Happy Birthday to Giants Legend Orlando Cepeda

Tweet Today is the 73^rd birthday of Giants legend and Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda.


Cepeda played with the Giants from 1958 to 1966 hitting .307/ 3.53/ .528 with 243 home runs accumulating a total of 31 wins above replacement in that span.

Cepeda had a number of accomplishments with the Giants, in 1958 he was unamimously voted the National League's Rookie of the year (the first of two straight with Willie McCovey winning it again the next season). Cepeda's best season came in 1961 when he lead the league in homeruns and RBIs and finished 2^nd in the MVP race.

Known as "Cha Cha" and the "Baby Bull" Cepeda is remembered fondly and everyone loves a Cha Cha Bowl from the restaurant that bears his name.

A tip of the hat to the old man.

Go Giants!

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First Place Giants take on the Brewers

Let's go on a trip down memory lane.

It was July the 4^th, the Giants were coming off a nasty 15 inning loss at the hands of the Rockies. Heads were hanging. Things looked bleak.

The team had fallen to just one game above .500. Things looked to be coming apart at the seams. The chances of contending seemed like dim lights and there were debates on whether the team should be a buyer or a seller at the trade deadline. The team was in fourth place and had lost 8 of 10 and 10 of the last 12 games.

Then the Giants went to Milwaukee and it all changed.

I think that if things continue to play out the way it is headed al of the Giants fans need to send the Brewers a thank you card because the team got hot off their pitching and had a month to remember.
Hopefully the Giants can take advantage of the Brewers once again.

Probables:

Madison Bumgarner, 5-5, 3.28 ERA vs. Randy Wolf, 11-11, 4.53 ERA
From MLB.com:

If it weren't for teammate Buster Posey, the Giants might be pushing Bumgarner for NL Rookie of the Year honors. He has thrived against National League West opponents, recording a 2.47 ERA.

Tossing eight innings and giving up just one run on a home run, Wolf thought his last outing may have been his best of the 2010 season. He'll look to continue his recent success, as he's gone 4-2 with a 3.07 ERA over his last nine starts.

Thoughts:

Randy Wolf is still a tough pitcher and he concerns me. He has always seemed to pitch well against the Giants. Bumgarner has been a very good pitcher this season and in the last few starts he has seemed to have grown stronger, his low 90's fastball has picked up some zip and was sitting in the 94-95 range his last 2 games.

This could a tight game but with Bumgarner pitching well I think he will give the Giants a chance to win.

Tim Lincecum, 14-9, 3.60 ERA vs. Yovani Gallardo, 12-7, 3.64 ERAFrom MLB.com:

Lincecum's awful August now is a distant memory as he has won his past three decisions. In his last outing, he held the Padres to one run and struck out nine in seven innings. In six starts against the Brewers, Lincecum is 2-2 with a 4.76 ERA.

Gallardo worked seven scoreless innings Sunday for the second straight start following three in a row in which he allowed at least six runs. One of his most memorable starts was at AT&T Park last April, when he homered off Randy Johnson.

Thoughts:

Like the mlb blurb says, the August worries for Lincecum seem to be a distant memory. His starts this month have been fantastic, especially being able to place the fast ball where he wants to and limiting the free passes. Gallardo is a good pitcher but with Tim going the feeling is back that things will go good and the Giants should have a good chance to get a victory.

Barry Zito, 8-13, 4.02 ERA vs. TBAFrom MLB.com:

Zito suffered a loss in his career-high ninth straight decision in his last start, but appears to be finding himself. Zito said he's felt better in his past two starts, and it shows as he's allowed five hits in 11 2/3 innings.

Thoughts:

Zito deserved better last start; he gave up one hit and gave up an unearned run that was enough to beat the team. Sometimes that happens with this Giants offense just ask Jonathan Sanchez and the King of no run support Matt Cain. He has certainly looked much sharper in his last few outings; the key for Zito is keeping the hitters in the yard and limiting the walks. If he does that the Giants should have a shot to score some runs.

Hopefully he gets a karmic break for losing a one hitter.

A Filthy Dirty Sanchez, and It Was Beautiful

When a pitcher has every pitch working it can be a thing of beauty, which is what happened with Jonathan Sanchez last night. The way he is throwing makes his games must see because you never know what kind of special thing will be done.

Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %	Swinging Strikes / %	Linear Weights	Time to Plate
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	90.04	92.5	5.69	11.92	60	47 / 78.33%	8 / 13.33%	-1.2094	0.420
CH (Changeup)	81.21	83.7	6.56	5.94	18	10 / 55.56%	4 / 22.22%	-0.1030	0.464
SL (Slider)	80.24	82	-4.83	-1.23	8	7 / 87.50%	1 / 12.50%	-0.9729	0.468
CU (Curveball)	79.20	80.9	-3.94	-3.99	4	3 / 75.00%	0 / 0.00%	-0.4859	0.477

Sanchez had everything working last night as he spun an excellent game. As you can see from the linear weight of all of his pitches everything he threw up there last night was causing fits. He mowed down the Dodgers and the Giants delivered a series victory that propelled them into first place.

You don't see many games with this kind of domination 12k against 0 walks. It all looked so effortless the same way the fast ball just explodes out his easy fluid pitching motion.

This season Jonathan Sanchez has shown many times where he has absolutely grown. The knock on Sanchez had always been that when things started to go sour he would lose focus and things would start to blow up. This season there have been numerous times, especially in the last few months where he has kept his cool and pitched through the times where the defense or his stuff has let him down.

To use an old cliché, he is leaving behind the label thrower and is growing into a pitcher.

Last night and for that matter 5 of his last 6 starts and the last he has but game scores of 79, 79, 75, 72, and 62. That is an impressive streak for someone who has been called inconsistent.

Since the All-Star Break Sanchez has been one the best Giants Starters, he is 4-2 (The team overall is 9-4 in his starts) with a 2.84 ERA a crazy K/9 of 10.35 and K/BB ratio of 2.625.

Sanchez is a special talent and when it comes together like this it is a sight to be seen and to think he is only the 3^rd best pitcher on this staff.

The Giants “Clutch” Leaders and Laggers

Aaron Rowand Clutch Player?

This is always the story that you hear and especially after a terrible 1-0 loss, "The Giants need to do better in clutch situations." So to stir the pot a little here is the top and bottom 5 clutch hitters for the 2010 Giants.

Top 5 Clutch Players			Bottom 5 Clutch Players
Andres Torres	1.09		Bengie Molina	-0.68
Aaron Rowand	1.00		Buster Posey	-0.65
Nate Schierholtz	0.87		Pablo Sandoval	-0.61
Pat Burrell	0.42		Eli Whiteside	-0.53
John Bowker	0.21		Aubrey Huff	-0.33

Definitions

First before we break down the list I should go over the definitions of what exactly is "clutch", the definition that will be used here is the one that is published at fangaphs. The basic idea is that to be clutch a player raises their game in high importance situations. So to measure this, it looks at how well players perform in previously defined clutch situations relative to how they would have performed in a context-neutral environment. This is a measure of a player against their regular performance so it is not the same is being a good or great player.

Being clutch or not being clutch is NOT the same as being good or not being good. You do not need to raise your game in crucial situations to be a great player and those who do raise their games are not necessarily the most talented. A player with a .200 BA that hits .300 in crucial situations is, and should be, considered more clutch than someone with a .333 BA in all situations. The .333 is a better BA but it is not clutch because it did not constitute a raising of the game.

For more information read up on the whole article.

Thoughts on the Top and Bottom 5

There are definitely some surprises on each of these lists and some guys that by the gut feeling should be there.

First off Torres has been a great player for the Giants this season and there have certainly been some big hits in big situations that he has been a part of this is not a surprise. The same with Pat Burrell he has delivered with the game on the line numerous times and no one will forget the big game winning bomb he hit off fat Jonathan Broxton. Schierholtz is a little bit of a surprise but then again a lot of his limited playing time has come in big situations and there is that big extra inning triple that he had recently in Arizona.

I have a much harder time thinking of specific times that Rowand or Bowker were "clutch" but if you think back to the beginning of the season there were some big hits for both of these guys. Rowand singly handedly one some games against Florida in the late innings and Bowker had some late inning pinch hits that probably skewed the results. Also this is a measurement against their regular performance so maybe both of these guys did poorly but less poorly in big situations.

The bottom five has a lot of the same, some guys you expect including the rally killer Bengie Molina and double play machine Pablo Sandoval.

However both Buster Posey and Aubrey Huff make the list. This is again the compared to their average performance creeping in. Posey has decent high leverage numbers but they pail in comparison to his regular numbers. In low and medium leverage situations Posey has a wOBA of .410 and .345 and in high leverage he sports only a .320 wOBA.

Aubrey Huff has the same thing going on, in low and medium leverage situations he has a wOBA of .420 and .366 and in high leverage he sports only a .343 wOBA.

I still want these guys hitting in pressure situations over guys like Rowand or Schierholtz.