Matt Cain's Perfect Game

Three innings in, the Giants were up on the Astros, eight to nothing. By the fifth, it was ten to zip. After a long home run drought at home for the Giants offense, Cabrera, Belt, and Blanco put up three to follow Bumgarner's and Belt's last night.

And then, by the top of the sixth inning, it was clear that something bigger could be happening. By the seventh, they needed everything to keep it alive...

...and Gregor Blanco was there just in time. (Can somebody make a GIF of that?)  Update:

By the end of the ninth, the only numbers that mattered were: Matt Cain, nine innings pitched, no hits, no runs, no walks, and a career high fourteen strike outs, in 125 pitches.

The twenty-second perfect game in Major League history, and the very first in the one hundred and twenty nine year history of the New York/San Francisco Giants team.

All star games, Cy Young awards, people get those every year. Matt Cain's got a perfect game.

Beltran, Cabrera, and Related Matters

The Giants will be playing the St. Louis Cardinals for the next two days, which means we're going to be hearing a lot about Carlos Beltran. Remember him? The Giants acquired him for a highly touted prospect. He played a few few games, then sat out a few games with a hand injury, came back and killed the ball, and then curtailed his range in right field in proportion to the decline of the Giants' playoff chances.

Once the season was over, Giants fans argued over whether signing Beltran should be the front office's priority. I figured he'd dash off to the American League as a designated hitter. Instead, he signed with the Cardinals, which means for the next forty-eight hours, we're going to hear comparisons between Beltran and his ostensible replacement, Melky Cabrera. Beltran's slash line is .295/.407/.648 with 13 home runs, while Cabrera's posted a .333/.380/.487 line with two homers. I could add that Cabrera's hit nine doubles and four triples to Beltran's 2 doubles and 1 triple, but we're all looking at that one statistic, the home runs, because the Giants have had some trouble in that department. 

The intensity of these discussions will probably depend on whether Beltran plays (he's had some knee trouble recently), and whether or not he crushes at the plate. If not, so to speak, we can always talk about how these two teams are the last two World Series champions.

Two more things...

Gregor Blanco, the official underdog player championed by the Left Field Line is currently batting .293/.408/.414. He has also been pretty consistent in contributing to those moments in the game (stealing bases, scoring runs, not committing one of the Giants' league-leading 41 errors) that I tend to remember positively. Not to mention that his first home run of the year was no joke.

Finally, Charlie Culberson made his major league debut a few days ago. I figured that he's up because the Giants needed another right handed hitter. But since there's more talk about Freddy Sanchez's injury setbacks, could Culberson also be up because the team needs to know what their options are if Sanchez can't/doesn't return?

The Brewers Preview

First, the bad news: Pablo Sandoval is out with a fractured hamate bone (the left one, not the right--which he fractured last year). The Giants are hacking away with runners in scoring position. And the team seems to have inculcated a culture of free swinging, which might sound like fun, but really means that they are swinging at junk outside of the strike zone. Oh, and they were swept by the Marlins. 

We'll get over the Marlins in time, and the might even pretend that the RISP problems are a fluke. But Sandoval is going to be out for four to six weeks--which means there's going to be plenty of time for the blogosphere to second guess Bruce Bochy's choices for the starting lineups. 

I'm just going to do it in advance: play Gregor Blanco and Brandon Belt. We know that Bochy likes Schierholtz, and that he seems to think that Belt is always batting .225. But winning games with Sandoval is going to require not giving up outs, sometimes in ways that aren't as aesthetically pleasing as a three run home run. And Aubrey Huff hit a few of those over the last few years, and that's what will get him back in the line up, and then everybody starts getting shuffled around, and next thing you know...#FreeBelt.

So don't forget that: 

El Tiburon Blanco is currently posting a GIF-worthy lead-off slash-line of .300/.405/.433.

And Brandon Belt has, despite the "hole in his swing," a .292/.370/.396 line. We all know Team Pill is questioning that slugging percentage (since Pill's is .481), but, without psychologizing this too much, Belt's probably hitting for average at the moment, since that seems to be the way that a player gets out of the on-the-bench/off-the-bench roller coaster. Here's Bochy's take, which does psychologize the issue:

“(Batting average) is still a big number and it’s how a lot of hitters evaluate themselves,” Bochy said. “It comes down to scoring runs and knocking in runs, but that is how a lot of hitters get their confidence.”

Finally, the good news: Buster Posey is here, and he's hitting .325/.381/.545. The case of Freddy Sanchez should remind us that a healthy and hard-hitting Posey was not a given going into the season. 

