The Giants Series

[spiritof66]

Not trying to balance out the reverse jinxes in this thread, BUT I've seen parts of about eight or nine Giants games (on TV or the PC screen) in July and August, and they have looked mediocre to really bad -- wwnot much hitting, poor basrunning, mistakes in the the field, and so-so pitching outside of Bumgarner (I haven't seen Cueto much). If it hadn't been for the A's series, I would feel pretty confident about this weekend other than the Bumgarner game.

[Bahama O's Fan]

Just curious, when we play in a big ballpark, shouldn't some of our HR's turn into doubles?

[bobmc]

Can Bundy hit with a flourish?

"As an offense, the Orioles and Giants are like opposites. The Giants don’t hit a lot of home runs, their total of 94 is 27th out of 30 in the MLB. Their team leader, Brandon Belt, has 13 home runs. There are six Orioles with more home runs than that and two with at least twice that many.

We can play that game another way, too. The Giants have a team OBP of .331, which is greater than all but three Orioles, one of whom (Hyun Soo Kim) only has 220 plate appearances. The Giants have six regular players with an OBP of .331 or greater, including Belt who is sitting at .397.

When it comes to starting pitching, the Giants have two really great starters and then some question marks. The bad news for the Orioles is that those two great starters, Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto, are pitching in this series. Or maybe that’s good news given how they tend to roll over for scrub pitchers. Either way, more on that below in the game breakdowns.

Where the Orioles should have an edge is with relief pitching, provided they can get to the late innings with a lead. Fangraphs ranks the Orioles as having the fourth best bullpen by fWAR, with Zach Britton (1.7 fWAR) and Brad Brach (1.6 fWAR) each individually having a higher number than the entire Giants bullpen (1.1). The Giants are ranked 24th in the MLB."

http://www.camdenchat.com/2016/8/12/12447130/orioles-giants-series-preview-battle-of-black-and-orange

[SteveA]

Not trying to balance out the reverse jinxes in this thread, BUT I've seen parts of about eight or nine Giants games (on TV or the PC screen) in July and August, and they have looked mediocre to really bad -- wwnot much hitting, poor basrunning, mistakes in the the field, and so-so pitching outside of Bumgarner (I haven't seen Cueto much). If it hadn't been for the A's series, I would feel pretty confident about this weekend other than the Bumgarner game.

Yeah, I know we are an Oriole centric board so we are all painfully aware of the O's mediocre play for the last month+. But San Fran has been worse. So if you are going to consider the poor Oriole recent play more strongly than our entire body of work, it's only fair to do the same for San Fran.

Overall records are really close. Recent play is poor for both but worse for them. But they are home and we get their best 2 pitchers while they miss one of our best two.

So in gambling parlance, the Giants should be a favorite to win this series. But not a big favorite.

[sportsfan8703]

This is easily the toughest series left on the schedule for the O's. Big park, no DH and we see both of the Giants' aces. Recipe for disaster, honestly.

Bundy needs to stay hot tonight. It's the only game of the series that we have the better pitcher in. A loss tonight sets the table for a sweep in a bad way. Double whammy, too, given that it's not going to be easy for our corner guys to cover ground in that OF. And Pearce is probably going to miss Saturday's game, where we could have used him against Bumgarner.

Bad all around. I'm setting expectations to very low and hoping for the best.

This might sound crazy but right now I'd rather have THIS team go up against TOR pitchers than some spot starter. Just like Darvish and Hamels. They are going to be around the plate. We're swinging at everything anyway.

[BMann]

This might sound crazy but right now I'd rather have THIS team go up against TOR pitchers than some spot starter. Just like Darvish and Hamels. They are going to be around the plate. We're swinging at everything anyway.

I know what you mean. As crazy as it sounds, it just feels like Buck's teams have done better in matchups like Gausman v. Bumgardner, then, say, O's-Third-Best vs Opposition's-Just-Called-Up/Career-Journeyman. Looking forward to this series much more than I did the A's. That team and that place is just no fun to watch.