Surkamp Recap

Published by on August 28, 2011 | 8 Responses

We were all looking forward to Eric Surkamp’s debut. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him pitch, and it’s always nice to see line of stats come to life. Though to be honest, I didn’t learn a whole lot tonight that I didn’t already know. A quick summary:

  • Eric Surkamp’s off-speed stuff is good enough to miss bats at the major league level.
  • Watching him try to sneak his fastball by big-leaguers is pretty harrowing.
  • The control wasn’t great, but hopefully that was just nerves.
  • Surkamp probably isn’t good enough to compete without reasonable run support, but he’s probably better than the Zito/Sanchez/Runzler/inevitable bullpen abuse show we’ve been getting every fifth game.
  • The Giants’ offense is still terrible.

It’s good to get back to the game of walk-off Mad-Libs we were playing earlier this year. Can’t imagine why it took so long to get to in the [10th] inning, [Mark DeRosa] comes up with a clutch [stolen base].

UPDATE **

Here’s the link to Surkamp’s Brooks Baseball summary. The kid got seven swing throughs on 87 pitches, good for 8%. That’s an acceptable number  if that’s sustainable for him (elite is above 10%, and it gets hard to make a living below 7%). Here’s his result plot from last night’s game.

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rpm
rpm

Great to see a kid from NC State (where I went to grad school) playing for San Francisco (where I grew up) Go Pack! Go Giants!

Liem
Liem

I didn't get to see the game, but from the charts it would be appear Surkamp was pounding the outside corner (for righties). He did appear to challenge the inside corner, but he did so early in the count. For those of you who watched the game, were those early challenge pitches to righties or lefties (in that case actually outside pitches)? Also what type of pitches were there? Were they intentional or location mistakes?

oldjacket
oldjacket

He mostly was pounding the outside corner. He'd occasionally try to sneak a fastball over the inside corner, and that would have been very effective, but the ump wasn't giving him the call. It was a good zone most of the night, but all of the egregious missed calls were of that kind. The Astros stacked the lineup with RHH, such that Surkamp did not face a single lefty.

LeviDavis
LeviDavis

Kid was nervous. I'll judge him much more harshly after start number two.

mlindstedt
mlindstedt

Did my eyes deceive me, or did Orlando Cabrera pinch-hit for Pablo Sandoval with two on in the 8th inning of a game the Giants really needed to win?

billybadass
billybadass

Sandavol injured his shoulder and cant bat right handed, he would of had to bat left handed against the left handed reliever witch would of been awkward for a switch hitter. Boch made the right move.

oldjacket
oldjacket

Yeah . . . . So clearly Sandoval is not healthy. I don't know why the didn't just have him bat lefty, though. By wRC+ Cabrera right now is about half the hitter Sandoval is. You'd have to think that Sandoval the lefty has the worst platoon split of all time to PH Orlando Cabrera for him.

Chris Quick
Chris Quick

I liked what I saw for the most part. The fastball averaged around 88 mph and the curve, like you said above, looked pretty good, but he had a hard time throwing it for strikes. He didn't throw many changeups (according to Brooks, only seven on the night). That's something I think we might see more of next time around.