pao deux

Never trust anyone from Philadelphia

I can't believe someone ripped off our gauge. They think they're so slick with their graphs and charts which don't mean anything, at least not really.

Today's moment of zen: the teams the Giants currently have a better record than

Giants 8-11

Suckers
Dodgers 7-11
Astros 7-12
Pirates 7-11
Nats 5-14
Rangers 7-12
Tigers 6-13
Indians 7-12

Eggheads Rip Off Our Shtick, Likely to Get Away With It

If we confronted them, they'd likely just float away on their graph-powered jetpacks (coming soon to a SkyMall near you!) or some other futuristic manner of conveyance. Our only hope is to move in the opposite direction -- less-informed commentary, more descriptions of Nolan Ryan as "gritty" and "a gamer," no numbers unless they completely muddle the discussion.

Two can play at this game, FanGraphs. Whoops, that was a number. Ahem.

Rather ... we'll see you in HELL, FanGraphs.

BREAKING: Santa Rosa water supply poisoned; residents exposed to high concentrations of LSD; hallucinations likely

Wait, what? It's just that this guy is functionally retarded? Oh. Never mind.

Just Awful

Zito started the second inning today by walking the bases full. He then needed 10 pitches to strike out catcher Chris Snyder, though apparently the umpire wasn't giving away any called strikes on the big curve, which hurts. Then Stephen Drew flew out to shallow right, and when Connor Jackson bluffed off third base to try and draw a throw, John "The Natural" Bowker fired in a rocket to the plate. Two down, and Brandon Webb (career .104 hitter) coming to the plate. Disaster averted.

Except not. Zito started the opposing pitcher off 2-0, and then, obliged to throw his 82 mph fastball over the plate, proceeded to watch Webb get just enough wood on a bloop single to right that scored a pair of runs. What a remarkably stupid chain of events. A nice little 38-pitch inning. Beautiful.

Beane Experiment

In looking at some basic tenants of SABR style gameplay, the Giants have are at the bottom of the barrel in the cumulative Beane Count, which ESPN uses to rank teams on walks given, walks allowed, home runs hit and home runs allowed. The Giants have issued 53 free passes this year, second worst to the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League, who have walked 54 batters.

But the Phillies hitters have at least walked 54 times themselves, whereas the Giants group has only worked 36 walks., while striking out 101 times, second worst in the league.

When you look at the Giants staff, there's at least some reason to smile. The club has struck out 108 batters, more than any other staff in the league.

A lot of walks and a lot of K's say one thing: high pitch counts. Indeed, the Giants are in a statistical dead heat for the highest pitch totals per plate appearance in the National League.

This of course means the Giants pitchers are trying to be extremely fine, likely the result of having the second worst run support in the league. Because it's an expected result that the team will not score more than three runs in a game, the pitching staff compensates by trying to end things with the K, which means lower percentage pitches, and higher walks. Cain leads the way in this regard, hurling 4.08 pitchers per opponent's plate appearance, the highest mark of his career. Bochy needs to settle him down a bit or one of two things will happen: Cain gets hurt, or Cain throws the fewest innings of his career. Neither is a good option.

Winning streak

Didn't want to jinx it before yesterday's game, but the Giants have won three straight, which officially means that they're on a winning streak. The points are well made about Bochy's missteps, but it doesn't make a big difference when your pitching staff gives up 3 runs in 29 innings. Lincecum, Sanchez and Correia, as well as the pen have consistently delivered. Looming larger, they've been sitting down 1 batter per inning by the strikeout, (10 Ks in 6 IP for Sanchez) and walking very few. The Giants defense cannot be relied upon to win games, and the offense cannot make up for runs allowed as the result of errors or situational hitting RBIs that come as the result of walks.

