Giant preview 4/24/17

Phil Gurnee ♦ April 24, 2017 ♦ 4 Comments

Rarely over the past decade have the Dodgers faced a last place Giant team. I’ll let someone else figure out when was the last time but I know it has been a while.

At 6 – 13 the Giant are now 43 – 57 since June 30th, 2016. At that point, the Giants were 50 – 31. What has changed for such a dramatic reversal of fortune?

I haven’t a clue as I start to write this, maybe we will find out in a few paragraphs.

Doug Bruzzone wondered if this is who the Giants are? And that was before being swept by the Rockies this past weekend. 

The Giants were abysmal last year after the All-Star Break, and if you had hope that the beginning of this year would be different, boy is your face red! The 2016 Giants had a .417 winning percentage in the second half, while so far in 2017, the team is winning at a .357 clip. And while the second half 2016 Giants looked like garbage, so far, the 2017 Giants look like stupid garbage.

The key to a great metaphor is an extensive vocabulary, by the way.

Doug threw all the advanced metrics at the 2017 team and they back up the record. He found some optimism on the pitching side but that was before MadBum went for a dirt bike ride.  The man has three gigantic rings that must weigh a ton and I imagine he didn’t adjust his weight properly because of the rings and thus took a fall that may have ended the Giants season.  Sure the Dodgers ran down the Giants without Kershaw, but don’t expect the Giants to pull the same rabbit out of the hat. That rabbit was already BBQ.

So with that out of the way who do the Giants have.

Posey / Belt / Panik / Crawford/ Pence/Span are all back and somewhat healthy. Eduardo Nunez was the trade addition last fall who hit well and is hitting well now. But the team keeps losing.  He came from a losing team in the Twins. Guess who is winning now? The Twins.

It is clearly Eduardo Nunez that is holding the Giants down.

How is that for sabermetric analysis?

Anyway, the Dodgers will be facing Matt Cain, left-hander Ty Blach, Johnny Cueto, and another lefty in Matt Moore.  They will send three left-handers against the Giants in Ryu/Kershaw/Wood or Urias.  Or maybe four if Wood and Urias make the final two starts. If you want to glean anything from the Giant splits you will be disappointed. They have a .658 OPS against right-hand pitching and a .654 OPS against left-hand pitching. So far in 2017, they have sucked against either arm.

The matchup is also not kind for the Giants. They throw two lefties at the Dodgers and they might be facing Cy Current in Kershaw and Cy Future in Urias.

The Ryu / Cain matchup should decide who wins the series.  Odds were high in January that neither Ryu or Cain would be in a Dodger / Giant rotation by April 24th but they are. I kind of think that Ryu is due for a good solid outing and that Cain is due to get Able’d.

It should not be long before the Giants replace the Padres and climb out of last place, but will that be as far as they climb in 2017?