One nightmare inning is the story of Justin Verlander's season and it bit him again tonight as the Blue Jays took advantage of some extreme BABIP luck while the Giants were plagued by extreme bad sequencing luck. Key Lines:
Heliot Ramos LF(.265), Rafael Devers DH(.258) and Patrick Bailey C(.208) had 2 hits each out of 11 total for the Giants. Devers' double was the only XBH. The Giants had 2 hits in each of the first two innings but also GIDP'd in each of those innings.
Justin Verlander RHP- 2.2 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 0 K. ERA= 4.99. 6 of the 9 hits were groundballs and 2 were IF hits. Maybe some of them were hit hard, but every projection model I know of says a BABIP of .529 is not sustainable.
Tristan Beck RHP- 4.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's, 7/1 GO/AO. ERA= 6.11. Beck starts the second half with a bulk appearance, to borrow a Kapler Era phrase. Will the effort buy him a ticket to AA Sacramento since he now won't be available for at least 3 games?(He did only throw 46 pitches).
Matt Gage LHP- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 0.00. Gage finally pitched in a MLB game for the organization that drafted him all the way back in 2014. Ironically for a guy who has had so much trouble getting to and sticking in MLB, he has performed well at the level with a career 1.37 ERA in 26.1 IP.
Logan Webb RHP tries to shake it off tomorrow evening against veteran Eric Lauer LHP who comes in with a 2.78 ERA.
The Giants need to ditch their automatic transmission and get some old fashioned clutch!
ReplyDelete.529 BABIP is good way to talk me off the ledge...but everything I see from Verlander says old, fat and tired. Cheap shot, but....he looks the part. I get his velocity is good, but those FBs look straight and hittable, a lot like Strickland's from way back. And the curves just seem to cut a very predictable path.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to say cut bait...but to what? Don't see anything in-house to swap in.
I am old enough to remember watching Rick Reuschel “Big Daddy” I think was his nickname pitch for the SF Giants. He retired after he was 42. So you are most likely correct Mojo.
DeleteI think Verlander still has the capability to be effective, if, and only if, he pitches “effectively wild”. He has been looking that way for the most part to me. However, his high hung curve balls and his straight fastballs that end up right in the middle of the hitting zone are the problem that I see. It appears the opponent is just waiting for that one mistake and the clobber them one after another.
Going into tonight's game, of the Giant players who have 100 or more plate appearances, Christian Koss has the highest batting average (.265).
ReplyDeleteHe's not on the playing roster.
Maybe Verlander will catch fire to end the year. But the fact is he’s a shell of himself 42 year old on the verge of retirement who has a 4.99 ERA with less than two weeks to go before we hit August. He’s got no future with us, if one at all. Only reason to keep him on the roster is because we are pushing for a playoff spot otherwise we got 3 or 4 other guys who are 14 or more years young that will be part of our future and it would be better to see what they got.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Verlander at 42 is looking pretty bleak. I saw him hit 94 mph tonight, but his lack of control on both sides of the plate left him vulnerable once again to leaving too many pitches over the middle. Beck looked great … with 64 games left, he deserves a spot in the rotation.
ReplyDeleteI think we may need to stretch out Spencer Bivens to start at this point.
DeleteI didn't see the game due to my TV malfunctioning but when the Giants played in Toronto in past years, the artificial turf played like a billiards table. I wonder if the disaster inning was as much about the infielders adjusting to the surface Verlander's pitching.
ReplyDeleteTime to embrace the bullpen game every fifth game.
ReplyDeleteStatcast page all blue. Sadly, this is how a HOF career comes to an end.
ReplyDeleteVerlander is cooked and the sample size is big enough to conclude that it’s… Lightning in a bottle time! Kai Wei Teng is on a heater in AAA. Not uncommon for a young pitcher to come to the bigs and have 2-3 good starts before hitters get a full book on them.
ReplyDeleteAndy in OC
11 hits = 0 runs? I know that only one was an extra base hit (I don't care). It was a lead off double. And he was stranded. They're hitting like a bunch of little leaguers, right now. Sad.
ReplyDeletePer McCovey Chronicles BlueSky feed: This was just the 7'th time in franchise history they had 11 hits and scored 0 runs, just the second since moving to San Francisco and the first since 1959. Only 24 teams in since 1995 have had 11 or more hits and failed to score. The record for most hits without scoring is 13.
DeleteIn his defense, Verlander gets lousy run support.
ReplyDeleteIn his 16 starts:
6 quality starts, Giants 0-6
3 near quality starts (5 innings, 3 or fewer ER), Giants 1-2
3 other starts when he gave up 3 or fewer ER but less than 5 innings, Giants 2-1
4 starts giving up 4 or more ER, one the Giants won
Giants were shut out 3 times, scored 2 or fewer runs 9 times
There are many SP's with worse fWAR than Verlander with winning records, such as:
Brandon Pfaadt 10-6
Colin Rea 8-3
Gavin Williams 5-4
Bailey Falter 6-5
Jameson Taillon 7-6
Jake Irvin 7-5
Tomoyuki Sugano 7-5
Even Walker Buehler who is being paid $21.05M is 6-6.
There's a guy on the Giants making double what Verlander gets (and for a long time) and he's batting .215.