Bochy Time

Joe Sheehan of BP takes offense to Bruce Bochy's tactics:

Sum it up: Bochy cost himself two players, Davis and Lewis, for the benefit of having an inferior hitter bat in a game-critical situation, and made his defense worse in extra innings to boot. He gave Black an easy out–walking the best hitter Bochy had left–and a clear path out of the inning through the worst hitter on the roster. That’s terrible. I mean, that’s just this side of managing to lose. For Bochy to send up Lewis in that situation, and not be able to see what that would create, is incompetence. We can talk about managers being leaders of men, and barriers between the team and the front office, and liaisons with the media, but if you can’t avoid self-destructing in the ninth inning of a tied game, none of that other stuff matters.

Right. It's going to be tough enough for the Giants to win with the players they have without adding additional levels of difficulty.

Cain-Ryan watch, no. 2

A disappointing night for Cain last night, bringing his season total through two starts to:

Cain: 0-1, 3.60 ERA, 10 Ks
Ryan: 1-1, 4.15 ERA, 19 Ks

* Note: this feature compares Ryan's fabled Cy Young season of '87 where he lead the league in Ks and ERA but posted a 7-16 record with the pitiful Astros.

No Idea

Like the man says, I don't know whether this is true or not. It would certainly fit into the notion I have of Brian Sabean, a guy I know best for giving up Francisco Liriano, Boof Bonser and Joe Nathan in exchange for a complete creep of a catcher. (I've had this trade defended at me before, and whether or not you find the Giants'/Sabean's reasoning even remotely persuasive, one must concede that it demonstrated a lack of understanding of the contents of S.F.'s minor-league system).

Anyway, the Giants got hammered 13-4 by the Brewers Friday; Bill Hall socked a pair of dingers, and the only satisfying moment came when Bengie Molina hit a bomb off reliever Salomon Torres. Yeah, that ol' guy. Milwaukee's starting and winning pitcher was a guy named Carlos Villanueva, who gave up two earned runs in five-plus, struck out six dudes ... basically played great as a fill-in for the missing (and injured) Yovani Gallardo. With Chris Capuano (the pride of Springfield, Mass.!) out for the season, Villanueva is going to get his shot to stick in the rotation.

Which is interesting, because:

Mostly, the Giants were left to admire Brewers starter Carlos Villanueva, who originally came through the San Francisco organization but went to Milwaukee in the 2004 trade that netted pitcher Wayne Franklin. There is a story here in Cheeseland that when the Brewers asked for Villanueva in the deal, Giants general manager Brian Sabean did not know who he was.

Yipes. So. The Giants signed young Carlos out of the D.R. in '02, and he spent a couple of seasons in Rookie ball. In the first, as an 18-year-old, he threw up a 0.89 WHIP and a 0.59 ERA in 30 innings. The next year, he tossed twice the number of innings and was quite a bit worse; 1.31 WHIP, 3.97 ERA, even as he still struck out a lot of dudes (67 in 59 IP).

Then, on the eve of the 2004 season, Sabean tossed him away for Franklin. Had to do it. There was no choice, really -- Franklin had been outstanding in 2003, throwing about 200 innings with a 5.50 ERA and a 1.52 WHIP. He had a 116-94 K-BB ratio, which is too good to pass up. And Franklin, needless to say, lived up to expectations with the '04 Giants, giving the team 50 IP and a 6.39 ERA. Bra-fucking-vo.

Any 18-year-old who puts up a 0.59 ERA in Rookie ball while striking out more than a batter per inning is, to some extent, a prospect. Even if he regresses the next year, at age 19, he's still a prospect. Do I think it's possible that Sabean didn't know who he was?

Unlikely, I guess. Still, I wouldn't put anything past a man who's capable of deciding he absolutely NEEDS Wayne Franklin.

Addendum to the Cain-Ryan watch

I'm taking bets on the over-under, in days, that it takes the SF Chronicle or SJ Mercury News to publish a photo caption, or headline, following an 8IP, 10 K, 1R, 0 ER loss by Cain, that is some play on "am I my brother's keeper?"

The tentative line, right now, is on July 25th.

The launch of the Cain-Ryan watch

Seem's like a reasonable concern of Jonah Keri's, over at ESPN:

Can Matt Cain win the Cy Young with a 4-20 record and a 2.36 ERA? He went 7-16 with a 3.65 ERA, and that was with Bonds in the lineup. Nolan Ryan led the NL in strikeouts and ERA in 1987, but still went 8-16. With another year of experience under his belt and plenty of Brian Bocock goodness behind him, Cain could give that season a run for its money.

