Johnson Wins #299

Randy Johnson went six innings and only gave up one run en route to his 299th career win. The Big Unit had good command; he walked just one batter and struck out five.

The Giants bullpen pitched well and did not allow an earned run. Brian Wilson picked up his tenth save in fourteen opportunities.

San Francisco's lineup was able to overcome some shaky defense to cement the win for Johnson. Juan Uribe put the Giants up for good in the second with an RBI single that scored Fred Lewis. The "ground attack" struck in the third inning when Aaron Rowand scored on a double steal. Rowand and Nate Schierholtz drove in two more runs in the sixth to make the score 4-1.

But Emmanuel Burriss' error in the top of the seventh nearly cost the Giants the game. What looked like a routine groundball skidded under his glove into right field. Instead of having nobody on and one out, the Braves got their leadoff man on base for free.

Two walks later the bases were loaded for Garrett Anderson, who hit a two out single to bring Atlanta back to within one.

Burriss attoned for his sin by driving in a run in the bottom half of the inning. Andres Torres tacked on another RBI to give San Francisco a 6-3 lead, and that's how the game would end.

Tidbits

• Randy Johnson will go for his 300th win in Washington D.C. against the Nationals.
• Aaron Rowand continued his hot streak with two doubles and an RBI. In the week leading up to this game Rowand hit .375 with two home runs.
  
• The Giants fourth and fifth outfielders both had RBIs in this game.
  
• I'm pretty sure I saw Chipper Jones use two different bats depending on which side of the plate he was hitting from. His right handed bat was black and his left handed bat had a natural color. Maybe I was seeing things but I don't think so.
• It feels good to sweep the Atlanta Braves:)
  

Scott Hairston Tests Positive for PED's

The post title is just a fantasy. In a perfect world, that's the headline I would wake up to tomorrow morning. How else can you explain Scott Hairston's penchant for success against the Giants? Coming into Tuesday's game he had 8 hits in 15 at-bats against San Francisco. Tonight he went 2 for 2 with a home run and two bases on balls. Here are some thoughts about the Giants 2-1 loss to the Padres:

• Scott Hairston should be traded to an American League team.
• Barry Zito has been surprisingly effective this season. I keep waiting for him to implode and give up 6 runs in 4 innings pitched, but it just hasn't happened yet. It's getting to the point now where I can almost sleep the nights before he starts, almost. Zito went eight innings and only allowed two earned runs on five hits.
• Prior to tonight's game Barry Zito had recieved the worst run support in the National League. After the game, he still has the dubious honor of topping that list.
  
• The team's youngsters were flashing the leather all over the field tonight. Emmanuel Burriss and Fred Lewis both had spectacular defensive plays, and Kevin Frandsen looked like a shortstop. I think he should lose the eye black though, it's way too nineties at this point.
• I'm pretty sure I've been to Little League games that drew better than the Padres. Seriously, where are there fans? Fleeing from the swine flu?
• As soon as I saw Eugenio Velez step into the batters box with two out in the ninth, I just knew the game was over. Unfortunately, I was right.

Tomorrow the Giants will send Jonathan Sanchez against right-hander Chad Gaudin. Hopefully Eugenio is on a bus to Fresno by that time.

Padres Series Preview

The Giants begin the first series of a six game road trip Tuesday against the San Diego Padres. San Francisco will be looking to avenge the three game sweep they endured during their last visit to San Diego. They will send Barry Zito (1-3, 3.89 ERA) to the mound to face Chris Young (2-2, 5.56 ERA) in the opener.

Zito has been pitching well as of late. In his last five starts he has allowed only eight earned runs in 32.2 innings pitched, and has been averaging 5.79 strikeouts and 2.48 walks per nine innings. His revival has been a pleasant surprise for the Giants so far this season, and I expect he will make a strong showing in front of his hometown crowd in San Diego.

His opponent, Chris Young, has not fared as well. The 6'10" right-hander has had control problems in his last five starts, walking six batters per game. He will need to improve his command to slow down a Giant's lineup that has shown signs of improvement lately.

