002 | 196 |
| Shawn Estes | 1997 | 181 |
| Mike Krukow | 1986 | 178 |
| John Montefusco | 1978 | 177 |
| John Montefusco | 1976 | 172 |
| Vida Blue | 1978 | 171 |
| Russ Ortiz | 2001 | 169 |
| Ed Halicki | 1977 | 168 |
| Russ Ortiz | 2000 | 167 |
| Livan Hernandez | 2000 | 165 |
Not a bad collection of pitching. Schmidt just missed the mark in ‘02. It might surprise you to know that Shawn Estes’ 1997 season is one of the best seasons by a Giants lefty since 1956. It currently ranks 4th in ERA+ (for those wondering, Atlee Hammaker’s 1983 is #1). Krukow, Montefusco, Vida Blue, and a couple of Russ Ortiz seasons finish our list, we even have a Livan sighting.
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Other News
~ Jonathan Sanchez is “feeling fine” and could start a game in the Cincinnati series. SFGiants.com speculates that he might come off the DL on Wednesday. Matt Palmer pitched well enough to earn himself another start in his last outing, so the Giants could and should take it easy with Sanchez. He’s put in a large workload this year and his health will be key for next years team.
It’s also apparent that Bochy doesn’t want to go to a 6-man rotation right now:
There had been some discussion about using a six-man rotation, but Bochy nixed that idea — for now.
I would like to hear his reasoning. The team will be “monitoring” Lincecum and Cain for the remainder of the year and a 6-man rotation would be one way to try and lessen their workloads.
~ Noah Lowry threw 20 pitches in a bullpen session on Saturday. Small progress for Lowry who has mostly been playing catch for the last month and not pitching off a mound. He might find his way to Winterball if his arm is feeling well. The Giants will be paying Lowry $4.5M in ‘09, his last contract year with the team.
~ Farm Watch: Giants 1st rounder, Buster Posey, is getting some action with the AZL Giants. Over three games in the AZL, he’s hitting: (.308/.308/.462) in 13 AB’s. Most think Posey could move quick through the system. Brandon Crawford, the Giants 4th round pick, left a S-K game on Saturday in the bottom of the 3rd with a “ankle/leg injury“. Crawford grounded out and then when the team took the field for defense, he was substituted for. It’s possible that he tweaked or rolled his ankle when he was running to first on the groundout. Hopefully it’s nothing serious.
I wasn’t sure where to add this to the original post, so I thought I’d post it in the comments.
The Giants have a couple of left-handers that they drafted on the 2nd day of the draft that are pitching well.
LHP Scott Barnes:
Augusta, 26.2 IP, 11 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 0 HR, 7 BB, 35 SO, 1.35 ERA
He struck out 14 in 6 innings on August 23rd.
LHP Aaron King:
Arizona Rookie League, 28.2 IP, 21 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 1 HR, 13 BB, 37 SO, 2.83 ERA
I liked them both as 2nd day picks. The Giants tend to find good pitching value on the 2nd day and in later rounds. It’s still incredibly early and you can’t draw much (if anything at all) from the first 20 innings of a players pro-career, but it’s good to see them have success on some level. Of the two, I probably like King the most, he’s got a little more velo than Barnes. Both have funky deliveries.
Also, in a weird parallel to the 200K Club, I decided to see which Giants starting pitchers struck out the fewest amount of batters since 1956.
Before I even looked at the results I thought “Kirk Rueter”
Turns out he wasn’t #1 (that goes to Jim Barr for his 1978 season, 163 IP just 44 strikeouts) but he was #2 for his 2004 season. In ‘04 Woody threw 190.1 innings and struck out just 56 batters. He appears in the top-10 3 times.
Go Woody!
Good gawd, Schmidt’s 251 in 2004 is absolutely absurd! Too bad his arm fell off shortly thereafter.
I can’t say anything about Timmy that hasn’t already been said — watching him pitch this year has been an honor.
DUDE STRIKES OTHER DUDES OUT!
