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Showing posts from May, 2013

Vogelsong, Kickham and the Million Dollar Question(s)

The Giants just finished up the first 50 games of the season and there's a lot to like, a lot to improve upon, and a lot of important questions.   San Francisco's record stands at 28-22 and they're tied for first place with Arizona.  After losing 3 of 4 to the Rockies in Curse Field, the Giants rebounded by taking 2 of 3 against Colorado at home and knocking Denver into 2nd place.  They improved to 18-10 against the NL West and have the best intradivision record in the National League.   However, the starting rotation remains unstable.  The Giants starters stats after a third of their season looks like this: Cain           (4-2, 5.00 ERA, 1.19 WHIP) Bumgarner (4-2, 2.90 ERA, 1.01 WHIP) Lincecum   (3-4, 4.75 ERA, 1.40 WHIP) Zito            (3-3, 4.13 ERA, 1.52 WHIP)   Vogelsong  (2-4, 7.19 ERA, 1.73 WHIP)  That's not pretty.  Cain has been getting better and his WHIP is fine but he had a short outing today; throwing a lot of pitches in the first two innings o

The Giants Are Pretty Good

So we're 6 weeks into the season and the Giants stand alone in first place with a 23-15 record.  They've done it with some amazing timely hitting and solid bullpen work.  But they sure as shit haven't done it with their strength - starting pitching. In fact, it's pretty impressive what the Giants have done thus far given the fact that Ryan Vogelsong has an ERA in the high 7's, Matt Cain has only recently gotten his ERA below 6, and that Tim Lincecum remains an enigma.  Barry Zito has been nearly untouchable at home (33 IP, 2 ER) but has been clobbered in his only 2 road starts (6.1 IP, 15 R, 10 ER).  Hopefully he can figure out how to pitch in the road grays.  And then there's our other lefty, Madison Bumgarner, who is shaping up to be the staff ace in 2013. (Side note:  The Giants rotation is so eerily similar to that Braves rotation of the 90's, wherein each season a different ace stood above the rest.  Cain is our Maddux.  Bumgarner our Glavine.  And