Giants vs. Phillies, 8/10

Maybe the Giants will get a break from Bryce Harper bombs as he hasn’t homered in back-to-back games since May 18-19 and is just 3-for-19 in his career against Jeff Samardzija. At the same time, matchup numbers are mostly meaningless and prior to last night’s game, Harper had been terrible in Oracle Park for his career, so, what we should’ve learned is that things can change in a single game.

RF — Bryce Harper
1B — Rhys Hoskins
LF — Corey Dickerson
SS — Jean Segura
C — J.T. Realmuto
2B — Cesar Hernandez
3B — Scott Kingery
CF — Adam Haseley
SP — Vince Velasquez

Vince Velasquez has a career 2.77 K/BB, but against the Giants in four career starts (he’s 1-2), it’s 4.13. Dude rings up Ks and he’s got a great lineup to do it against (Giants’ strikeout rates in parenthesis).

1B — Brandon Belt (20.8%)
LF — Mike Yastrzemski (25.%)
C — Buster Posey (15.8%)
2B — Scooter Gennett (25.3%)
3B — Evan Longoria (21.1%)
SS — Brandon Crawford (22.8%)
CF — Kevin Pillar (14.5%)
RF — Austin Slater (29.2%)
SP — Jeff Samardzija (56.4%)

The Giants must be confident that Gennett’s on the right track in terms of his recovery. He hasn’t hit for much power since coming over, but maybe that will change starting today. Velasquez’s 11.7% barreled rate is one of the worst in the league and hitters have a hard hit rate of 43%, which is among the bottom 8% of the league (league average is 34.4%).