Let’s start with the weekend games and scheduled pitching,
• Orange Friday, 7:15, RHP Sandy Alcantara (2-2, 3.06) vs. Adrian Houser (0-2, 5.40)
• Saturday, 1:05, RHP Eury Perez (2-1, 4.15) vs. Robbie Ray (2-3, 2.86)
• Sunday, 1:05, RHP Max Meyer (1-0, 3.96) vs. Landen Roupp (4-1, 2.28)
Normal video and audio coverage, and the team doesn’t play on Monday.
First things, first. Tyler Mahle stunned us all, throwing seven shut out innings, to win the second dodger game. A thing of beauty, and for sure, earned Mahle the coveted Picture of the Post award. Honorable mentions to Patrick Bailey for a magnificent bat flip as he won the game for Mahle, and to Landen Roupp who began the series with a 3-1 victory. Is there an opposite award, the Badge of Contempt? If yes, that goes to Dalton Rushing, the newest odious dodger, for what he said to Jung Hoo Lee after a slide at home, and for his takeout slide into Willy Adames. This brings us to a third honorable mention, to Logan Webb for plunking him. Before going on, we should note that the last time Mahle went up against the dodgers, he was a Ranger, and threw seven shutout innings at them then. A dodger killer? Sounds good to me.
The 12-13 Marlins are managed by Clayton McCullough, since last year. Here is his team (RBI),
🐟 1B Conor Norby (7), 2B Xavier Edwards (7), SS Otto Lopez (11), 3B Graham Pauley (5)
🐟 RF Owen Caissie (14), CF Jakob Marsee (7), LF Kyle Stowers (0)
🐟 C Agustin Ramirez (12), DH Liam Hicks (21, 4 HF)
🐟 bench: IF Leo Jimenez, IF/OF Javier Sanoja, OF Heriberto Hernandez, OF Esteury Ruiz
🐟 rotation: Alcantara, Perez, Meyer, Chris Paddack, Janson Junk
🐟 closer Pete Fairbanks, set ups Tyler Phillips and John King
Look around for Gabe Kapler, the Marlins GM, as he’ll probably take the chance to visit SF. We won’t see Austin Slater, released earlier this week by the Marlins, when they called up Ruiz. You will remember Otto Lopez from spring training camp a couple years back, he’s found a home in Florida. That’s it for former Giants.
The Giants are playing a very strange form of baseball. They use the same 8 position players every day, often including even the catcher. They have drawn only 47 walks, the fewest of any team, compared to the next worst Snakes with 65. Home runs are noticeable by their absence, as the Giants are tied with the Red Sox for worst in the majors with just 14. With few walks and homers, runs scored are naturally scarce, at 81, which is also the MLB worst, by a margin of 7. It doesn’t feel like this is sustainable: many of the big bats need to start driving in runs, and the bench players need to get into games.
A positive is that team strikeouts are way down, only 195 compared to league average of 214, that’s tied for 4th best in baseball. That the 11-14 Giants are even able to think about getting to 0.500 after the coming series is due to the pitching, as the Giants staff ERA of 3.77 is 11th best in baseball.
