Game Thread: 05/06/24 - What could be vs What could have been 1:15 PDT

[LHG]

Lee - cf
Estrada - 2b
Wade - dh
Flores - 1b
Conforto - lf
Chapman - 3b
Yastrzemski - rf
Fitzgerald - ss
Reetz - c
Black - sp

Giants down 1-0 in the 5th

 

[Stokes1931]

Black pitched great through 4 innings.

The 5th inning blew up on him.

No disheartened, the Phils are a streaky team and hitting really well lately.

The Giants? What hitting? What a disgrace this lineup is.

 

[Stokes1931]

From Baggs on yesterday's game, and things to "fix" the Giants' non-hitting. They are actually not hitting poorly, but they are not driving in runs. Soler has driven in 4 of 97 runners. That is AWFUL for a #3 hitter.

Baggs: In terms of OPS, the No. 3 spot in the order hasn’t been a black hole. The Giants have a .716 OPS from that spot, which ranks in the middle of the pack (16th out of 30 teams). The No. 3 hitters, most often Jorge Soler (16 starts in 34 games), have done a decent job at extending innings and keeping the line moving. But your third-place hitter should be one of the two best run-producers on your roster. Witness Bryce Harper, whose three-run home run from the No.3 spot doomed Logan Webb and the Giants on Sunday.

As for he Giants’ No. 3 hitters? They have done such a miserable job driving in runs that it’s hard to believe it can continue at this rate.

Jorge Soler is one of several Giants struggling in run-scoring opportunities. (Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
Their seven RBIs are the lowest total of any team out of the 3-spot — and four of those RBIs were solo home runs from Soler. Call it Harper envy: the Giants haven’t hit a homer from the No. 3 spot with a runner on base all season.

Melvin finally had to move Soler down in the order until he can gain confidence. Entering Sunday, Soler had come to the plate with 97 runners on base and scored just four of them — a 4.1 percent success rate that ranked as the worst among 183 players who have batted with a minimum of 60 runners on base.

All of that explains how Soler can possibly have five home runs and just eight RBIs in early May.

Soler is batting .115 and has a .504 OPS with runners in scoring position but it’s still a relatively small sample (26 at-bats), so it doesn’t have to be season-defining. Another plus: He’s drawn five walks against just five strikeouts in those situations. And he has a perfectly acceptable .819 OPS with the bases empty. His homers have been tape-measure shots, too. So the Giants just have to go on faith that Soler can clear his head and start clearing the bases.

Melvin didn’t use Soler off the bench in the late innings Sunday, choosing to let LaMonte Wade Jr. face a lefty with two out and two on in the seventh and letting Lee bat in the ninth. Soler was day to day with a sore shoulder, Melvin said.

Takeaway: The Giants are giving Soler (and their other No. 3 hitters) plenty of opportunities to take swings that can wreck innings and flip the script on games. They need those hitters to start taking advantage.

 

[Stokes1931]

Mimicking Russ Hodges: "The Giants score a run! The Giants score a run! The Giants score a run!"

 

[Stokes1931]

More from Baggs:

Be-be-be-be aggressive … maybe?​

Count leverage is everything when it comes to predicting success at the plate. The league OPS is .785 after Ball 1 and .584 after Strike 1.

So this is sub-optimal: The Giants are fourth worst in plate appearances that start with a 1-0 count, leading only the Rockies, Seattle Mariners and Chicago White Sox.

A lot of their 0-1 counts have started with a taken strike. Until recently, the Giants had the lowest swing percentage on pitches in the strike zone among NL teams. It’s an adjustment that coaches asked hitters to make, especially since only the San Diego Padres and New York Mets batters are seeing a higher percentage of in-zone pitches. Yet the Giants had six more called strikeouts Sunday, three of which came with a runner on base.

The team’s 8.26 percent walk rate, which ranks 22nd, is another concern that hasn’t plagued previous Zaidi-built teams. It’ll be hard to improve that figure, though, if opposing pitchers continue to feel emboldened to attack the strike zone.

Takeaway: The book is out. You can pound the zone against the Giants. They need to create more fear in pitchers by doing damage on strikes, especially early in the count or on the first pitch. (And if some of that damage comes from the No. 3 hitter with runners on base, all the better.)

 

[Stokes1931]

One last from Baggs:

Need for speed​

The Giants aren’t the fastest team in the league and they didn’t expect to be. They grade out OK when it comes to base-running efficiency and taking extra bases on hits. The problem is that they’ve run into outs at inopportune times and too often their efforts at picking spots to be aggressive have backfired. They’ve been picked off four times and their 62 percent success rate on stolen bases (13 steals, eight times caught stealing) is the worst in the major leagues.

The Giants were last in the major leagues in stolen bases in 2023 — something that Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi pledged to address at Melvin’s introductory news conference.

“I mean, that just can’t happen,” Zaidi said at the time. “To be that much of an outlier just shows it was a real deficiency.”

The Giants are an outlier again. Only the Colorado Rockies (11) have stolen fewer bases. At least this year’s Giants roster has five players (Lee, Chapman, Thairo Estrada, Tyler Fitzgerald, Austin Slater) who run better than the league-average sprint speed of 27 feet per second. And there’s a strong belief that Lee is a quick study who will become better at reading pitchers, getting jumps and taking chances as he grows more accustomed to the league.

Takeaway: The Giants won’t outrun most opponents, but they have the raw ingredients to be more efficient on the basepaths than they’ve shown. This is a fixable deficiency to some extent. They just have to tighten up their preparation, coaching and execution.

 

[shrksfn9192]

Mimicking Russ Hodges: "The Giants score a run! The Giants score a run! The Giants score a run!"

Moral victory.

 

[Stokes1931]

In the Giants' first 36 games (including today)

They have had NO hits with RISP in 11 games

Jackson has inherited 6 runners, they have ALL scored (Hey BoMel, stop using Jackson with runners on base!)

They have scored first 19 times, and won only 10 of those games

In the last 9 games they have GIDP 14 times

 

[Hangman]

Top 5 pick here we come. At least we suck enough to not be just mediocre and get an middle of the road first round pick. If we can only sell some older players who arent working out for us for a few prospects maybe we can rebuild faster.

 

[Stokes1931]

Top 5 pick here we come. At least we suck enough to not be just mediocre and get an middle of the road first round pick. If we can only sell some older players who arent working out for us for a few prospects maybe we can rebuild faster.

So who would buy what we are selling?

 

[sf1giantfan]

They couldn’t even win on Mays birthday. Pathetic.

 

[calsnowskier]

I watched Black, but the second BoMel took the ball from him, I turned it off.

This team is absolutely unwatchable.

 

[Stokes1931]

I watched Black, but the second BoMel took the ball from him, I turned it off.

This team is absolutely unwatchable.

And yet, like bugs to the light, we watch...

 

[calsnowskier]

And yet, like bugs to the light, we watch...

I love laundry.

 

[LHG]

I love laundry.

Then are rooting for the right team, baby!

 

[Brightboat]

10th game out of the last 11 that the Giants have scored 3 runs or fewer.

 

[calsnowskier]

10th game out of the last 11 that the Giants have scored 3 runs or fewer.

I believe that means that based on statistics, the Giants are literally facing the CY winner every night.

 

[LHG]

I believe that means that based on statistics, the Giants are literally facing the CY winner every night.

Hard stretch of baseball. Can't blame our lineup for folding under such unrelenting excellence on the mound night after night.

 

[sf1giantfan]

NL West Division Update: Giants in sole possession of 4th place

 

[LHG]

NL West Division Update: Giants in sole possession of 4th place

Hey, at least it ain’t 5th