Category Archives: Lineup

SF Giants lineup: Giants play for the .500 road trip

After a disappointing loss in Atlanta last night behind Sergio Romo’s ninth-inning meltdown, the Giants still have a chance to break even on their current eight-game road trip. They’ll have to do it against one of the hottest young pitchers in baseball, Braves’ right-hander Julio Teheran.

Getting of to a rough start in his first full major-league season by giving up 4+ runs in three straight outings, Teheran has done that in an outing just once in his last nine tries while posting a 2.66 ERA and holding opponents to a .651 OPS. He faces a San Francisco lineup that is still struggling to get its best players on the field.

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Thursday’s SF Giants lineup vs. Pirates, plus notes and links

The Giants’ road woes continue. With two straight defeats in Pittsburgh, San Francisco is now 12-20 on the road and just 33-31 overall. To their great fortune there is no breakaway team in the NL West, with Arizona on top at 37-29. If the Giants called the NL Central home, they would be 8.5 games behind the world-beating Cardinals.

The Giants will face Pirates’ pitcher Charlie Morton, who is making his season debut. One year ago tomorrow, the 29-year-old had Tommy John surgery to repair his elbow.

Marco Scutaro remains out with a case of “mallet finger”, but is looking to return tomorrow for the Braves series. Updates to follow today and tomorrow.

With the right-handed Morton on the mound, Blanco and Crawford return to the top of the lineup. Belt, too, moves up, having hit behind Joaquin Arias just yesterday. I understand Bochy believes heavily in platoon splits, but in the long run extra at-bats for Belt are more useful than anything Joaquin Arias does at the plate.

Here’s the lineup vs. Charlie Morton (0-0, 0.00), with notes to follow:

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Marco Scutaro injury update, plus Wednesday’s lineup

Marco Scutaro left Tuesday’s game against the Pirates after being struck on the hand by a 94 MPH fastball in the seventh inning. Now, he has “mallet finger” in his pinky according to Alex Pavlovic of the Merc. Mallet finger is damage to a tendon and if you know what’s good for you, you won’t Google it.

The Giants will talk to Scutaro and discuss their options. Pavlovic mentioned there is a small possibility that Scutaro could play through the pain and avoid the disabled list, where the Giants are forming an All-Star team. Ryan Vogelsong, Pablo Sandoval and Angel Pagan are all currently out, meaning if Scutaro is out the Giants are missing a starting pitcher and their 1-2-3 hitters. Eesh.

After a slow start, Scutaro has begin to justify the contract he got from the San Francisco Giants in the off-season. The second baseman is hitting .332/.388/.444 for an OPS+ of 141. Continued success at that rate this year would nearly match his career high OPS+ of 144, which he logged in 2012 at the age of 36. Whoa. He’s getting better.

Here’s the lineup for Wednesday against LHP Francisco Liriano (4-2, 1.75 ERA):

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