The BABIP gods were not smiling on the Giants today as the White Sox played pepper with all day and turned it into 7 runs while the Giants couldn't turn 9 walks into any 3-run homers. Key Lines:
Lamonte Wade Jr 1B- 0 for 0, 3 BB. BA= .214. Has LMWJ turned into the god of walks? His OBP is .500.
David Villar 2B- 0 for 3, 2 BB. BA= .235. Thairo Estrada was a late scratch due to lingering leg tightness after taking a foul ball off it on Monday. Villar moved over from 3B but may have shown how much the Giants need Thairo as several of those 13 hits were ground balls that found their way through the right side.
J. D. Davis 3B- 1 for 4, HR(1). BA= .200. Davis got the start at 3B after Villar moved to 2B and drove in the Giants first run with an oppo field HR. Unfortunately none of those 9 walks were on base in front of him.
Logan Webb RHP- 5 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 0 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 6.55. Webb gave up his share of line drives so it wasn't all BABIP luck but while is ERA for the day was 7.20, his FIP was 1.63 and xFIP was 2.99. I seem to recall Webb got off to a slow start last season too and ended up with almost identical numbers to 2021.
Sean Hjelle RHP- 1.2 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, GO/AO= 3/1. Even with the 4 hits allowed, Hjelle's FIP for the game was 2.63 and xFIP 3.65.
Alex Wood LHP makes his first start of the season tomorrow trying for a series win against Lance Lynn RHP.
Giants on base all day but Lease (1 hit in 5 innings) rose to his reputation when needed – LOB (by 6 CWS pitchers):
ReplyDeleteConforto 4
Villar 5
Pederson 8
YtY 4
Through 8 innings Giants had 1 R, 2 H, and 12 K before "rallying" in the 9th against CWS 6th pitcher. SF is striking out @ 32% rate in 199 PA. Conforto is near 50%.
Per MCC, the Chisox put 18 balls in play against Giants pitchers with 11 of those 18 being non-hard contact. 13 of the 18 went for hits. That's pretty much the definition of bad BABIP luck.
ReplyDeleteCould it be some bad BABIP luck and some poor fielding? The latter seems to correlate with your comment about the need for Thairo (presumably the lack of range for Villar?)
DeleteIf so, Villar at 2B and perhaps Sabol at C are nothing more than emergency options, kind of like the Panda as a catcher or pitcher.
Yes, defense is an issue. It's on one of the biggest reasons I'm getting tired of Zaidi. He keeps looking for 'undervalued players' and rehab candidates. The problem is that most of them are also bad at defense and he has a defense-dependent pitching staff with a high ground-ball rate.
DeleteIn 2022 the Giants were tied with the Cardinals in provoking GB hitting and lead the league in GB/FB with an average in hard-hit rate. The Giants BABIP was .312 in a league year where BABIP was .290.
But our fielders can't field.and we had the third worse BABIP in the majors; 22 points higher than the .290 league average which wasn't anywhere near all 'bad luck.' Rather, this was a team that finished in the bottom-5 of almost every defensive category.
The irony is that Estrada is actually the best of the infield. The rest are, charitably put, not exactly Gold Glovers. And in the OF, Yaz is 'merely okish' and shouldn't be a CFer, but a RFer.