Ray Focused On Incoming Mets

Ugh! A quick recap of yesterday's frustrating SBOD loss due to 2 errors. Tonight's game against the visiting Mets is discussed mostly in terms of their similarities to the Giants in that their pitching and defense has been acceptable, it's the bats that have let them down.  The pitching matchup between Robbie Ray and David Peterson looks to be a good one.  We discuss both teams pitching and batting numbers before jumping in to tonight's Safe Bet of the Day™.

Transcript

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Good morning and welcome back to today's with AM and 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 Thursday morning, April 2nd. I am fresh off of a concert last night. I went down to Santa Cruz to see a group called The Happy Fits with my daughter, and what a great show they put on. To my brother Boog. I know they were playing in Pismo tonight. You might want to go check them out. They were a really energetic young band, full of great songs. It was quite a show. Highly recommend it. I know Aiden is going to be seeing them in on Saturday in San Diego. I think on Saturday. So I'm telling you right now, Aiden, they put on a really good show. You're going to really enjoy that one. So what wasn't so enjoyable was the Giants game yesterday. The Giants lost. And I feel kind of bad because I feel like we pretty much pegged the game. My prediction was that the starting pitchers would pitch evenly, and they did. Both pitchers had no earned runs through five, which should have been a safe bet of the day winner. Unfortunately, Casey Schmidt decided to have two errors, and that cost two unearned runs for the Giants. And that translated to a tough loss for us for the safe bet of the day and for the Giants, although it was mostly the bullpen's fault, which is why we left the bullpins out, which is another reason I felt like we had nailed the game. So if it wasn't for two errors, we would have won that bet. So unfortunately, I guess you have to take into account the Giants' defense, which is supposed to be good. But if you could tell, I hope you could tell when I was talking about it yesterday. I wasn't too enthused about any of the picks. I almost called a no-bet day. I just wasn't sure we were going to do that this year. And I did even suggest taking a half unit, which is actually what I did. But I'll still count it as a full loss as far as transparency goes for the pod. So that puts us at three, two, and one so far for this year. So let's just move right on today's game. I don't really want to talk about yesterday's. It was the bullpen and Budo mostly that gave it up. We have coming into town now, we've got the Mets in town for four. They are fresh off losing two out of three against St. Louis. They went to extras yesterday, lost two to one in the 11th. Today we have Robbie Ray versus David Peterson for the Mets. And Peterson is well, let's see. So he's a lefty. He's 30 years old, former first-round pick out of Oregon. His first game out this year, he pitched really well. He shut out Pittsburgh in five minutes third, gave up six hits and two walks. Must have scattered those around a little bit because he didn't give up any runs. He is pretty much a career average pitcher. His numbers aren't that stellar, a little bit up, a little bit down. He's not their ace, he's their number three pitcher, and he is the proverbial number three pitcher, perfectly average. No great seasons, no awful seasons. Last year he pitched in 30 games, had a 4-2-2 ERA, just average. Although last year he was really good through July. He had a 3.06 through July, made the All-Star team as a roster replacement, and then the wheels came off in the second half of the season. He was up into 6, 7, 8, 9 in the second half of the season. So that's why it tallied out at 4.22 at the end of the year. Now he's going to be a free agent after this year, and a lot of times that means that he's looking to have a good year because he wants to land that big contract for next season. So that's kind of an upshot on Peterson. He's going against Ray, who I think it's been pretty clear that I'm a Robbie Ray believer. I've liked what he did last year. I liked what he did his first time out this year. He pitched really well against the Yankees. So all of last year he was in the mid-threes, ERA-wise, and his numbers overall look a little bit better than Peterson's. So my prediction for the game, I think both pitchers are going to handle these. Oh, actually, I take that back. Let me talk about why I think it's going to be a low-scoring game. Because that is kind of my prediction for the game. And here's why I think it's going to be low-scoring. First of all, the Mets have scored only one run in their last 20 innings. They are really struggling offensively. I listened to one of their podcasts yesterday, and like I said about the San Diego podcast, it sounded a lot like the Giants. He was going on and on about how the pitching in the defense has been fine, but the bats are not. And that's kind of like the Giants, other than the nine-run game. We have not had much at the plate. So we have two struggling offenses, both decent pitchers, both lefties, good pitcher weather for tonight. And both of these teams have been at the bottom in all offensive categories through the first six games: batting average, run scored, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs. The Mets