Giants can’t score, lose

After last night’s 3-0 loss to the Reds, I went over to Baseball-Reference to refresh the National League leader boards. My fears were confirmed; the Giants runs scored per game now sits at a puny 3.51 runs. That’s 15^th in the NL, only the Padres have been worse at scoring runs. And if you consider park factors – click this – the Giants drop to the very bottom of the NL in terms of offense.

Yuck.

It’s easy to gang up on the offense. Maybe a little too easy, but Madison Bumgarner has an ERA/FIP/xFIP of 3.23/2.68/.3.45. His W/L record is 2-8. The man has lost eight games while pitching like one of the ten best pitchers in the NL. If that’s not reason to shoot the W/L statistic into the sun, I don’t know what is. The idea that Bumgarner has eight losses, no matter how stupid the statistic is, just feels wrong. Each start we see a left-hander throwing 92 mph darts with good breaking stuff. The unwashed masses sees a guy with eight losses. Eight! He can’t be any good. He’s lost eight games!

Yuck.

More depressing-slash-sad Bumgarner facts:

* The Giants have scored 2.4 runs per game in Bumgarner starts.

* Bumgarner has started 13 games this season; the Giants have scored one run or less seven times in those 13 games.

* In six starts, Bumgarner has given up one earned run or less. His record in those six starts is 1-4.

I could go on, but I won’t. It’s depressing.

Lastly, I decided to run a query using BB-Ref’s PIT to find starters with poor win-loss percentages. My search criteria: since 1960, must have started 60% of games, at least 150 IP, and a minimum ERA+ of 110 (or greater).

Rk          Player W-L% ERA+    IP Year Age  Tm
1      John Dopson .214  118 168.2 1988  24 MON
2    Tony Saunders .286  116 192.1 1998  24 TBD
3     Steve Rogers .292  117 230.0 1976  26 MON
4        Matt Cain .304  123 200.0 2007  22 SFG
5     Brandon Webb .304  129 208.0 2004  25 ARI

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/10/2011.

Those specific teams’ rank in scoring?

1988 Montreal Expos (6 out of 12 in runs scored)
1998 Tampa Bay Devil Rays (14 out of 14 in runs scored)
1976 Montreal Expos (12 out of 12 in runs scored)
2007 San Francisco Giants (15 out of 16 in runs scored)
2004 Arizona Diamondbacks (16 out of 16 in runs scored)

I can still remember that 2007 for Matt Cain, and I think it still frustrates me just as much now as it did then.

20 comments

Newest | Oldest

Alex zurawski

It's good we won the pennant last year (how we did that was quite unique), but that was then this is now. I'm frustrated at our offensive package but what can we do when we have to pay for complete trash that will never produce(Rowland, Zito). Imagine what we could get with an extra 20 million or so. That's the way the cookie crumbles, I guess. When Panda comes back the offense might get going a little bit. Even if we had Posey with Panda,it's still not that great.( Posey should not be hitting clean up). On the bright side our pitching has been good and can only improve. Just think how frustrated the pitching staff must be.They should get together and demand a better offense. Well that's baseball. Go Giants. From the Tassie Giant who was born in Redwood City

Redlegs Review

When is Sandoval coming back for you guys?

Rory Paap

Tuesday...maybe.

marcellosfg

Seriously, I'd just bring him up now. A rusty Panda >>>>>>> Tehaha.

And Tejada gets a brief reprieve from criticism.

oldjacket

a Rusty Sullivan >>>> Tehaha

Hopefully he returns and gives y'alls batting lineup a shot in the arm. If your front office could add a bat or two to go along with your superb pitching staff.....whoa.

FWIW, Bumgarner has actually hit well, for a pitcher, too (higher wOBA than Tehaha...yikes). He's doing just about everything he can do and still getting tagged with the loss.

Matt Cain: 1181.1 innings, 124 ERA+, 62-66 W-L record. I'll never get sick of calling wins stupid.

Chris Quick

Tony Cloninger http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cloni... 1,767.2 innings, 88 ERA+, 113-97 W/L record LOL WINS!

Was hoping you'd find one of these.

Another good one because the ERA+ is comparable, though surprisingly worse than Cain's... Justin Verlander: 1167 innings, 118 ERA+, 90-55 record. Put Cain on an offense with some punch, he's knocking on door for 100 wins. That sort of awes me, because Verlander is LOVED by the media, and the perception is that he's an ACE. Cain has been better at preventing runs, albeit in a less sexy and more easily scrutinized way, and in no way is he getting the ACE stamped on his head.

PapaSmurf

I would like to see where the Giants rank when it comes to getting the runner in when there is a runner on 3rd with less than 2 outs. I have never seen a team do so poorly at this. So frustrating.

@crazycrabbers

This might be a little bit off topic but the other thing that I noticed when following your link there is that the Giants have the lowest WAR of any team in the National League but somehow are still in first place and 7 games above .500. I have the deepest sympathies for the mariners and the twins the only teams that are currently even worse on offense because this sucks to watch and I can only imagine what it would be like if it were worse. Also his run support according to baseball reference this season is 2.35 which is putrid.

That BB-Ref number is interesting. I went by ESPN's run support average. 3.69 actually seems pretty high for the Giants' offense. I'm not sure where the discrepancy is.

According to their glossary run support average is Team's runs scored (average, per 9 innings pitched) while the pitcher of record while BB-Ref is for total runs scored for games that he has started.

LeviDavis

This might not be the place for this, but I'm throwing it out anyway, since it is offense related. Will someone smarter than me give me reason to believe Brandon Crawford will not start striking out in 20 percent of his plate appearances? Something in the data? A trend from the second half of last year? Something?

I'm skeptical of his current strikeout rate. He's shown the ability to walk in the minors.

And a modicum of power, but I'm a little scared the average will crater. I'm hoping there is something tangible to explain the sudden drop in strikeouts. Other than SSS.

His defense is legit. I think if he's a true talent .650-.700 OPS batter, the Giants would be beyond thrilled. His at-bats thus far have 'looked' quite good. Still, his strikeout rate is like 10% below his minor league career numbers. I think at some point he's going to start whiffing more. I've always been a fan of Crawford, he just needs to have some competency with the bat to be good.

Giants can’t score, lose

Article written by Chris Quick

Archives

Pages

Search

Meta