Category Archives: Giants

MadBum Men

Just to add on to the previous post and Madison Bumgarner’s inability to punch out batters, I decided to look back at last year’s comparable stats. Here’s what I wrote in last night’s post:

He’s gotten to 2-strike counts with batters 40 times this season: 8 times he has given up a hit, 7 times he gave up a walk, and just 9 times did he record a strikeout. Two of those hits and four of those walks came in an at-bat after he had a 0-2 count, but couldn’t close the deal.

Looking back at Bumgarner’s 2010 season, he faced a batter with a 2-strike count 215 times. Of those, he got 86 strikeouts (40%), gave up 42 hits (19.5%), and walked just 8 batters (3.7%). In the 96 PAs in which he got an 0-2 count against a batter, he would eventually give up only 17 hits, but punched out 48 (50%), and didn’t walk a single batter (though he did have one HBP).

So anecdotes, ERA and general crappiness aside, we’re definitely seeing a different caliber MadBum from what we saw last year.

FYI, I’m adding this tidbit to last night’s post, so please forgive the double posting.

Off-Day Giants Blues

 

I think the Rally Rags failed.

I got about halfway through a blog post last week, in which I detailed the Giants’ four consecutive series wins, surprising offense, excellent pitching, lights-out bullpen, and optimistic prospects on the young season.

Well, suffice it to say that a bit has changed between then and now.

Getting swept by the Braves hurt. Not as much as it would hurt to get beaten so soundly by the Padres or the Dodgers, but seeing each and every part of what made your team good break down in systematic fashion can have something of a deflating effect. The pitching staff, which was supposed to prevent losing streaks, collapsed. The bullpen, which was supposed to preserve the leads that seem so few and far between, imploded. The offense, which so far this season has looked like a TV set on loud with some kid playing with the mute button, basically forgot what game they were playing. On the rare instance that they got a lead, well, see above for what happened.

That sucked, and now it’s over, and there’s a lot of baseball left.

Continue reading →

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right: A Center Field Saga

Hats are always funny.

“As I look back over a misspent life, I find myself more and more convinced that I had more fun doing baseball blogging than in any other enterprise. It is really the life of kings.”

-H.L. Mencken, edited for relevancy

Or something to that effect. I’ve been writing recently about the future of Aaron Rowand, the outfield configurations, and who might see the ax when Cody Ross comes back. With all of the permutations, unreliability, emotions, Front Office decision quirkiness, and ring ceremony fanfare, the only thing we knew for sure was that Andres Torres would remain the everyday center fielder and leadoff man.

Well, that was a bust. Continue reading →