From this point forward we'll call this the Cain-Ryan watch, where after every Cain start, we'll compare his numbers to that epic season Ryan had, where the '87 Astros wasted his flavor. If you were a more avid reader of my work at Forbes, you'd know this is in part because Ryan had the biggest contract in baseball history, in relation to the value of his club. The Giants have no such excuse.

After one start:

Nolan Ryan (1-0) 7 IP, 8 H, 3ER, 1 BB, 10 Ks, 3.86 ERA
Matt Cain (0-0) 5.2 IP, 3H, 0 ER, 4 BB, 5Ks, 0.00 ERA

Potential Pyrrhic Win

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

"In Tim Lincecum's first game of the season, the Giants made a very questionable gamble with their slight-framed, fireballing right-hander. They heated him up for 28 pitches in the fourth inning, and after a rain delay of one hour, 14 minutes, they sent him back to the mound to start the fifth."

The only caveat to the move, and I'm not enough of a medical expert to say whether this matters, but it is at least worth taking under consideration, is that Lincecum has never iced his arm... in his life. Seriously. For some bizarre reason the kid grew up not icing, heating or massaging his arm. In an anecdotal sense this makes his arm "nails," as Lenny Dykstra would say, but I don't know what that means regarding the elasticity of his elbow, shoulder and scapular joints and tendons.

Seeing Merkin Valdez pitch well to start the game was a definite good sign for the season. Maybe the one time top prospect can turn into a fourth or fifth starter over the next few years. Stay posted.

Cain's arm means the world

But, it's the top of the sixth inning. There's no doubt that after 114 pitches, especially early in the season that you should look out for your guy, but Cain had given up only 3 hits and Juan Pierre was at the plate, who was 0-2 and is a generally bad hitter. Bringing in Taschner not only forced him to come in with the bases loaded, but allowed Torre to pinch hit Kemp, a far better hitter than Pierre.

Kemp went down hacking for out number three, so it paid off, but this has to be considered a pretty bad decision in a 0-0 game.

It's only been 15 innings

Still no runs. But to be fair, it's only 11.50 pm east coast time on a Tuesday and the season started at 3 in the afternoon on a Monday.

Bochy Ball

After Dave Roberts laced the single to center to lead off the game, he was thrown out trying to steal second on what Bochy lated revealed as a hit-and-run. Penny fired high, Aurelia couldn't connect, and Roberts was hosed. Now, I don't like Roberts chances against Martin in any circumstance, and we should know better to run on a man whose middle name is Coltrane.

It may have been a case of the Frenchman (Bochy) not respecting the French-Canadian (Martin), but it at least sends the message that the Giants are not going to play by house rules all season. When the Giants lose, its going to be either spectacular or filled with ridiculous, and futile gestures, as was the case on Opening Day; they're not going to try and play small ball, "smart baseball" or percentage based ball. Based on yesterday's performance, SF isn't going to out-execute anyone, so to take back the advantages they give away, they'll need small chance risks to pay off.

Brown does nothing for you

Yahoo's Tim Brown gleefully trashes the Giants following the opener, slagging Zito under the headline "Last Barry standing falls." How clever! It's funny because no team has signed Bonds yet, don't you know.

Unfortunately, he apparently watched the game.

Meantime, around him, the Giants had an interesting afternoon, including:

• A light collision involving rookie shortstop Brian Bocock and Roberts that left Roberts on his knees, his glove flung into left field.

• A dropped popup by second baseman Ray Durham, leading to a run.

• A couple wild pitches.

• A passed ball.

• Two missed cutoff men by center fielder Aaron Rowand.

• A man (OK, the rookie Bocock) getting picked off first in the eighth inning, in a five-run deficit.

• A few unnerving moments leading into the bottom of the eighth, in which the Giants appeared content to go it without a left fielder. (Which, come to think of it, would have been a suitable tribute to the man who was supposed to have been holding the franchise back.)

