On Wednesday night, Brandon Belt came to the plate six times. He drew four walks, struck out once, and put one ball in play, a single in the 11th that drove in a run. Of course, the combination of all those walks and the relative lack of homers sometimes leads to spurious criticisms not unlike those leveled at Joey Votto. While most understand that Votto is a great hitter and many understand that what Belt does is good, Belt’s reputation likely suffers more than Votto’s for a few reasons.

1. He’s not as good as Joey Votto.
2. He hits relatively few homers for a first baseman.

As to that first point, there’s no shame in failing to rival Joey Votto. As to the second, it really is hard to overstate the effects of Belt’s home park. Despite what Barry Bonds might have led everyone to believe, it’s incredibly difficult to hit homers in San Francisco. Despite what Barry Bonds might have led everyone to believe, it’s even more incredibly difficult for lefties to homer there.

Brandon Belt isn’t without power. He has posted ISOs well above league average throughout his career. Since the beginning of 2015, his .226 ISO on the road is 23rd best in baseball among the 160 players who’ve recorded at least 500 away plate appearances. He’s within 10 points of Joey Votto; he’s right behind Josh Donaldson, Brian Dozier, and Daniel Murphy; and he’s just ahead of Miguel Cabrera and Jose Bautista. In 580 away plate appearances since the beginning of 2015 — roughly a season’s worth of playing time- – Belt has 28 home runs, having hit them at a greater rate than Kris Bryant and Paul Goldschmidt. His numbers are good in high-leverage and low-leverage situations. He’s good with runners on and the bases empty. He’s consistent, too, as the chart showing his 100-game rolling ISO shows.

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Rich Hill is in the midst of a blister problem. It’s been going on since his breakout season last year. Since only three pitchers in 2016 threw more curveballs than Hill, it makes sense to blame the curve. Maybe there’s more at work, but also maybe not. It’s a pretty reasonable hypothesis.

I mean, for one, the pitcher himself believes it. “It’s right there, on the pad of my finger, where it touches the seams on my curveball,” said Hill on Tuesday night. Curious about the condition of his digit, I pushed: could I take a picture of the pad on his middle finger pad? “Nobody’s taking a picture of my finger,” he laughed. I didn’t pursue the matter any further.

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Episode 735
Managing editor Dave Cameron is the guest on this edition of the program, during which he discusses the absence of Starling Marte from the Pirates and the absence of Madison Bumgarner from the Giants and, implicitly, the absence of “human behavior” from his behavior.

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Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 39 min play time.)

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Last Thursday, Madison Bumgarner wrecked his dirt bike, and in the process, also wrecked his throwing shoulder. The team publicly announced that he’d be out 6-8 weeks while rehabbing the injury, but reports suggest that might be an optimistic belief.

SF will get more info on Bumgarner in days ahead, but there is concern within organization the injury will sideline him longer than 2 months

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) April 22, 2017

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It’s not a shock that Madison Bumgarner has never been on the disabled list before now. He’s a big horse of a man, made purely of muscle and tree sap. The only thing that’s prevented him from being sidelined is Bruce Bochy not letting him throw 400 innings in a year and, apparently, that he’s been steady on a dirt bike until now.

Bumgarner is on the DL after a dirt bike accident. He has bruised ribs and a Grade One or Two Strain of his shoulder AC joint. #SFGiants

— Henry Schulman BLUE CHECK MARK (@hankschulman) April 21, 2017

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Previously
Changeup: AL Starters / NL Starters.
Curveball: AL Starters.

We’re almost three weeks into the regular season, with sample sizes mounting but still not to a level worthy of significant analysis, Eric Thames notwithstanding. We’ll take the opportunity to continue our look back at 2016 pitch quality. We looked at AL ERA qualifiers’ curveballs earlier this week; today, we turn our attention to the senior circuit.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Christian Arroyo, 3B, San Francisco (Profile)
Level: Triple-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 1  Top 100: 69
Line: 4-for-5, 2B, HR

Notes
That’s a home run in two consecutive games for Arroyo — both in Sacramento’s Raley Field, which is pitcher-friendly compared to most other PCL parks. Arroyo’s home run on Monday was a 350-foot opposite-field poke. I wouldn’t prematurely jump ship on Arroyo despite his modest statistical output last year. He’s still just 21, already at Triple-A and has rare bat-to-ball skills. He’s a better defensive fit at second or third base than shortstop (where he’s playing most of his time now) and lacks power and great walk rates. But Arroyo is tough to strike out and should be able to play somewhere favorable on the defensive spectrum or several positions. If the bat maxes out, he could profile similarly to Martin Prado.

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Last year’s playoffs were seen as a win not only for the Cubs and their fans, but also for proponents of the relief ace. On a national stage, Terry Francona used Andrew Miller early and often to put out fires almost regardless of inning. He’d been doing it ever since Cleveland acquired Miller in the summer, of course, but here was a manager deploying the strategy on the game’s largest stage.

Not every team can be blessed with having both Miller and Cody Allen on their roster, though, nor can every team have both Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman. Most teams are lucky enough to have a good closer, and most of those teams employ the traditional strategy of waiting until the ninth inning to use their best reliever. Much has been made of the strategic merit of that, but it’s a system that helps players know their roles on the team, and that has value, too. But if a team isn’t blessed with a Miller-type player, then they need a sturdy bridge to arrive at that closer. Even Cleveland and New York need help from guys without well-known names.

We’ve been fixated on the idea of the relief ace. The idea is so tantalizing and so intoxicating. Not only is it awesome to see Miller jump in and melt faces whenever Tito desires, but it’s a bit of a high for sabermetric types to see something for which they’ve argued so strenuously actually getting implemented in games. And this isn’t to say that the relief ace is a bad idea! It’s an exceedingly good idea, if the usage of the pitcher is properly managed. But the relief ace, and the closer, don’t matter a ton if the rest of the guys in the bullpen aren’t effective.

Take the Giants’ opener on Sunday, for instance. Madison Bumgarner went seven innings. Bruce Bochy needed just two innings from his bullpen to hold a one-run lead. A lot of teams have a setup man to serve as an opening act for the closer, and indeed, the Giants were supposed to have Will Smith out there. He’s out for the year with Tommy John surgery, though. So the duty fell to Derek Law, who promptly coughed up the lead, and the Diamondbacks walked it off against Mark Melancon in the ninth.

San Francisco’s bullpen, outside of  Melancon, looks almost entirely the same as it did last year. They appeared in the bottom half of our bullpen power rankings for a reason. There just isn’t enough firepower there, even if they likely aren’t as disastrously bad as they were down the stretch last year, from a true talent perspective. They may have replaced Santiago Casilla with Melancon, but the relief corps isn’t strong enough to compensate when a starter only goes five.

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Yesterday, the Giants’ 2017 season started much like their 2016 season ended, with a questionable bullpen blowing a late lead. Despite their $62 million investment in Mark Melancon over the winter, the team’s bullpen remains mediocre, and the Giants are going to have to hope that the rest of their team is good enough to overcome this weakness.

But despite the Opening Day loss, there was some good news for the Giants. Because, once again, it looks like their ace may be getting better.

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In honor of Opening Day 2017, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at the five craziest Opening Day games (or home openers), as defined by swings in win expectancy. So we did, in this video we just posted at our Facebook page! Happy baseball!

Thanks to Sean Dolinar for his research assistance.