Giants Hope to Soil Mclean

M starts off with a recap of the Giants impressive, action-packed win.  While looking at the pitching matchup for tonight, he gets a little tilted and needs Aidan to call up and calm him down.  After a little discussion about this rookie the Mets are sending out tonight, they come up with a Safe Bet of the Day™.

Transcript

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Good morning everyone. Welcome back into the pod. It is Friday morning, April 3rd. A beautiful day out here in the Bay Area. A beautiful day following the Giants' win last night, taking them to 3-4. Lots of action in the game. Hope you got to watch it. Just fun to watch all the way around, other than the safe bet of the day not coming in, which was kind of frustrating because it was Ray to get over 16 and a half outs. He got to 16 before getting pulled, and mostly it was his own doing. In the first inning, he threw 24 pitches, started the game off with a walk, a little bit too much contact, had some control issues throughout, ended up with three walks in the game. And really, the the one of the reasons I like that was because he had zero walks, his first outing. I wasn't expecting him to get three walks. So we lose that one by one out. Again, I felt like the analysis was analysis was there, much like the day before when I thought I had the pitchers being even, and they were even through five, other than the errors by Schmidt that cost us the runs that cost that game. Last night it was the three walks instead of zero walks that cost us. Even if he just gets one walk less, he probably gets that extra out. So I felt like I had the right pick, like I was on the right side. It was a little frustrating. But the Giants win makes it, I don't know, just a satisfying win for the Giants, kind of an inspiring win, a heartening win. They really needed it to get to three and four. So as Billy Pilgrim liked to say, so it goes, right? And we will move on to today's game. And for today's game, the Mets have their 24-year-old rookie that we were talking about, Nolan McLean, on the mound. And he came up last year, pitched in only eight games at the very end of the year, but he pitched really well at 2.06 ERA. Now, this year he's only pitched in one game. He faced the Pirates, and he went five innings, gave up two runs on four hits and two walks. But those two walks were his first two batters. He had a little control issues for the first couple innings, but he really settled in and improved as the game went on, ended up with eight strikeouts. Five of his last seven outs were strikeouts. So he got stronger and stronger as the game went on, only threw 84 pitches. He has, he's one of those big curve guys, a real high spin rate, one of the highest spin rates in the national in the major leagues right now. And after reading a couple of articles, I get the sense that the Mets really hope he's going to become an ace somewhere down the line. Now, I haven't seen him pitch, but all the hype, all the talk is a little bit unsettling. But you know, he is a wild card. You know how those young pitchers are, they can be pretty unpredictable, especially a big curveballer like that. Because if he's having trouble locating that thing or he hangs a few, it can be a long night for him. But obviously, if that thing is on, it can be impossible to hit. For the Giants, we have Tyler Malley back on the mound for his second visit. I thought he did pretty decent for his first start. He did face the hot-hitting Yankees team. That's a Yankees team that is five and one right now, tied in the major leagues for the best record. And he gave up five hits in one walk over four innings, two earned runs. But he had five strikeouts. And considering that lineup, five strikeouts is nothing to sneeze at. Now he did throw 80 pitches to get through the four innings, which isn't that efficient, 20 pitches per inning, but he should be able to go five tonight as he builds up, kind of like Ray went up to 94 pitches yesterday or last night. And I think if he can pitch as well against the Mets as he did against the Yankees, he should be able to hold their offense at bay as much as they as they've been struggling lately. Honestly, I was having a difficult time squaring this game or predicting this game or coming up with a pick. We have the rookie curveball pitcher. It's Malley's second start. I'm still not quite sure what to make of him. The offenses seem kind of unpredictable. The Mets are really laboring right now. But then Aiden called and kind of settled me down. I was tilting pretty bad, twisted up, couldn't decide what to do, had lost all my confidence in making a pick after the last two losses that I felt like I was on the right side of. And he just called up and we started talking. He reminded me of all the good stuff that happened in last night's game. The Susac hits and the walk, him being on base four times, just all the hits in general. Nine hits in the first three innings, six hits by the nine eight and nine hitter. Ray pitched well, even though the safe bet of the day lost. Raphael Devers got a homer. The Dodgers lost, cut it to one and a half. So that helped it a lot, helped me a lot. And then he got me. We started talking, and and we started, I was telling him how I was just didn't know what to make a pick on. And he said, Well, maybe we should just go with the hot hand because the Giants have just been hot lately. They've won three out of the last four, they're looking good, the Mets are slumping. And so we were going to just go with a hot hand, take the Giants on the money line. And then we started talking about this pitcher here tonight, McLean, and that kind of scared us a little bit. And Aiden made the point that it kind of reminded of him some of the Giants pitchers that first came up, like when Bird Song first came up or Roop first came up, and they looked really good, and there wasn't much tape on them, nobody knew how to hit them, and you know they look good right off the bat. And so he kind of thought McLean kind of reminded of him that so it kind of scared him for that one today. And so we decided at the end that because last night neither team used their bullpen. We had Blade Tinwell came in and finished up everything that Ray didn't go, what three innings, and they had Sean Maniah come in and finish the game. Yeah, I think he finished the whole thing. So neither team used any of their bullpins. So between McLean and Malley, I think they are gonna pitch well and keep both offenses down, and both bullpins being fresh, that's gonna take me to today's safe bet of the day. We decided to switch it up tonight and go with the under seven and a half, and it's not bad. It's minus 102, so it's juiced to the over. But we're gonna take the under and just hope that be like I said, the pitchers and the bullpins should both be able to do well enough to keep because the Mets are really laboring right now, and the Giants have been up and down, and the curveballer could give them trouble. So, anyway, that's gonna be our pick of the day for today is the under seven and a half. I looked at tomorrow's game, and it is Clay Holmes against Landon Root, and I can tell you right now, that's the game that I'm thinking about riding the hot hand. Aiden and I are thinking about riding the hot hand. If the Giants do decently today or tonight, then I think tomorrow, I think we're getting good numbers today because I guess I think that McLean, you know, I'm not saying he's overrated, but he's unknown and he pitched so well, and Molly's been around a long time, so everybody thinks they know him. So I think that gives the numbers in our favor. So I really do kind of like the Giants money line today. I just think the under is safer. And I think the same thing is gonna happen tomorrow because Clay Holmes has been around a while and Landon Roop is a new unknown. So I think the numbers are gonna be in our favor tomorrow, at least I'm hoping so. And I will really be looking, we will really be looking to ride the hot hand tomorrow. Hopefully, you will tune in tomorrow and we will be talking about a Giants win again. They would be four and four at that point. It'd be nice to get to 500. Sunday is back to Webb and Kodai Stingay, so that's gonna be a good one with those two on the mound. So we got a couple good matchups coming up for the weekend. So tune in tomorrow. We'll talk about tonight's game, we'll recap that. Like I said, talk about tomorrow's game. I guess that's all I have for today. With that, stay safe out there and go diet.