Two Games; Two Runs

Baseball teams have been scoring runs since the 19th century, but apparently such an antiquated vestige of baseball's history is of no interest to these Giants. Two games into a three game set with the San Diego Padres, and San Francisco has only managed to score two runs. Newsflash, you will not win many games scoring only one run, and after tonight's 2-1 loss they haven't won any in this series.

On with the bullet points:

• Uh what was Aaron Rowand doing in the leadoff spot? Definitely didn't see that one coming, but the permaslumping center fielder showed some signs of life going 3-4 with a double. It will be interesting to see if this was a one time thing, or if manager Bruce Bochy will put Rowand in the top spot for tomorrow's game.
• Jonathan Sanchez remembered how to pitch tonight. Coming into Thursday's game, the Giants fifth starter had been pitching like just, a fifth starter. But Sanchez pitched six innings, and only allowed two hits and two earned runs. He was hit with the loss despite his strong start. We'll see if this is a sign of things to come, or if Sanchez will continue to be plagued by the inconsistency that has held him back all year.
• Randy Winn continued his hot streak. The right fielder has hit for a .353 average over the past two weeks. Tonight he went 2-4 with two doubles, and scored San Francisco's only run in this game.

Another three game sweep at PetCo Park would be enough to make me nauseous. Please don't make me puke Timmy.

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 Close But Not Quiet Good Enough

Today the San Francisco Giants fell victim to the New York Mets' impressive offensive depth, in a 9-6 loss.

Randy Johnson's unsuccessful bid for victory number 299 got off to a rather ignominious start in the top of the first, with back to back singles followed by stolen bases (Numbers 12 and 13 on the series). This put runners on second and third for Carlos Beltran, who cleared the bases with a double. Clean up hitter Gary Sheffield singled in Beltran to put the Mets up 3-0.

The Big Unit seemed to settle down after his rocky first inning, and the Giants lineup responded. Pablo Sandoval brought the Giants to within two with an RBI double in the third and Aaron Rowand hit a two run single in the fourth to tie the game 3-3.

Unfortunately Johnson completely unraveled in the top of the fifth. The apparently aging lefty gave up three doubles, a single, and a balk before being removed from the game. He would eventually be charged with seven earned runs, bringing his ERA in his last three starts to 11.05. After Saturday's performance, is overall ERA is a dismal 6.86.

Johnson has been inconsistent at best and downright miserable at worst so far this season. While it's not clear what exactly is ailing the future hall of famer, he believes he needs to improve on his pitch location. Randy gave credit to the Mets lineup saying, "It's the best lineup that I've seen so far this year."

Despite the Big Unit's poor start, the Giants were able to come back and make a game of it. Aaron Rowand hit his third home run of the year in the sixth, a solo shot to left field off of Mets starter Johan Santana. Rich Aurillia and Randy Winn also had RBI's to get the Giants back to within one before New York iced the game with two more runs in the ninth.

So far this season the strength of the Giants roster has been their pitching staff, but they have stumbled in the last two series against Washington and New York, two of the premier offenses in the National League. San Francisco has given up a combined 44 runs in the last six games, and they will need to reverse that trend to avoid a sweep.

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.