Afterward, Zito, the last Barry standing, was asked if he didn’t hunger for the days when he wasn’t so concerned with his stuff, when it was about standing on a mound and knowing exactly what was going to come out of his arm.

His eyes narrowed.

“I was me today,” he said.

And they were them.

They were them, Tim, I guess. Hopefully, next time, the team won't make it quite so easy for you to slack off.

The starting line-up

In 2003, the Giants and Dodgers were headed in opposite directions. Mired in poor succession planning, Dan Evans and Paul Depodesta had been axed in Chavez Ravine, but had revamped a starved farm system, which Kim Ng and Logan White have further strengthened. It's impossible to look down their roster without seeing possibility (and a few ex-Giants; Ned Colletti can we interest you in Rich Aurilia?). Whereas for the Giants, the post season of 2003, after the World Series run, featured the trade-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken.

Torre might trot out Juan Pierre and Nomar Garciaparra, but the Bums have much better options waiting in the wings. What the Giants need to know, before a quarter of the season has gone by is whether or not Eugenio Velez, Daniel Ortmeier, Brian Bocock, or Jose Castillo are cogs in the infield of the future.

How Bruce Bochy manages the corners, where Castillo 3B (hit .296 this spring) will be critical, and whether or not Castillo and Ortmeier 1B (who hit .287 with the big club last year) get ABs taken away from them by Aurilia.

First pitch in a minute.

1994's first pick, by the Hansin Tigers...

It's worth noting, as we kick off the season that the Giants have a 39 year old Japanese born pitcher on the active roster named Keiichi Yabu. Yabu was the first pick by the Hanshin Tigers of the 1995 Nippon Baseball League draft, and in American service he has thrown 58 innings with a 4.50 ERA, which begs the question as to why he's on the active roster, or was even invited to camp.

Yabu threw 15.1 innings in spring training, with a low four ERA, which deserves a big club invite, except when you consider that those 15.1 innings came at the cost of guys like Osiris Matos, who threw a total 3.2 innings in the Cactus League (half of which came in mop-up duty during the 23-5 massacre), but who, last year in AA, went 5-0, with a 2.89 ERA and a 2-1 K:BB ratio. Plus, born in 1984, he was not alive for the 60's, as Yabu was. Similarly, Alexander Hinshaw, who posted a 1.96 ERA with 50 Ks in 41 innings, at AA Connecticut last season, threw a total of only 2.1 innings this Spring.

Neither of the pair are ready for the Major League level, as Yabu appears to be, but 6 innings between the pair of them?

The city and team, neither electrified or Diesel'd

Herb Caen said of the mood in San Francisco, on opening day of 1995: "I wouldn't say the whole town was electrified, or even Diesel'd, but all you had to say was ``How about that?'' and people knew what you meant."

The Giants went 67-77 in that strike distorted year, and based on Vegas predictions, that's about how many wins they should end up with this season, albeit in 18 more games. Even with the losses, that team as one of the G-men's most entertaining units, as it was a transitional point between our '93 club that broke our hearts, and the '97 team that went to the playoffs. We still had Robby Thompson up the middle and Matt Williams at the corner and we still believed in Shawn Estes and William Van Landingham. Bonds stole 31 bases.

They were built to lose, and they finished fourth, but every day Williams would barehand a ball, and with his sidearmed flick, fire it to first to catch a speedy runner, or Thompson, in his last full season, standing impossibly deep in the box, his heels almost at the third base dugout, would reach out and poke one over the green chain link at the 'Stick, you'd be listening to the call on the radio, or watching from the dollar seats, and you'd turn to your friend and say, "how about that?"

2008's team doesn't have a prayer to make the playoffs, or even a puncher's chance at a winning record, but there will be plenty of moments from men like Cain, Lincecum, Lowry, Sanchez and the gods willing Zito, worth remembering or putting in your pocket so as to say, years from now, it was in a 4-0 ballgame that Sanchez became Sanchez, and I could see it then.

It takes no creativity to follow a winner. You almost have to lie to yourself to believe you're rebuilding when you might be sinking.

And that's fun.