Giants vs. Dodgers, 9/30: 1.

So, it has come to this. The Giants will close out today as legends, either for preventing their arch rival from grabbing another division crown or by completing the losingest month in franchise history. Whatever happens, change is afoot.

But for now, we celebrate what has been. The Giants are dead, long live the Giants… and may they drag the Dodgers to hell with them.

Lineups:

Andrew Suárez (7-12, 4.26 FIP) was my pick for the rookie superlatives and I think what really makes him stand out is how he had to adjust quickly on the fly in order to avoid getting transacted out of the rotation. We have no idea what the Giants’ contingency plan was if they’re contingency plan failed, and it’s to the tremendous credit of Suárez, Dereck Rodríguez, and Derek Holland that they didn’t falter (much) once they were given their respective roles.

It is to my tremendous detriment that I did not learn the keyboard commands for the accent marks, so I’ve resorted to copying and pasting my á’s and í’s.

Meanwhile, Suárez has had just one scoreless start in his last seven. However, his lone start against the Dodgers back in August was eight starts ago, and that was six innings, zero runs allowed, on top of 3 walks and 2 hits. He’s at 158 innings on the season, and per the ol’ Baseball Cube, that’s a little bit more than his career-high total from last year in Double-A and Triple-A combined (155.2 innings). Dereck Rodríguez definitely looked gassed after two innings yesterday. We’ll see if the Giants’ tough rookie can battle through at least a few innings today.

I’m not the only one who thinks Rich Hill (10-5, 4.12 FIP) looks like disgraced former FBI Director James Comey, right?

Oh good. I’m not.

Hill is 5-1 in his last seven starts with a 4.50 ERA in 40 innings. His WHIP is exactly 1.00 (29 hits, 11 walks), and he has 53 strikeouts over that same span, allowing 7 home runs. He’s struck out 29 Giants in over the past 26.2 innings (5 starts) and didn’t pitch more than six innings in any of them (he pitched only 4 in his last start against the Giants in August).

He really has a power curveball. The Giants are not good at hitting the curveball. His fastball’s only averaging about 89 right now, but the Giants are not good at hitting the fastball, either. It’s a favorable matchup today by virtue of his being a major league pitcher, but under ordinary circumstances, there’d be a small chance the full-strength lineup could work counts against him to drive up his pitch count — that’s been the previous recipe for success... when the Giants had the ability to cook.

Hill has given up 20 home runs in just 125.2 innings pitched this season (he gave up 18 in 135.2 last season), so there’s that.