Giants/Webb Try To Snare 2nd Win Tonight

Giants win!  A quick look back at the Giants first win of the '26 season, their first HR, and the fine outing by Landon Roupp.  Don't give up hope yet, Giants fans.  We then move on to today's matchup between Logan Webb and German Marquez.  Aidan sends along a little info from the office in SD to take into account before we decide on today's Safe Bet of the Day™.  We do that, make our decision and hope for another Giants victory (they're more fun to talk about than the losses).

Transcript

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Welcome to throw the slide. Good morning and welcome back to safe with AM in the AM, your San Francisco Giants pre-game podcast, bringing you previews, projections, and predictions before every Giants game. Good morning everyone. Welcome back into the pod. It is Tuesday morning, March 31st, the last day of March. Another beautiful day here in the Bay Area. Actually, you know, it's actually a little overcast out there right now, kind of a little misty, but we are not gonna let that dim the mood or cloud the mood around here because we had the Giants' first win last night. All right, Giants. So just excited, another safe bed of the day win. It was just a good day all the way around. I'll tell you, I wasn't so sure at first that lineup that we saw right off the bat was a little crazy, a little unexpected. And with Adam is leading off, and then he gets the single, and that is probably promptly followed by Devers hit into the double play. And I'm thinking, okay, here we go again. They're trying some crazy stuff, it doesn't work. The same old roll over to second for the double play, seen this a million times, but it turned out to not be that way. Luckily, in the third, Bader comes up and has a home run. And it's interesting because before yesterday's game, those bottom three guys, Bader and Bailey and Schmidt, they were one for 28. That doesn't equate to a very good batting average. But yesterday, Bader gets the home run in the third. Bailey gets a two out RBI in the fourth. Schmidt follows that with another two out RBI, and the bottom three guys knock in all three RBIs. So, which is obviously good, but the bottom of your lineup can do something because the rest of the lineup is not. So that was nice to see. Although they did look a little better. They had many less strikeouts, they only had seven yesterday, as opposed to geez, seemed like they've been 10, 11, 12, 13 in the other games. A little bit of defense, a really nice play by Adamus that won up the third that hit off of the pitcher's mound, and he got it and threw out somebody at first. That was a beautiful play. Roop looked sharp. He had his curveball under control. He got seven strikeouts over, I think he went six. Worked around, I think only had one, maybe two walks, worked around that. He just looked really sharp. It looked like he had San Diego, you know, just in a rocking chair for part of that game. Although I have to admit, when I see Tatisse and Machado and Merrill coming up, those three guys are scary. They all look like they're gonna get a hit every time they come up. And then Bogart's comes up after that. So, man, they got some guys that just look good when they come up to the plate. Anyway, so yeah, Roop looked good. Overall, the Giants' pitching has actually not been as bad as you think. Other than Webb's first outing, Ray looked pretty good that second game. Molly looked good his game, and Roop looked really good yesterday. So it's kind of been, other than that first game, the pitching and defense has actually done well, like the Giants like to say they're gonna do. And I guess you have to when you're only gonna score one or three or something when you don't score enough runs. Anyway, all around a decent game yesterday for the Giants. Certainly not great. They still left base runners on base, and Walker gives up that home run like he's want to do, and that was terrible. Kind of see that one coming. Anyway, moving. I don't want to spend too much time on Walker because I could go forever on that guy. But anyway, we'll move right on and get to today's game, which is what we're all about, the next game up. And today we have Webb back up on the mound for the Giants, which is kind of a funny order because you would have thought Hauser would be next up. So I'm not sure. Maybe they'll go Webb, Hauser, Ray, Molly, and then Roop. I don't know if that's going to be the final or if they're gonna go back to Webb, Ray, Molly, Hauser, etc. So it'll be interesting to see how the order comes after this, if they'll just keep it this way, because I see Hauser's on the mound for tomorrow. So anyway, Webb back up on the mound for the Giants. We have Herman, Herman Marquez for the Padres. Many of you might remember him. He was with Colorado for years, 10, 11 years now. This is his first year with San Diego. And if you look at the stats, he was really good for Colorado at the first half of his career. You might remember him mowing down the Giants more. I can remember, he was like Bueller. I can remember him coming up coming up against the Giants and just looking good. I remember him being really good early in his career. Lately, he has not been as good. Or in the last part of his career, he has not been nearly as good. He was out in 23 and 24 with injury, only pitched five games, came back last year in 25 and was in 26 games, almost a full season, but he had a 6.75 ERA. Yeah, he just hasn't looked good since he's been injured. Now, Aiden sent me a little message, so I don't know if you know this, but Aiden now lives in San Diego. He got his job in San Diego, and so he pays been paying a little bit of attention to what they're saying on the radio and that kind of things. And he said that there was a mention of Marquez working with a new pitching coach. And so Aiden was a little concerned because I had made a statement yesterday that if the Giants can't tattoo Marquez, we're in real trouble. And he was just giving me a little bit of concern that maybe I was a little bit too dismissive of Marquez. Maybe he's been because he's been working with his pitching coach, he's a veteran, he's faced the Giants so many times. So that those are all points well taken. And I will take that into account when we get to the safe bet of the day. Beyond that, though, he is a righty, he's had a lot of trouble with lefties. If you look over last season, he gave up almost two runs to lefties per nine innings, 1.7 something. And