Today's Command--"Fire at Will"

Another quick recap of another Giants disappointing loss.  Let's hope this doesn't become commonplace. Giants hitting woes, defensive lapses and lack of energy come into play. Mark leans heavily on the old cliches to keep up the positive vibes.  Today's game seems more promising with a non-ace pitcher on the mound for the Yanks (Will Warren) and a motivated newcomer for the Giants in Tyler Mahle.  Hope springs eternal, right?  A quick look at yesterday's Safe Bet of the Day™ winner before moving on to today's pick.

Transcript

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Welcome to slide. Good morning and welcome back to today with AM and the AM, your San Francisco Giants pre-game podcast, bringing you previews, projections, and predictions before every Giants game. Good morning and welcome back to Safe with AM and the AM. It is Saturday morning, March 28th, and unfortunately we are coming to you after another Giants loss, two in a row, another shutout, even worse than Wednesday night. Only one hit, two walks, three total base runners. The Giants just do not look good so far. Luckily, we did hit the safe bet of the day. We'll get into that a little bit later. But like we said, that Cam Schlitzer, he was the real deal. He was everything he was touted to be. Eight strikeouts, no walks in five and a third, throwing hard 98-99. Just what we kind of expect that he really lived up to the billing. Robbie Ray looked good himself. He still threw really well until Judge's home run. He looked really good. Only gave up the two, even though he had a bit of a high pitch count. I thought he looked good out there. He uh, if he would have, he had a lot of a lot of counts where he had two strikes and couldn't quite put somebody away, and that would have really helped. But I thought he looked good. I'm looking forward to seeing him throughout the rest of the year. Home runs finally did arrive for the Yankees. I'm kind of worried about that when they didn't get any the day before, and that's kind of who how they're known or what they're known for. Let's see, as far as the Giants go, the pitching looked good, I thought. Only gave up the three runs. The the defense looked good for the most part. Arias had two really nice plays at second. Adamas still looking good, looking bad. I mean, he fumbled the ball at short, should have been a double play, or at least one out, couldn't even get anything out of that. That looked bad, even though they didn't give him the error, which I thought he deserved. But at least Aries looked good in the rest of the defense and the pitching looked good. So that's that's good to see. Now it's just the offense that has looked abysmal. Hopefully, they can come around. Also, giving up three runs to the Yankees is not that bad with their lineup. It's just unfortunate that we couldn't score four or five. We could have gotten a win out of that, giving up only three runs to the Yanks. Like I said, you got to tip your cap to Schlitler. The Giants still aren't hitting. Given all that, I am still not quite as negative as a lot of people that I've talked to and a lot of others, because for one thing, we're facing what might be the best team in the American League, and we have also faced two of the best pitchers in all of baseball. And we're playing at Oracle Park and their day games, two other factors that kind of hurt the Giants game historically. So put all that together, and I'm taking it a little bit less negative than a lot of people that I've heard on the radio. Like I said, I still have hope. It's, you know, there's all the usual cliches. It's early, it's a long season, don't overreact, all that kind of thing. And I kind of agree. Although you have to admit the Giants have looked pretty bad. So, anyway, let's get right into today's game. We'll get past yesterday's game and see what we got today. Today we have our first look at Tyler Malley for the Giants. He, 10-year veteran, he's been around mostly with Cincinnati. He's from California. He has had a couple of shortened years because of injury the last couple years. Two years ago, he only pitched, I think, three games. And last year he pitched 16. He started out really well and then had like three months off, I think like July, August, September before he came back at the end of the year. But in his 16 games that he pitched, he looked really good. A 2.18 ERA, great year. Not a high strikeout rate, but also not a high walk rate. So that's kind of good. He had a couple games with some control issues, but overall, he's like one walk a game. His last spring outing, he looked really good. It went five innings, only gave up one hit. It was a home run, so he gave up one run and only one walk, four strikeouts. So he looked really good. And if you've listened to him at all, listened to him at all, he's really excited to be here. He got he was with Bruce Bochi in Texas last year with the Rangers, and Bochi speaks really highly of him, gave him a ringing endorsement, and kind of helped bring him over to the Giants. So overall, I'm excited to be him. I think he's gonna do well. I I just have a good feeling about this game as far as Tyler Mal. I think he's probably gonna be underrated just because of last year and coming back from the injury. For the Yankees, it is Will Warren on the mound, and kind of like Schlittler yesterday, he's a young guy. He's only in his second year, 26 years old. In 2024, he only pitched six games and he did not do well. Uh but last year was his first real season. He pitched in 33 games, a whole full season. Now, he did not do very well. He had a 4-4-4 ERA, and it never was below four all year, and often it was above five. So he has not looked good last year. This is the guy that I think the Giants are going to be able to get. Now, he does have a high strikeout rate. Actually, it's funny when you look at his statistics for last year because the first half of the year he had a really high strikeout rate, but it dropped off considerably as the year went on. And at the end of the year, he was just average, if not a little below average. And his walk rate was just the opposite. Early in the year, it was really high, but he seemed to have reined it in later in the year and kind of cut that down. So it's going to be interesting to see if he's working the strikeouts, if he's working the walks. But overall, I