Pablo Sandoval has led the way for the Giants this month with a team leading .387wOBA. The 22 year old third baseman has increased his power output, hitting two home runs, seven doubles, and slugging .554 in his last 65 at-bats.

Other hot hitters include Emmanuel Burriss, Randy Winn, and Bengie Molina. All three have hit over .300 in the past two weeks. Even centerfielder Aaron Rowand has shown signs of breaking out of his slump. The 31 year old Rowand has a batting line of .333/.448/.990 in his last 24 at-bats.

San Francisco has not been able to figure out Chris Young the first two times these teams faced each other, scoring only one run in each game. Despite Young's recent dominance against the Giants and the added advantage of pitching in PetCo Park's spacious dimensions, it seems likely that the Giants will be able to score at least a couple of runs against him in this game. If Zito's resurgence continues they have a good chance to start this road trip off with a victory.

Giants Lineup According to The Book

About a week ago I went ahead and bought The Book: Playing the Percentages In Baseball. If you are interested in baseball strategy, sabermetrics, and/or how to improve your criticism of your favorite team's manager, I highly recommend reading this book. It's written by three noted sabermetricians: Tom M. Tango, Mitchel G. Lichtman, and Andrew E. Dolphin. While the writing style can be a bit stale at times, you can tell they've wasted a majority of their adult lives on baseball statistics and it has resulted in some great content for the rest of us.

One of my favorite chapters is the one on optimizing a batting order. They managed to fill thirty pages discussing the batting order in all its gory detail, a feat that is both sick and beautiful at the same time. I will not go into the great detail they do, mostly because you should buy it and read it for yourself, but I've decided to make a lineup for the Giants based on some of the principles laid out in The Book.

Here are the main points that I used to put this lineup together:

We want our three best hitters to bat somewhere in the #1, #2, and #4 slots. The cleanup hitter gets his value in his SLG, the leadoff hitter leads the team in OBP, and the #2 hitter is somewhat more balanced. The #3 and #5 hitters are the same quality, with the #3 hitter having more HR than the #5 hitter (p 144).

Try to put your good baserunners in front of good hitters, especially if those hitters are predominantly singles or doubles hitters (p 140).

The second leadoff hitter theory exists. You can put your pitcher in the eighth slot and gain a couple of extra runs per year (p 149).

Now onward with the lineup!

1. Fred Lewis - Lewis is our best OBP guy and draws the most walks. This makes him ideal for the leadoff spot. He is also a good baserunner and potentially a good basestealer.
2. Randy Winn - Winn is not a big power hitter, but he certainly has been one of our top three hitters over the bast few seasons. He will probably finish the season with an OPS in the top 3-4 on the team. He is also a good baserunner.
3. Aaron Rowand - Rowand is one of the better hitters on the team. He is probably the second best slugger behind Molina, which means he should go in the three hole.
4. Bengie Molina - Molina continues to be the biggest offensive threat on the Giants. He is the best slugger and RBI guy, so he should stay in the cleanup spot.
5. Edgar Renteria - Renteria is a professional hitter and should be one of the top offensive performers for the Giants. He will not SLG as much as Rowand though so he bats fifth in this lineup. I could see switching Renteria and Winn.
6. Emmanuel Burris - Burriss has been our top basestealer so far. This is a good spot in the lineup for a basestealer, because Pablo Sandoval is a good hitter but will probably not hit for much power.
7. Pablo Sandoval - Excellent contact hitter. One problem with him in this spot is that he has been hitting a lot of groundballs (52%), which could lead to a lot of double plays. Still I think he is a better hitter than Ishikawa so he gets the nod for the seventh spot.
8. Pitcher - Sucky no matter where they bat (Unless they're batting against Randy Johnson).
9. Travis Ishikawa - So far the worst hitter on the team. He has struggled with major league pitching throughout most of his career.

Keep in mind that the improvement you gain from optimizing your lineup according to sabermetric principles is relatively small. We're talking like 50 runs over the course of the season, which is equal to about five wins. So it's not like our lineup would all of a sudden turn into the Cardinals or the Red Sox lineup. But for a team like the Giants that's fighting to stay at .500, those five wins could prove to be tremendously important.