Traveler's Saint at the RR Xing

The phrase "another frustrating Giants loss" seems to be echoing off the walls these days.  M recaps quickly last night's bullpen deja vu. And just as quickly gets into tonight's matchup with one of his favorites Robbie Ray facing a frightening Christopher Sanchez.  After revealing his lack of conviction about the past few picks, M is hearteningly positive about tonight's.  Can't be much more overdue.  Finally, he announces there may not be a pod tomorrow because he is going to the game, his first of the season, and may not have time.  (Apologies for the cryptic title. A little puzzle.  For non-catholics, St Christopher is the patron saint of traveler's.)

Transcript

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Good morning and welcome back into the pod. It is Tuesday morning, April 7th, and another bright sunny day ahead here anyway. Hopefully the same where you are. My first question this morning is: have I ever used the phrase on this podcast, another frustrating giant's loss? Because get used to it. Man, every night it seems like it's the same thing. Some something frustrating happens. Even though Painter didn't live up to the hype, the worry wasn't supposed to be whether Hauser could keep the Phillies at bay. It was the Giants scoring four off of Painter, the bullpen giving up runs. Oh man, well, what's new, I guess, as far as that goes. Anyway, I'm gonna skip right through that frustrating loss and get right to tonight's game, which is once again against the Phillies at 645 at Oracle. And it features one of their aces, Christopher Sanchez, against Robbie Ray, one of my favorites. Now, Christopher Sanchez, he's a 29-year-old lefty, has had a few seasons now in the bigs. In 2023, he pitched 19 games, 344 ERA, pretty good. But then in 2024, he pitched a full season, 31 games, and had a 332 ERA. So he had a really good season there. But last year in 2025, 32 games, so a full season again, even one game more, 2.50 ERA. So very good. That is ace numbers. And so far this year in the two games, a 0.79 ERA. So he's had a good career. He had an impressive start to this year, and his last outing was good against the Rangers. He went six innings, no runs, no walks, three hits only, and 10 strikeouts. So yikes, that's a pretty good outing right there. Um I was unsure of Painter, you know, he's a 22-year-old rookie, but Sanchez, he's the real deal. He's 29, he's seasoned now. I read a quote by him where he said he made a little tweet to his slider that seems to really be working magic. He's got a little extra movement on it, so that's not good. Uh he's already in a little bit of the Cy Young conversation, I see. And the Phillies light or the Phillies pitching staff was highly rated before the season, and Sanchez seems to be living up to his part of the building at least through two outings. He has looked very sharp. Robbie Ray on the mound for the Giants. He's 34 years old, another lefty. He also has had two fine outings this year. Five and yeah, five and a third in both, two earned runs in both, once against the Mets, once against the Yankees, a couple of fine teams. Last outing is the one that he had the three walks, and that kind of hurt him, but he still only gave up two earned runs. As you know, with Ray, control has kind of been his issue. And if he can rein that in and throw strikes, he does really well. So again, my kind of prediction is with the in the first five innings with these two starters, I think it's gonna be a low-scoring game. And once the bullpins get brought in, then who knows it's open bar at that time. The Phillies used five of their bullpen relievers last night, and the Giants, it doesn't matter if they used them or not, right? They're not gonna be good. They're gonna give up something, it seems. Doesn't matter if they're fresh or used or what. So, anyway, focusing again on the first five innings and the starting pitchers is gonna take me very quickly today to today's safe set of the day. And finally, I feel pretty good about a pick. What I do sometimes is I put a little asterisk next to the picks that I make where I don't really like them, and I've even suggested on the pod that you know I didn't feel too good about it, or suggested you might want to lay off that kind of thing. But no asterisk today, because even though I lost even my liens and stuff yesterday, I have found a couple that I like. And again, I have you know, I'm leaving out the full game picks because I want to leave the bullpen out, so I'm kind of stuck with the first five. Or bets that have to do with the pitchers. Just given the fact that the Giants are playing so poorly and I can't put any stock in their bullpen, it really does narrow down my choices. So I'm just happy that I found a couple that I like today. Two of them are kind of going back to the well. Yesterday was the first five under, and I like it again today. It's minus 110. The problem is it's down to three and a half today. So the books are even expecting these two pitchers to keep this a low-scoring game. So that's even though I like it, it's a little, I would have liked it better at four or four and a half like yesterday. And I also, speaking about going back to the well, the last time Ray pitched, we had over 16 and a half outs, if you remember, and he got to 16 and got pulled. He needed one more out. And he was, I want to say he was in the low 90s, so I could see why, but he was pitching pretty well at the time. And I kind of like that again. It's 16 and a half, minus 125. And if it wasn't for the walks last time, he would have gotten this for sure. And it was basically the control, he threw way too many balls. The game before, he pitched much better. So if he can rein in the walks and rein in his control, I think he'll get over the 16 and a half, he'll get the extra out, I think, for sure. But the one I'm gonna go with is similar to that, and that is Sanchez getting under 18 and a half out. Now it's minus 135, which is the juiciest pick I've had all year. I don't really like to go, that's about the limits we ever go. But because he has not gotten to that yet this year, and when I first saw under 18 and a half, I had two stars next to it. I really liked it. And then later, when I saw the odds, I was hesitating, but I decided to stay with it because it's the one I like best out of the three that I had chosen. Because I have such a narrow choice, just such a few number of picks to choose from, I'm gonna take the one with the juice. And granted, it could easily lose. I have some concerns because you know the Giants, if they don't work some counts and they hit into double plays, that kind of thing. So he could easily go longer against the Giants than he has against some other teams. So that's the one I like today, even though it's juicy. Like I said, I'm gonna stick with it. Also, there will probably not be a podcast tomorrow because I'm gonna actually be at the game. It's the first game I'm gonna get to go see. It's an afternoon game, and by the time I get home from work and grab breakfast, I gotta catch the ferry across the bay in order to get to the game on time. There's a chance I'll have time, but if one doesn't come out, that is why. It's because I'm catching the ferry over to watch the game. Obviously, the pick for tomorrow would be Giants Moneyline because there's no way they're gonna lose up. I'm in attendance, right? You might as well double down on that one. Actually, I see it's Aaron Nola against Tyler Malley, which means that's probably in Philly's favor. So you might not want to go Giants Moneyline on that one. Yeah, who knows? Maybe go with the over because we're hoping for a lot of runs in that game, a lot of action while I'm there. Maybe that's the easy money, the over, whatever it happens to be in tomorrow's game, because we're looking for base runners, stolen bases, hit and runs. It's all gonna happen tomorrow while I'm there. After that, the Giants have a day off on Thursday, which is gonna be good for everybody, for me, for the Giants. It's been so busy the last week. I feel like I haven't focused as much on my research. But by Friday, that should give me plenty of time to be prepared, and they will at that point be on the road in Baltimore. And I did not look up to see who the pitchers are that far in advance. I just looked up through tomorrow's game, which is Aaron Nolan and Tyler Malley. But by Friday, we'll be back ready to go. And like I said, there's possible possibility I get one out tomorrow, something short tomorrow, if I have time to look over some numbers and throw a pick out there. If not, I will be back on Friday, all researched up and ready to go, and ready to talk about the Giants taking on Baltimore. A team finally we can, I don't know, play, get out of town, play a team that maybe we have a little more chance against. Anyway, that's all I have for today. Tune in, check in tomorrow. If I'm not here, check back in on Friday, and we will discuss at least one game, maybe two, analyzing the Baltimore series and hoping the Giants can actually start doing some winning. With that, as usual, keep your eyes open, stay safe, and go Giants.