have a good feeling about the Giants facing him today. He did face the Giants last year in one of those 33 games. It was real early in the season when he was pitching really well and looked strong. He went five innings, he did give up two runs to the Giants, six strikeouts in that five innings, couple walks. He didn't get the win, so I'm not sure who won and lost the game. But so that was when he was really strong, and he still was just an average outing for him. So to me, I think today my game prediction is that the Giants are gonna finally get some hits and some runs. They're finally facing a pitcher that is not Freed and not Schlitler and not one of the top pitchers in the league. He's never gone more than five innings in and outing. I guess I take that back two times last year. He is all that he went more than five innings. So I think the Giants are gonna tee off on him. I'm hoping. And I hope that that means we get to the bullpen early for the Yankees. Like I said, he never goes more than five innings. And even though the Yankees' bullpen has been good, they did use them the last two games. I think four in each game. And Duvall has pitched twice now. Bednar was last night, Hill was last night. So not that they're tired. I mean, obviously it's the first of the year, but we might have seen some of the best bullpen guys from them yesterday when it was 3-0. Now, when it was 7-0, that's a different story. But yesterday they brought in the best. They brought in Duvall and Bednar and Hill. So I think if we can get to Warren and get to that bullpen, that we have a chance to score some runs today. Let's see, yesterday's bullpen, our bullpen did pretty well. Three and two thirds innings, only gave up the one run, three hits, three walks, average game. Their bullpen, like I said, has been good, but I feel like they're a little bit used. Not that ours isn't, but I think we can not get shut down by their bullpen like we have the other couple games. So put all that together, and that is gonna take me to today's safe bet of the day. And now yesterday we went with an underdog, not the favorite. The under 14 and a half runs was at minus 105. The favorite was the over 14 and a half run or hits, I mean, and that was at minus 125. So, like I said, because it's early and we're kind of taking what we hope might be inefficient lines, later in the season, I might have gone with the minus 125. And so the couple bets that I had in mind today were the Giants' first five money line at plus 108, because I'm thinking that Mally will be able to outpitch Warren at the beginning of the game. The other one is Giants over three and a half runs because I just think the Giants are gonna get some runs today. I think they're due. I think they're gonna face a pitcher that they can hit. He's gonna look a lot nicer or a lot easier on the mound than Fried or Schlitler. And so I think the Giants are just gonna, I think they're, like I said, I think they're due. I think this is the day. They can't keep getting shut out, they can't keep getting one or three hits a game. And this is the pitcher that they can tee off on, hopefully. So I think what I'm gonna go with is the safest of those two, which is Giants over three and a half runs, because Malley could pitch well in the first five, and still we could be down two to one or something like that. So I'm gonna go with the Giants. We uh we have the whole nine innings to score the three and a half runs. The problem is the number is minus 127, so it's a little juicy, but that's about as high as we'll go. We'll probably never go more than about minus 130 just because I don't like taking those. It's just doesn't seem right. But I'm gonna stick with that one today. I also kind of like Giants to score first. I I'm hoping that they can get to war and before Mally does, and that's a plus 138, but that's a little, a little too unsafe. And since we're staying with the safe pets, we're gonna stick with the one that I think is safer out of those three. So that will be our official pick of the day as Giants over three and a half runs at minus 127. Hopefully, we can go 2-0. It was nice to start off with victory. Actually, we got the push the first time and then a win, so we are 1-0 and 1. Not too bad. Okay, so anyway, that's all for today's game. Tune in tomorrow. Actually, I take that back. There is no game tomorrow. We have the crazy off day on Sunday because of the game on Wednesday, so it kind of threw off the opening schedule. But Monday, we will be in San Diego against the Padres. I think it's good that the Giants are gonna be on the road. It might be a good thing for them to get out of town and the whole Netflix spectacle and then losing yesterday, kind of a weird kind of pressure on him with the new coach and everything. So it might be good for them to get on the road. It looks like it's gonna be Adrian Hauser for the Giants, which will be our first look at him, much like Tyler Malley today. So that will be really interesting. Um I haven't looked into his numbers or anything yet, but that'll give us tomorrow to kind of do some research and some analysis on him. And I'm not sure who the Padres will have on mound. The good news is it will be the fourth pitcher in their rotation, and hopefully the Giants will be able to get hits and runs off of him, also. That will be good for the Giants to be on the road facing a non-ace with Adrian Hauser on the mound who is trying to you know make a name for himself with the Giants. So I got a good feeling about Monday, yeah, Monday's game against the Padres. I got a pretty good feeling about today's game. So hopefully the Giants can get back on track, start getting some wins. Like I said, they're still playing some of the best teams in baseball. So have a little patience. Let's see how they are. Don't jump to conclusions after only two games. Let's be ready to change our minds on these Giants, and hopefully, going forward, they can change our minds by getting some hits and runs today. Let's get three and a half. Let's get to four, please, today, Giants. With that, that's all I have. So thank you all for listening. Please tune in on Monday. We will have an analysis and of that game and a recap of today's game. Hopefully, we will be talking about a Giants win finally. It would be nice to get to talk about that for once. Until then, remember stay safe out there and go giants!