Giants vs. Phillies, 8/11

Tonight’s nationally televised game should be like every other: painfully bad and a Giants loss. They just don’t do well on ESPN.

Meanwhile, Jake Arrieta continues to pitch with bone chips and pitch well with bone chips. He went four innings and allowed just one run against the Giants on August 1st, and in his subsequent start against Diamondbacks in Arizona, he pitched five innings and allowed just two runs. He’s struck out 10 total in his last nine innings pitched (2 starts).

On the road, he’s done a lot better job limiting walks (60 K vs. 20 BB) but he has allowed 13 home runs in 12 road starts. It’s okay, though. He’s pitching in Oracle Park tonight (3.05 ERA in 6 starts, 34 K:6 BB).

RF — Bryce Harper
1B — Rhys Hoskins
SS — Jean Seguara
C — J.T. Realmuto
3B — Scott Kingery
LF — Sean Rodriguez
2B — Cesar Hernandez
SP — Jake Arrieta

Conner Menez gets the spotlight tonight and it’s been a weird quirk of the schedule or rotation ordering these past couple of years that when the Giants get a rare ESPN Sunday Night spotlight they start Ty Blach or Chris Stratton and not Madison Bumgarner.

He’s allowed four home runs across two starts (11 innings) and last time around against the Nationals, they worked him for three walks. There’s something intriguing about his skill set, though, so if he can find stay around the strike zone without missing in the middle part of the plate, maybe he can just keep the Giants in the game.

1B — Brandon Belt
LF — Mike Yastrzemski
3B — Evan Longoria
C — Stephen Vogt
2B — Scooter Gennett
CF — Kevin Pillar
SS — Brandon Crawford
RF — Austin Slater
SP — Conner Menez

This lineup suggests we’re going to get a Buster Posey eulogy of some kind during the broadcast.