have had only four home runs, Giants only three. We, if you look at the numbers, we're in the 20s to the 30s in all of the both teams in all of those categories. But if you look at the pitching categories, it's the complete opposite. Both teams are near the top in all of those categories. The ERA, the WIP, and the batting average against. The Mets are actually in the top 10 in all of those categories. Giants are right behind them. And I guess also with Ray is going to get the Mets, you know, on the road, tired. They just lost the extra inning games yesterday, extra inning innings game yesterday. So I expect Ray to have a good game. Peterson's home and away splits are the same, so it's not like he's going to do worse because he's on the road. He actually probably will do better because he's in Oracle, and both pitchers in Oracle, you know how it's a pitcher's park. So put all that together, and I think I'm leaning toward the unders. My prediction then is that both pitchers are going to be handled, be able to handle the offenses pretty well. I think it's going to be kind of an old school Giants game, one of those boring, low-scoring games, at least for the starters. Now, again, because of the uncertainty of the bullpen, it makes me want to leave them out of the equation and focus on just the first five innings or the starters, at least this early in the season. You may see me leaning that way quite a bit early in the season until we get a little better handle on how bullpins are doing, especially the Giants bullpen, because a little uncertain about the Giants bullpen right now. They've looked good in some cases and bad in some cases. So then let's put all that together, and that's gonna jump me right into today's safe bet of the day. And like I said, I'm leaning toward the unders, and the under is seven and a half today at minus one ten. But since I'm leaving out bullpens for the most part, I would lean toward the under in the first five, and that's four at minus one oh six. But the one I like even better than the under is this today. And I'm gonna mix it up a little bit on you. I know I've been suggesting that I'm gonna go with one of the unders and probably suggesting that I'm going under four in the first five, which I do like, but the one I'm gonna go with is Robbie Ray to get over 16 and a half outs. That means he has to go five and two-thirds innings for this to come in to get us the win. Now, his last outing, he went five and one-third against the Yanks. I think he should be able to get at least one more out off the Mets. The lineup is not nearly as good as the Yankees. He only gave up four hits and no walks against the Yankees and only threw 89 pitches. So he should still be fresh. He looked really good against a lineup better than this one. Didn't throw too many pitches, so all he has to do is get one more out than he did against the Yankees. He's got to go five and two-thirds. Now that is minus 125, a little bit juicy, not terrible, but I think I'm gonna make that the safe bet of the day today and mix it up a little bit. I do kind of like under four in the first five, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Giants got a run or two off of Peterson. I feel much better about Ray being solid against their offense than I do about Peterson being solid against our offense. So that's gonna be it for today. We're gonna go with Giant or Robbie Ray over 16 and a half outs at minus 125 for our safe bet of the day. I think that's all I have for today. A little bit shorter, maybe that concert took it out of me, but that is all the notes I have. So for tomorrow's game, I noticed the Mets have this young up-and-comer on the mound. His name is Nolan McLean. He came up last year and only pitched in eight games, but he put up a 2.06 ERA, and his first game this year was really good. So we'll look a little bit more into him tomorrow. I'm a little bit worried about that already. We have Molly for the Giants, and I was really happy with his first start. He was on a pitch count, only went four innings, but he only gave up five hits in a walk. So he pitched pretty well. I was happy with that. He should do pretty well also. And when I looked at the pitching matchups for this four-game series, it kind of led me to think that there might be a dearth of runs because both teams have the pitching matchups. We they have a good pitching rotation, and our rotation has looked good. I was happy with Roop. I was happy with Molly, I was happy with Ray, I was even happy with Hausers, and then obviously we have Webb. So our pitching rotation has looked good, and theirs has looked good. So just be prepared. Right now I'm leaning towards some unders. I hope something happens in the next game or two. Maybe the Giants bats can come around. But boy, these pitching matchups look like they're gonna be tough. Looks like runs are gonna be at a premium for this series. With that, that is all I have. So thank you all for tuning in. Hopefully, you will tune in tomorrow where we will be discussing the Nolan McLean matchup against Mali. Hopefully, we will talk about a Giants win. And boy, we could use just starting off in the right. It was good to get two out of three against the Padres. It would be nice to get at least two out of four from the Mets, if not win the series. With that, thank you all for tuning in. Tune in tomorrow. Have a great day out there. Stay safe as usual and go giants.