Yeah, the 1971-2002 period was horrible for pitching, Krukow as nice, so was Big Daddy Rueschel, Dave Drevecky, but we never had any dominating guy since The Count in terms of strikeout aura, until Cain, then Lincecum, came along.
We were suppose to get another one when the Giants traded for Sudden Sam McDowell (gave up Gaylord Perry), but according to rumors he was a drunk and he was done, essentially, before he even put on the Giants uniform. And of course Perry went on to fame and fortune and Cy Young…
It was trades like that that yielded nothing that killed the Giants in that period, Perry, Cepeda, Foster, Kingman, Jack Clark, Chili Davis, Gladden were all traded and while they went on to further very productive, All-Star level play, the players we got in exchange essentially did zip for us, except for Clark which at least got us the iconic “Ooo-Ree-Bay” but we lost on big on that trade still. Plus the loss of key young players like Ron “Bear” Bryant (career basically ended diving into pool with not enough water), Atlee Hammaker, to injuries, and non-development of players like Mark Grant, Mike Remlinger, others, that contributed to the mediocre play during most of the 1972-1996 period, except for the oasis of the Al Rosen years.
Have to like Barnes more right now, he’s doing better at a much higher level. And he is dominating and should be right in there age-wise for that league, maybe a little too old for a true blue-chip prospect, but look at that H/9, BB/9, K/BB, K/9, that is pretty much shut down goodness, much like how Lincecum was chewing up the Cal League in his first pro experience.
So how poor is Barnes’s velocity? Velocity is nice but as you know if he has great control over his breaking pitch, that separation is what is key. If it’s under 90 MPH, then I can understand your reticience to select him over King.
OGC,
Good history on some of those bad trades.
Barnes was flashing 84-86mph at times in college at St. Johns, but he apparently made some tempo adjustments in the 2nd half and worked in the upper 80’s with more regularity, touching 90 now-and-then. He’s got a really funky delivery, his moves his head in a weird way, almost like Hideki Okajima does for the Red Sox. When he releases the ball, he’s not looking towards homeplate. He struggled with control in college, posting BB/9’s of 4.92, 3.21, and 4.48 in his three years which might be a byproduct of his delivery.
King already works around 90mph and has the ability to touch low-to-mid 90’s on occasion. His mechanics are also wacky.
King played Juco ball and had a nice final season at Surry Community College:
Both guys are probably getting some help by the deception in their deliveries, and control will probably be a hurdle for them as well. I’ll take King for now because his velocity is greater but that’s not a knock on Barnes, it’s probably a toss-up at this point.
FYI: BA had Barnes ranked higher in their pre-draft rankings, he was 128th to Kings 145, so it’s pretty close. Definitely happy to have both in the system.
Lowry is a great example to use for anybody who wants to argue against buying out a young player’s arbitration years. Since he signed that extension he’s been an injury-riddled, mediocre mess. That’s not to say that the risk wasn’t worth taking, but you never really hear people talk about the downside to this strategy.
@Paulie
Lowry’s contract is a great example of how sometimes things take a turn for the worse. What’s interesting to me is that the trend in baseball seems to be reversing, ie: young players going year-to-year instead of settling for deals like Lowry got that buy out portions of their arbitration years.
Lincecum has already stated that he wants to go year-to-year and I believe Jonthan Papelbon is doing the same.
I know if I was a young player, I’d most certainly take the financial stability of a guaranteed contract.
“Lowry is a great example to use for anybody who wants to argue against buying out a young player’s arbitration years. Since he signed that extension he’s been an injury-riddled, mediocre mess. That’s not to say that the risk wasn’t worth taking, but you never really hear people talk about the downside to this strategy.”
Funny I look at Lowry’s contract has a great example of what happens when a manager stays stuck in the 80’s ( or before) and piles work on an under 26 year old arm. Going from 92 MLB innings ( 189 if counting Minors in ‘04 at age 23) to 204 innings in the Show during ‘05 at age 24 was a large risk. The injuries and flame outs are the stakes when you run that gamble. To each their own I guess.