We'll conclude with that promised preview of the Brewers. In the post-Fielder age, they've started the season 11-14. The pitching--Zack Greinke, Randy Wolf, and Shawn Marcum--should be tough for a team that made the Marlins' rotation look like a pack (a school?) of Cy Young award winners. The Giants will need to take advantage of Ryan Braun's day-to-day status, and we should be glad that Mat Gamel (out for the season due to a torn ACL) won't be available to blow up catchers on close plays at the plate. 

In the best case scenario, the Giants will end this series over/at .500, right before taking on the Diamondbacks and knocking a few games off the Dodgers' division lead.

Shaping the Narrative

In many ways, spring training is about narratives. Teams, players, journalists, bloggers, all shaping the ways that we think about the new season. How a team responds to its accomplishments or failures of the previous season. How the new players fit, how the veterans are ready to make yet another effort, how the struggles of the previous years are redeemed on the field in the new year. In short, the narrative shapes our expectations for the next 162 games, and ever optimistically, even more.

Because spring training has to be about something. It's not really about a team winning or losing, as long as they aren't embarrassing themselves. It's not, for most players, really about numbers, or at least until somebody discovers the Aubrey Huff algorithm (q.v. 2011). The narrative shapes how we read those numbers, and what we should expect them to mean--even if we know that there's not much such small sets of data, accumulated against uneven levels of competition, could mean.

And now, with less then two weeks left in spring training, it's time to start thinking about opening day, who's going to be there, and what they're going to accomplish. Time for progress reports (Baggarly's is pretty good), yardsticks, and keen or not-so-keen observations. Everybody wants to win, but it's not going to happen (especially for you, Arizona Diamondbacks...). And, many of us, who write or are trying to write about baseball, we want to possess those keen insights, but much of this is still pre-season nonsense. For those with the not-so-keen observations, at least there aren't many consequences.

That being said, a few observations. 

First, To Health

I haven't been blogging about the Giants for long or else you would all know that Scott Cousins came very close to ruining my first trip to Paris. Now you do. But truthfully, the shock I experienced while checking up on the Giants during the early morning of May 26th pales in comparison to the way that he ruined Buster Posey's season. I think I opened this discussion in an indirect, anecdotal attempt at humor because Posey's recovery is one of the central and potentially unnerving aspects of the Giants' 2012 story.

Fortunately, it seems that Posey is recovering apace.* Which is good, since his bat is supposed to be the solution to the sluggish 2011 offense (not that I'm inclined to think that they should have thrown millions of dollars at the free agent market for insurance). Nevertheless, he has yet to put some full-time strain on his reconstructed ankle, and that leaves many questions unanswered, especially about where he'll be starting: how many games at catcher, how many at first base? If I can acclimate to the strong possibility that Brandon Belt will start the season in AAA, then it doesn't really bother me that Posey might be taking at-bats away from Huff.

By contrast, the Giants just seem to be coming around to, or at least publicly admitting, what seemed to be obvious with Freddy Sanchez: it's (almost very) likely that he's going to start the season on the DL. Ask Bochy:

“We’re down to two weeks here and he hasn’t gotten out there yet,” Bochy said. “We’re still optimistic that we will get him out there, but each day that goes by the possibility grows a little bit that he’s not going to be ready.”

The last serious question mark is Ryan Vogelsong, who has had some back trouble, but who is apparently on course for starting in mid-April. After listening to my friend Mark talk about Clay Buchholz's troubles over the past year, I'd prefer not to think about how difficult back problems can be.

When the Numbers Matter...

When you're negotiating with Matt Cain's agent. 

With that aside, let's face it. The numbers only matter for a select group of players. And, by 'select group of players,' I mean non-roster invitees. And by NRIs, I only mean Gregor Blanco, who is the only one with a strong shot at making the team (see also my previous post)--although we will probably see Hector Sanchez, Heath Hembree, and Eric Surkamp later this season. Given that there are still two weeks left, and that making Blanco a member of the 40-man club requires cutting somebody else, I think that this is about as obvious as Bochy can get:

“He’s done all he can do to make this club,” Bochy said. “I can’t give you anything definitive, but he’s been as good as anybody.” 

Since a .444 average and seven stolen bases aren't enough to really make a case for Blanco, Alex Pavlovic did some schmoozing with some Venezuelan writers (or some kind of research) and came up with some of Blanco's Venezuelan league numbers: 

The last six seasons there, he had on-base percentages of .429, .444, .464, .461, .419, .465. 

Sure, it's not MLB level competition, but it would be great if those numbers translate into above average regular season play. Let's not forget that he's posted a career .358 OBP. The only people who might be worried by Blanco's ascent must be Angel Pagan and Nate Schierholtz.