we got Devers, who I think is way overdue. And I think Devers is a good match for Marquez. So I really predict something good for Devers today. I like Lee, Jung Hu Lee coming up against him. Also, just a little notice I a note I saw the other day, yesterday, was that Matt Chapman, he has had the three hardest hit balls by the Giants so far this year. And he is 6 for 15 lifetime against Marquez. So I kind of like the fact that he's even though he hasn't had the outcome he's wanted or that we might have wanted, he's actually hitting the ball fairly well. And he has good history against Marquez. So with that and the way he pitches against lefties, I have a good feeling that we're gonna do well against Marquez. Last year, in his 26 games, he pitched against the Giants three times. One of them was the very final game of last year. He only went four and a third. Giants got six runs off of him, but it was only on five hits and three walks, so they must have really stacked him up in order to get the six runs. He didn't only get one strikeout, so he didn't look too only went four and a third, and they had to pull him. So the Giants lit him up pretty good that game. Before that, just a couple three weeks before that, on September 3, he pitched against them again, only went five innings, gave up four runs on eight hits and three walks, only two strikeouts. So again, the Giants, you know, tattooed him pretty well. Eight hits and three walks over five innings. And early in the season, he pitched against them, only went four and a third, gave up five runs again, but only on six hits. So they must have stacked them up again on that game. Six hits, no walks, and they got five runs. So again, they must have really stacked him up there. So three times they faced him last year, and the Giants lit him up for five runs, four runs, and six runs. So, like I said, I think the Giants are going to be able to get to him, even if he does have a new coach. His his outing and his outings in spring were not good. He only had one good outing in spring. Overall, his numbers were not good in the Cactus League. As far as Webb concerns, I don't at Webb is concerned, I don't want to spend too much time on him. You've all seen him, we've all seen him now for a few years. Obviously, he had the bad first outing, but I'm talking part of that up to the whole Netflix spectacle, the opening night stuff. Look, Logan Webb, he's not the Theatrics type. He's from Rockland, for God's sake. He's the salt of the earth type. He needs to get back down to playing baseball, settle down. He'll get down in San Diego, no flashing lights, no taxis, no streetcars on the field, all that kind of stuff. And this is gonna be more of Logan Webb's type of game. He's gonna settle down. I think he's gonna have a good game against a struggling offense. My one concern might be that they are familiar with him because they've seen him so much over the years. But I was looking at his stats against the Yankees, and even though it looked bad, he gave up all the runs. He only had one walk and seven strikeouts, and that's the Yankees lineup, which is much better than the Padres. I probably shouldn't say it like that, but the Padres lineup looks a lot like the Giants one to me. They have holes in that lineup. They're much easier to work through. There are batters you can come around, come up to and work around. And so sometimes that gives you the ability to not have to give the better hitters the pitchers, the pitches that they want to see. So I think the holes in their lineup really make their lineup easier to work. The fact that he had seven strikeouts and only one walk against the Yanks makes me feel good about his situation tonight. So then, that my game prediction is gonna be much like yesterday's. I think Webb should be able to outpitch Marquez. The bullpins are still mysteries. So San Diego's is supposed to be good. They have been for the most part. Giants is supposed to be questionable, but it has been pretty good. Other than Walker's two-run home run, they've pitched pretty well. So, like I said, my prediction is gonna be much like yesterday's game. And that, of course, is going to lead me right into today's safe bet of the day. And keeping Aiden's concerns about Marquez in mind, I'm gonna keep the over-unders out of play today. What I like again, like yesterday's pick, is the first five because that matches up Webb against Marquez. Now, if you look at the first five numbers, obviously the books think the same thing because the first five money line is minus 157, and we're not gonna take a minus 157, even if it does seem like a very safe bet, it's never that safe. So the first five over is four, and that's minus one fifteen. But since we're gonna leave the over-enders out of this, what I'm gonna make is the official pick of the day today is the first five Giants' first five run line, and that's minus one fifteen. So it just takes out the chance of having a tie game after five. The Giants have to be ahead at at the end of five innings. Like I said, I feel good about it. I think Webb should be able to outpitch Marquez. We should be able to at least be up by a run on them, even if Marquez pitches a little better than we think. I think Webb is going to be ready for this lineup, and I think he's gonna keep them down. Another couple that I like is Webb to get a win is plus 105, but of course you have the bullpen concern with that. Webb to get over five and a half strikeouts is minus 120, which is not that juicy for he gets that many strikeouts almost every game. Now, they might be concerned about his uh how many innings, pitch count, that kind of thing, and whether he would have the opportunity to get that many strikeouts, but I still kind of like that one too. But for today's safe bet of the game, we are going to go with Giants. First five run line at minus 115. So, with that, make sure and tune in tomorrow. I see we do have Adrian Hauser on the mound. It will be our first look at him. He is going up against Pavetta, San Diego's ace that got shelled his first time out by Detroit. Can't imagine that's gonna happen again, but we will look at all of the numbers, do a little analysis, and get back with that matchup tomorrow. Recap quickly tonight's Giants win, right? Again, we're gonna get another win tonight. So we'll all be in another chipper mood when we come into tomorrow's podcast. Hopefully, with that, thank everybody for tuning in. Tune in again tomorrow. Stay safe out there as usual and go giants.