Game Wrap 8/8/2011: Pirates 5 Giants 0

You expect that sometimes the Giants are going to find themselves overmatched in a game against the Phillies or Braves or maybe even the Cincinnati Reds. It shouldn't happen against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Bucs are an improved team, granted, but they are still no juggernaut. They had been winning as much with smoke and mirrors as the Giants before dropping a 10 game losing streak coming into this series. I will say though, from a sabermetric standpoint, the Pirates had all the luck tonight while the Giants had all the bad luck, but the Giants could have helped themselves by playing smarter too. Key lines:

Nate Schierholtz- 3 for 4, 2B. BA= .280. The fact that Nate did not drive in a run nor score one tells you most of what you need to know about this game right there.

Orlando Cabrera- 0 for 3, BB. That OCab moved down a notch in the lineup is a good sign, but I'm not even sure he should be hitting in front of Rowand and Whiteside. Aw heck, who am I kidding? Rowand shouldn't even be in the lineup! Anyway, OCab's first two AB's were with no outs and runners on first and second. He failed to so much as advance any of those runners either time. I know that sabermetric theory says you don't give up outs to move up runners, but gotta try something different. I found myself saying "OK, sacrifice them over." both times when he came up, making the failure to advance the runners all the more frustrating to watch. In the end, with Rowand following in the lineup, it probably didn't make any difference.

Ryan Vogelsong- 5 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 2 BB, 8 K's. ERA= 2.48. Vogey had strikeout stuff and he wasn't particularly wild, although he did get to 3-2 on a lot of hitters which may partially explain the high BABIP. A couple of the hits were smoked but most of them were soft liners and bloops that fell in. Classic case of BABIP luck.

Charlie Morton(Pirates)- 8 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 3 H, 4 K's. ERA= 3.56. Most sabermetricians would look at the two pitching lines and tell you Vogelsong was the better pitcher. You are simply not going to get many shutouts out of that kind of K/BB. Getting 13 GB outs certainly helped a lot though, as well as the Giants almost total lack of a power threat.

The strangeness of the season continued as the Giants continued to cling to a 0.5 game lead in the NL West as the Dangerous D'Backs lost to the Houston Astros, of all teams, 9-1. As Vin Scully would say, "go figure!" The Rockies crept up to a 9 game deficit with a 10-7 win over the Reds while the Dodgers lost to the Phillies 5-3 to remain 10 games back and the Pesky Padres lost to the Mets 9-8 to stay 12 games back.

Madison Bumgarner takes on James McDonald tonight while trying to avoid the First Inning Blues.