NLDS Game Two Preview: San Francisco
Not to take anything away from Tim Lincecum and his game score of 96 last night, but the Giants look good tonight, too, with Matt Cain going out there. Cain increased his K/9 and decreased his BB/9 since last year while improving his FIP from 3.89 to 3.65. Interestingly enough, Cain’s strand rate reduced from 81.6% to 75.3%, which most will point toward regression to the mean. His BABIP is still low at .260, while his FIP has outperformed his xFIP every year since joining the big leagues. Much of this is due to pitching at a pitcher’s ballpark all of his career, keeping Giants’ pitchers at low HR/FB ratios (a very good 7.4% for Cain in 2010). Cain can keep the ball in the ballpark at home, especially for Braves hitters who don’t exhibit particularly great power.
If last night’s 1-0 result was any indication, there will probably be very few runs scored in this game as well. Except for a few mistimed sinkers to right-handed hitters Buster Posey and Cody Ross, Derek Lowe was particularly effective in preventing hard hits (9 groundouts, 1 flyout). Still, the Giants’ strength at drawing walks was evident last night, and if the collective lineup remains patient against Tommy Hanson, they will be a few hanging curveballs or over-the-plate fastballs away from a couple of runs. Hanson has drawn swings from outside the strike zone the same as the MLB average (29.3%), so he isn’t particularly deceptive on out-of-the-zone pitches. Rather, Hanson gets most of his whiffs inside the strike zone, so the key for the Giants is to wait for a good pitch to hit and not let Hanson get ahead in the count (then again, isn’t it always?).
As noted by the fielding of Brooks Conrad and Rick Ankiel last night, the Braves defense may be the worst in the National League. Hanson’s GB% is almost identical with his FB%, and I’m not sure which batted-ball type is to the Braves’ advantage based on the lack of quality fielding. Assuming that Hanson doesn’t adjust his pitch selection and sequencing based on last night’s fielding, look for ground balls off Hanson’s changeups and curveballs put in play.
In my preview for yesterday’s game, I noted the strength and depth of the Giants’ bullpen this season. Lincecum’s complete game shutout provides another advantage for the Giants against the Braves going forward in addition to being two wins closer to the NLCS. The Braves’ bullpen is also one of the best in the Majors right alongside the Giants’. But with Jonny Venters throwing 1.2 IP last night (albeit in an efficient 13 pitches) with appearances from Peter Moylan, Michael Dunn, and Craig Kimbrel, the Braves would like to get major innings from Hanson. An off day between Games Two and Three will suppress this advantage, but Giants will be able to freely use any of their bullpen arms tonight should Cain need to exit early.
Carson Cistulli challenged his fellow writers today by predicting the entire box score of the Phillies-Reds matchup tonight. As one of the newer writers and one who is slow to adopt new policies, I will only venture a guess at the final score, which will be 3-0 Giants for a 2-0 lead in the series.
Albert Lyu (@thinkbluecrew, LinkedIn) is a graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, but will always root for his beloved Northwestern Wildcats. Feel free to email him with any comments or suggestions.
The Braves lineup is miserable, no doubt, but I don’t see them getting shut out two nights in a row. My guess is Braves, 2-1.
Lets not forget, however unimposing the giants lineup might be from a power standpoint, they did lead the league in HR’s in the month of Sept. And is it just me, or does Juan Uribe look like he is trying to take every pitch yard (and 24 homers in the regular season is evidence he has hit a few of those pitches pretty well)… im surprised pitchers would throw him anything w/o lots of movement, or anything in the zone for that matter
It’s not just you. Yes, Juan Uribe is looking to yank one out of the ballpark every time he swings…which is just about every pitch, btw. He can definitely look silly on a pitch with movement, but he can come back on the next pitch and crush that one mistake a guy throws without much break to it.
“Still, the Giants’ strength at drawing walks was evident last night…”
I guess you didn’t watch much of the Giant’s season. Even four walks in a night is a bit of an outlier (and one was an IBB).
Right, I should revise that statement, because I was looking at the Giants OBP against Lowe this season so i wanted to allude to that trend rather than talk about the Giants patience as a universal strength.
And it was as much because of Lowe as the Giants patience when facing Lowe that counted last night.
Albert, the writeup and analysis is great and I appreciate the effort, but isn’t it just a matter of:
First team to 4 total runs wins the series?
(I’m assuming one of the games is going to be a 2-0 or 2-1 slugfest)
The Giants have been incredibly inconsistent this season, and they’ve also been maddeningly unpredictable.
I think that the Giants will score some runs off Hanson today, but will fail to score off the Braves bullpen. I predict the game score to be 3-1 Giants.
The Giants have been maddeningly unpredictable. Thus, I will make a prediction.
Yes, it was supposed to be humorous.
Hanson last 5 games: 31.2 IP, 7 ER, 22/6/1 K/W/HR, Cards, Fish, Phils at home, Mets, Phils road
Cain last 5 games: 35.0 IP, 11 ER, 27/4/6 K/W/HR, Bums, Pads at home, Pads, Cubs, Rox road
Braves work some walks, splash a couple, win 6-3.
Once you said “splash a couple” I stopped reading. Unfortunately it was the end of your post.
Splash a couple?
The Nationals (well, Adam Dunn) hit a pair into McCovey Cove in back-to-back games this year, and the Mets hit two in the same series in ’06. But no visiting team has ever hit two into the Cove in the same game.
There have only been 22 by visiting batters over the course of eleven seasons, a mean (this is a stats-oriented site, yes?) of two per year.
So sure, maybe the Braves will hit two tonight. Or maybe not.
Oops, wrong Adam. Make that Adam LaRoche of the Diamondbacks.
6 of Cain’s runs allowed came in his last start against SD in which he lasted just 4 innings. Prior to that he had a sub 3 ERA since the AS Break.
PRESCIENCE.
Hello to you too, Andrew.