After yesterday’s stomping, the Giants could have done almost anything today and have it qualify as an improvement. They could have tripped and fallen jumping out of the dugout to celebrate a perfect game, or lost in extra inning on a walk-off walk to an American League relief pitcher, or re-signed Armando Benitez for today’s start. It still would have been better than yesterday.

But luckily, they went one better than that. Chad Gaudin was really, really good, and I’m not sure why. In the first inning I tried to count the number of times he threw a breaking ball, and I’m pretty sure the first wasn’t until about 11 pitches in. Even after that, he threw just 13 sliders and 2 (TWO) changeups across his 79 total pitches. Aside from that, he relied heavily on his 4-seam fastball and sinker, which both averaged around 93-94 mph. I kept waiting for the Cardinals hitters to catch up to Gaudin, whose pitches all went pretty straight, but it just never happened. I’m still not really sure why, because it’s not like he nibbled the corners particularly effectively:

Still no answers. Lets look at where the pitches went, organized by at-bat result:

Well I guess that explains it a little better. Gaudin kept the ball down, got a bunch of groundouts, and when he did throw it higher in the zone, he had the heat to get away with it. Hoo-rah, Chad.

Does this mean that Chad Gaudin is our new fifth starter? No. Does it mean that he’s earned himself another start? Probably. Does it get annoying when I ask myself questions? You tell me. Either way, the Giants sure don’t have any better options than Gaudin right now, so he’s basically house money when he does anything good.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/CSNBaggs/status/341289721919590400″]

Oof. May was a rough month.

On the offensive front, Buster Posey is just phenomenal, Crawford is keeping up his numbers, Pence stays hot, and Brandon Belt should never be benched ever again. So say we all.