So, today is the day that Cody Ross comes off the disabled list, and the Giants must decide whether or not to send Brandon Belt down to Fresno. Personally, I wouldn’t have much of a problem with that, but I think my reasoning is slightly different than a few other fans. Sample size be damned, I’m pretty sick of watching… Read more →
I like it when the Giants win in Colorado. A couple of thoughts on tonight’s 8-1 win against the Rockies. — * Tim Linecum really pitched an excellent game. Forget the fact that he lost the no-hitter and the shutout in the 7th, he cruised for most of the night, keeping the Rockies’ hitters painfully off balance. The slider, a… Read more →
So, the answer to the question of “Who will replace Barry Zito?” is Ryan Vogelsong. I assume that the Giants didn’t want to mess with the development of Clayton Tanner or Eric Surkamp, and just plain didn’t want to watch Henry Sosa pitch.That, plus a little extra wiggle room on the 40-man, probably narrowed it down to the half dozen minor… Read more →
In last night’s win against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Giants’ left-handed pitcher, Barry Zito, suffered what team officials are calling a ‘mid-foot sprain’. Zito landed awkwardly in the 2nd inning while trying to field Joe Saunders bunt pop-pop, and had to be pulled on the next pitch. In the post-game wrap, Barry Bloom made mention that Barry Zito’s ankle was swollen… Read more →
It’s a dream for him; it gives him not one, but two strikeout pitches – one for both righties and lefties. For right-handed hitters, it’s just no fun at all. He was plenty successful with his changeup alone, a pitch that typically is far more effective versus your Joey Vottoes and Ryan Howardes. But his new slider should make for… Read more →
Outfield Alignment My Approximate Comfort Level Ross, Torres, Schierholtz Curled up on the couch, with a comforter and hey! Top Chef is on. Burrell, Torres, Ross Still on the couch, but I’m not sure where the remote is, and I think Teen Mom is on next. Burrell, Torres, Huff I think there might be a spider on this couch. I’m… Read more →
Well, you can’t complain much about that series. The Giants had already given a few games away to the Dodgers and Padres. It was very thoughtful of Colby Rasmus to let Miguel Tejada’s drive kick of his heel on Saturday. Pay it forward, kid. Speaking of Tejada, that AB against Franklin was a moment where a number came to life… Read more →
Well, that felt pretty good. Nothing stops a losing streak quite like one of Tim Lincecum’s change-ups. Lincecum dealt with the problem of his porous defense in the time honored way that we have all dealt with mistake-prone coworkers- by doing his best to make sure that they had as little to do with his success as possible. He struck… Read more →
Back in May of 2010, FanGraphs began providing Shutdowns (SD) and Meltdowns (MD) in the Win Probability section of each pitchers’ page: … there’s been a lot of discussion on The Book Blog about creating a save style metric based on WPA. The end result of the discussion was to create two stats: Shutdowns and Meltdowns. A Shutdown is when a… Read more →
Blog post caveat: It’s still extremely early in the season. I had to get that out of the way. I’ve really enjoyed watching Brandon Belt work at-bats this season. We know that certain things like how often a player will swing at pitches tends to become reliable pretty early. And we should wait until we reach some of those mile… Read more →