Giants hold on to a half game lead of the Padres pending the Padres' first game of a four game series against the Chicago Cubs.
... the Giants meanwhile have an off day today, but then kick off their final homestand of the regular season against the Diamondbacks for 3 games, and finally the Padres for the last 3 games of the year.
If you aren't excited I'm not sure why you're reading my blog...
The last time the Giants were in the playoffs was 2003. I was a Junior at the UofA and the Giants had been dominating all season, winning 100 games and had led the NL West every day of the season, going wire to wire.
Since then I've endured 6 seasons of disappointment and heartbreak til today. And it comes down to the last series of the season.
There are a couple different storylines leading up to this home stretch for the Giants, and I'll give my take on them including possible playoff scenarios:
I'll take your Lincecum for a Zito
Today's off day poses an interesting option for the Giants. We can pull the most torturous Giant of them all, Mr. Barry Zito and have him pitch on Thursday for the finale of the 3 game set against the Diamondbacks on normal 4 days rest, and have Mr. Cy Young himself, Tim Lincecum pitch on 6 days rest against the Padres for the 1st game of that extremely pivitol series.
As of now Bochy has indicated that he will not be tinkering with the rotation for the last 6 games. In the past Timmy has been great against both the Padres and the Diamondbacks, so I don't mind wherever he starts. But Zito always has a question mark when it comes to games we have to win. But especially with the Padres. I wouldn't mind one bit if Bochy changes his mind today and decides to go with Timmy for the start of that series against San Diego.
Playoff Scenarios
This is getting pretty convoluted, so I decided to clear up the rules for playoff seedings as I understand it. First there are a few rules we have to go by:
- A Division winner cannot play a team in its own division for the first round of the MLB Playoffs
This means that if the Phillies end up with the best record in the National League, and the Braves win the Wild Card, they cannot play each other.
Scenario #1
Giants win the NL West, and Braves win the Wild Card
Giants have the 2nd best record among division winners in the NL
#1 Phillies vs. #3 Reds
#2 Giants vs. #4 Braves
Giants and Phillies would have home field advantage in the 1st round. Notice the Phillies cannot play the Braves so the 2nd place team would play the Wild Card team.
Scenario #2
Giants win the NL West, and Braves win the Wild Card
Giants have worst record among division winners in the NL
#1 Phillies vs. #3 Giants
#2 Reds vs #4 Braves
Phillies and Reds have home field advantage.
Scenario #3
Giants win the Wild Card, Padres win the NL West
#1 Phillies vs. #4 Giants
#2 Padres or Reds vs. Reds or Padres
In this scenario, it doesn't matter who has the better record, the Padres or Reds, because they have to play each other anyway. The only thing the record would change is which team would get home field advantage through the first round. In this scenario the Phillies would have home field advantage over San Francisco.
Scenario #4
Giants don't make the playoffs...
immediately switch disappointment of Giants' season into more disappointment of ther 49ers' season...
Laws of the Day
Timmy is 5-3 with a 2.08 ERA in 13 career starts against San Diego
Zito is 3-7 with a 4.23 ERA in 17 games in his career against San Diego
But...
Lincecum is 1-1 with a 5.06 ERA in 2 starts this year against San Diego
Zito is 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA in one game this year against San Diego
BUT...
Lincecum lost to the Padres in his horrible August, and won against them on Sept 12 where he pitched 7 innings allowing one run to beat San Diego's Mat Latos.
Meh, it's hard to say... I heard some guy talking about doing this rotation.
ReplyDeleteT - Sanchez
W - Lincecum
Th - Bumgarner
F - Zito
Sat - Cain
Sun - Lincecum (if we need the win, Sanchez if not)
This puts Lincecum on a shorter rest, but he's not showing signs of deadarm like he did last year (at least it looks like that). Dunno how I would feel about that lineup. The only problem is putting Zito in game 1 against the Padres, but you can Timmy pitch more games if needed.
I like your suggestion for putting Zito in early, like on Thursday and having Timmy on Friday.
Honestly, it'll depend which pitchers are pitching which day and how we want to match up with them. I'm all for keeping the same schedule regardless because I have faith in our pitchers!
Yeah being that we have the most consistent staff this month, I don't mind however we cut it.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I heard today on KNBR was that they were thinking of playing Timmy on Wednesday and then having him available for a possible tie breaker game if necessary.
Tiebreaker is necessary if Padres and Giants both tie at the end of the regular season and the Braves have a better record than both. The winner of the tiebreaker would therefore be Wild Card winner.
If there's a tie and we have a better record than the Braves it goes by head to head record, so the Padres would win the West and the Giants would take the Wild Card.
All around we have good pitching, especially when you recall the last time we went to the playoffs. I'd say they're all as good guns as any team coud ask for. Use them any day, because whenever we use them we need them to win. Go giants!
ReplyDelete