I’ve seen this game a few times. Nay, I’ve seen this game a few hundred times. Matt Cain pitches great and yet somehow comes away without the “W”. If you went to Matt Cain University, and you took the class “Matt Cain 101,” today’s game would probably be on your syllabus for week two. This wasn’t your standard “Cain pitches… Read more →
I have an unhealthy obsession with Sergio Romo and his slider. Our support group — Sliders Anonymous, co-chaired by Aaron Rowand — meets on Thursdays. The obsession might sound weird, but can you really blame me? It’s a pitch that defies logic. It’s a pitch that Romo throws with impunity, batters can’t touch it. It’s a pitch that makes hitters… Read more →
![The three best things about 2011 [.gifs!]](http://www.baycityball.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/romoslider-150x150.gif)
Warning: .gif image heavy post lies ahead. If your computer can’t handle the sheer awesomeness of this post, well then, I’m sorry. You’ve been warned. A lot of things went wrong for the Giants this year. Number one on most people’s list was the horrendous volume of injuries that the team suffered; losing Buster Posey, Freddy Sanchez, and other key… Read more →
It’s no secret, but here at Bay City Ball, we’re huge fans of Sergio Romo. His slider is one of the best pitches in the game right now out of the bullpen – maybe one of the best in the game regardless of pitcher role. It’s a devastating pitch that right-handed batters continue to swing-and-miss at. They know it’s coming… Read more →
Consider the bullpen of the Giants my latest fascination. Why? Because the Giants’ bullpen has been great this season, right? I wrote about it yesterday, here. (That post has since been updated at the end.) Except, I think it’s possible that it’s been a bit more than just great. It’s been spectacular. In fact, it almost seems like the ‘pen is… Read more →
The San Francisco Giants’ ‘pen is pretty good. Actually, it’s excellent. They have the second best ERA in in the National League at 2.86 (behind the Padres at 2.85). They have the second best FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) at 3.13 (behind the Braves at 3.06). They also lead major league bullpens with a 52.6 percent ground ball rate… who knew? I… Read more →
Yesterday I gave you the Bad and the Ugly in the form of a chart reflecting how abysmal the Giants offense is, position by position. The end result was depressingly remarkable: really, really bad. On a positive note, though, Giants hitters have been better than the Mariners’ hitters, which I guess is something. And last season the M’s were worse…. Read more →
I am going to piggyback on Chris’ – and Crazy Crabbers’ – earlier post on Bochy’s confounding bullpen usage. (For now, I’ll leave his perplexingly slow hook during Tim Lincecum’s Monday start alone.) Instead of making Chris’ graph more complex, I’ll make it even simpler. I’m going to focus on four pitchers: Sergio Romo, Dan Runzler, Jeremy Affeldt and Javier… Read more →
The Giants seem to be on a roll now, and walk-off wins sure are a lot of fun. With the Giants’ come-from-behind victory on Wednesday night, they’d won five games in a row – including a feel-good sweep of the Colorado Rockies – and seven of their past eight contests. And again, this is fantastic and exciting news, especially when… Read more →
Most of my blog posts are more like features or columns… or something. Humans are creatures of habit. This post will not be a feature or a column. This one will be different, likely a side effect of missing most of the games over the past week – aside from scrutinizing over the box scores and catching Friday night’s game in… Read more →