When you Google search this site it reads, “Your best source for quality San Francisco Giants news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.” Now, we all know that’s not true when I’m doing the recap, and on a night like tonight, that’s especially true.
There is no quality analysis for tonight’s 6-4 loss to the Pirates. Oh sure, I could tell you that when the 9th inning began, the Giants had a 92.9% chance of winning the game —
— but now we know the truth. The 7.1% chance that the Giants will fall apart just because they happen to be playing a home game is 100% reliable.
When it comes to playing at Oracle Park, the Giants stink. It defies logic in a season when the Giants managed to look like a group of professional baseball players for a couple of months amidst a sea of years and years of looking like the worst in the sport just by adding an Orioles castoff and a Padres castoff and Donovan Solano; somehow, that 30-39 home record (and counting) still manages to be the biggest shock of all.
Every home game is Thanksgiving vacation for the Giants and they’re doing everything they can to avoid sitting across the table from their drunk uncle and judgmental grandma. It’s the only logical explanation for their home record in that there’s nothing logical about it. They’re a much better team away from their home stadium.
The Giants blew a 4-2 lead to the 62-win Pirates tonight, and while it’s kinder to say that baseball is tough and no wins are guaranteed, the 9th inning certified this team as being fully anti-San Francisco. Playing in front of their smallest home crowd since April 2010, they managed to put on a good show for eight inning. Then came the 9th, and the rookies who had held the best lineup in the National League in check over the weekend gave up line drives and walks very quickly, turning a 2-run lead into a 2-run deficit.
And then it was just a matter of Felipe Vazquez coming in to throw 100 mph at the knees. That’s what having a dominant closer can do.
The Giants were without theirs tonight as Will Smith continued to suffer through back tightness. Jandel Gustave was Saturday night’s hero, inducing a game-ending double play, but he couldn’t duplicate that success tonight.
Now that I’ve calmed down, it all sort of makes sense. The Giants weren’t supposed to win that game on Saturday, but they did because of baseball’s weird energy. Maybe it had to do with The Rivalry. Maybe the Dodgers just snoozed through the weekend thinking they had some easing wins on their schedule. In any case, what happened tonight is what we assumed was going to happen on Saturday.
This means the universe is asking us a question: “Would you rather have tonight’s meaningless home win or Saturday’s slightly less meaningless road victory in Dodger Stadium?”
I’ll answer for the group, Universe. We’ll take Saturday.
Plus, the Pirates’ offense has been stellar all year. As I noted in the series preview that you all definitely read this afternoon,
The Giants are really, really, really, truly terrible at home. By team wOBA, they’re dead last at home with .281. They have the 10th-worst strikeout rate at home (23.7%) in all of baseball — fifth in the National League. Their 7.5% home walk rate is second-worst in the NL and fifth-worst in baseball, too.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Pirates are 11th in road strikeout rate (23.1%) and tied for 12th in walk rate (8.7%). That’s 6th and 4th, respectively for NL-only rankings. So, on average, the Pirates will probably hold the Giants to the numbers the Giants have posted at home this year, which strongly suggests a sweep, if we just go by the averages.
The Pirates are averaging 4.8 runs/game on the road. The Giants are averaging 3.5 runs/game at home.
So, really, we have only ourselves to blame for being shocked by tonight’s turn of events. Of course the Giants were going to lose to the prospect they traded away last year. That was always going to be the case. Let’s be grateful that happened in the first game of the series.
Brandon Belt needed tonight. The man has been beleaguered, not just by this very website, but by the good ol’ base. He went 3-for-4 with two singles and a double that probably would’ve been a home run in 20 other parks.
He did what he’s been doing for most of the season, though: hitting the ball hard. But he hasn’t been getting the results. The fans don’t care, but the computers have noticed:
Statcast defines a hard-hit ball as 95 mph or greater off the bat. When MLB hitters reach that exit velocity threshold, they bat .541. A hard-hit ball is a hit more than half the time. Well, not for these guys.
Highest % of outs on hard contact in 2019
Of 168 hitters with 100+ hard-hit balls
1) Lorenzo Cain (MIL): 61.0%
2) Brandon Belt (SF): 57.5%
3) Alex Gordon (KC): 56.1%
4) Rougned Odor (TEX): 55.0%
5) Marcell Ozuna (STL): 54.8%
My point about Brandon Belt’s 2019 resembling Pablo Sandoval’s Boston career boils down to this: results. Belt’s results have been terrible, even if his process has been sound. That’s the difference, of course, and it’s a big one. Pablo Sandoval’s off-field incidents were bad for the team. Brandon Belt has merely been while on the team and even then only most of this year, but underneath it all has been hard contact. There’s still a good player in there.
He just might need a new park. Tonight, that didn’t seem to affect him, even if it did the rest of the team once again. But back to the main point: Brandon Belt had another good night at the plate and he finally had something to show for it.
Forgotten in the expected chaos of the 9th was Madison Bumgarner’s start. He extended his NL-leading innings pitched total with 7 innings of 2-run ball with 5 strikeouts. He looked his worst in the 5th and 6th inning when the Pirates scored both their runs off him, and overall he still managed to give up 6 hard hit balls (balls with exit velocities of 95+ mph), but his stuff was impressive for a guy nearing 200 innings starting and pitching in a meaningless September game.
Watch Buster Posey react to the movement on this cutter.
I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that The Ghost of Vintage Bum has been hanging around lately, and tonight we got another spike on the PKE meter.
Tonight’s home plate umpire, Chad Fairchild, had a strike zone that would’ve galled every fair child in the realm. I think pitch framing has gotten out of control when it’s devolved into performance art. Here are the first two pitches of Mauricio Dubon’s plate appearance in the third inning. Please note how much catcher Kevin Stallings moves his glove after he receives the pitch:
It’s the equivalent of throwing a smoke bomb down while you’re trying to make a getaway. It is the opposite of “framing”. I believe it was Bane who said, “Theatricality and deception; powerful agents to the uninitiated.”
Here’s what I think “pitch framing” should look like, if it’s going to earn “gift strikes” at all. You want that low and outside pitch to “seem” to hit the very tip of the outside corner? You have to sit on your butt and setup like this:
Which means it should look like this with a batter in the box.
Don’t like my drawings? Fine. Don’t like my idea and believe it to violate preexisting rules about where the catcher’s body can be in relation to the batter’s box(es)? Tough! A frame is a frame, not a chance to chew scenery.
On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that Chad Fairchild simply cannot tilt his head down. Maybe he slept wrong last night and had a stiff neck today. Here’s a very obvious catcher’s interference he missed in what was a weird-ish 5th inning for both teams:
Called a strike. Posey would go on to strike out rather than get on base, and were it not for Belt’s double, the Giants would’ve stranded runners at second and third.
Here’s my proof that Chad Fairchild had a stiff neck: in the bottom of the 3rd inning, he clearly saw Jaylin Davis get “hit” by a pitch which really just barely touched the midsection of his jersey. It was far more subtle than this catcher’s interference, but because he wasn’t partially blocked by a catcher, I guess, and the play was happening directly in front of him, he could see it.
Am I being too hard on Fairchild? Perhaps. Catcher’s interference is not a reviewable play. You would think the matter of a hitter reaching base would be under the auspices of the replay umpires, just as Mauricio Dubon’s overturned force out at second base in the 9th inning was. And yet, it’s not, proving once again that video replay is frustrating and unknowable.
Anyway, just 13 more home games to go. Lucky 13!