...And When They Don't Matter

The numbers may not matter so much for the battle of first base, and for the contenders over the remaining infield spots after Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Crawford (and F. Sanchez, if/when he's healthy). This year it matters if you bat right-handed. Ryan Theriot has not been very impressive, though the upside is that his lackluster performance gives you a good reason to root for Crawford's success. Nevertheless, right-handed Theriot might just be there, sitting on the bench, come opening day.

Brett Pill continues to post consistent numbers, meaning that he can hit (.282 AVG) but won't walk (.293 OBP). I don't care if he gets hot and finishes spring batting .478, his OBP will still only be between .479 and .485. First base, should Huff falter, belongs to Brandon Belt.

Finally, Something About The Bat Wiggler

A few days ago, The Miami Herald reported that the Giants $12 million investment in having Aaron Rowand sink a competing National League franchise--or at least in having him beat out Scott Cousins for the last roster spot on the Miami Marlins--may come to naught. Clark Spencer reports:

Only Rowand is off to a poor start statistically. He has gone just 1 for 20 (.050) but said that’s par for the course for him as far as spring training is concerned.

“My spring training averages throughout my career have been [lousy],” Rowand said. “It’s not like I’ve never been in this situation in spring training, where I’m not getting hits. I’ve had some of my best years when I’ve had really bad spring trainings.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/16/2696618/battle-is-on-for-miami-marlins.html#storylink=cpy

And he's had some terrible years, like when his .222/.254/.259 spring stat line foretold his .233/.274/.347 stat line during his last (and partial) season for the Giants. At least he's somebody else's [lousy] outfielder now. But if you're concerned, and think he should be making himself a [lousy] Marlin, since the publication of the Herald's article he's raised his stat line to a searing .100/.182/.133. Maybe his agent should have called the Astros.

Footnote:

* The number of ingrained metaphors oriented around walking, stepping, and progress is starting to feel oppressive.

Meet Gregor Blanco

From the KC Star

By now you've probably heard about Gregor Blanco. If he keeps doing what he's doing, he's going to be the fourth outfielder this season. Before the fake games started, the Giants put out the word that they were going to ramp up the running game, and he's the guy who took it really seriously. He's got six stolen bases in seven attempts. He does this kind of stuff:

The non-roster invitee drew a walk in the bottom of the first and stunned the Indians by going first-to-third on a hit-and-run groundout to first base. Blanco scored a batter later on Pablo Sandoval’s soft groundout to the left side. If you’re keeping track at home, Blanco also went first-to-third on a wild pitch earlier this spring.

There's something slightly unnerving about emphasizing the running game. We've all learned from Moneyball that a team shouldn't put themselves in a position to give away outs, so no bunting and no stealing (or, at least don't make it your strategy). An aggressive running game can get players into trouble, so that they give away outs. In the photo up there from a game against Kansas City, Blanco pushed to second, overslid the bag and was subsequently tagged out.

And yet, after reading that quote it's difficult not to see the logic of aggressive baserunning, if the more capable players are doing it. If you take Blanco's moves out of the equation, here's the first inning of that game against Cleveland (names deleted to protect the innocent):

1. Centerfielder walks. No out.
2. Leftfielder grounds out to first, CF to second. One out.
3. Thirdbaseman grounds out to shortstop, CF stays at second. Two out.
4. Catcher ground out to short. Inning over.

That looks very 2011: first batter gets on, three groundouts. Now the first logical step seems to be, work on the hitting. But if you've got to play small ball, play small ball. The Giants will need the runs (or so it seems).

Still, it feels like a recipe for running into outs, though I think I can accept the occasional out if the said baserunner can get on base frequently. Which leads me to Blanco's career OBP: in 836 PA his OBP is .358.

I'd think if he makes the team, they would be expecting something comparable. To this OBP into perspective, it's a step in the right direction compared to their go-to outfielders for most of 2011: Rowand's OBP was .274, Torres' was .312, Ross posted .325, Schierholtz posted .326 and Burrell's was .352. And then there are Blanco's spring training stats, which get guys like Bruce Bochy talking like this:

“He can be a great starter, too,” Bochy said. “With those tools — I’m not going to pencil him in, but the player that you see is young and I’m sure at some point in his career he’s going to be starting.”

The evidence suggests that Blanco will be the fourth outfielder this season--maybe even starting with the Giants at some point in the future. Of course, before we get ahead of ourselves...those spring training numbers will have to translate into regular season success. And if that works out, I wouldn't mind the Giants fielding a player whose baserunning wreaks havoc on an opposing team's defense.