Old Hound Caught In New Webb

Aidan makes a 2nd appearance in a row!  That alone should intrigue you.  He begins by recapping last night's Giants and SBOD wins. He follows that with his expert analysis on tonight's pitching matchup between Logan Webb and Chris Bassitt.  That leads to 3 possible picks he likes for today.  M comes on and adds a few touches, though admittedly Aidan has already done the heavy lifting. M reveals that 3 of his 5 choices to research for today were the same as Aidan's picks.  He chews on each for a bit before explaining why one is most palatable for today's Safe Bet of the Day™.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Good morning and welcome back to state at AM and the AM, your San Francisco Giants pre-game podcast, bringing you previews, projections, and predictions before every Giants game.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Whoa, welcome back to Safe with AM in the AM. I hope you're having a fabulous Saturday morning. My name is Aiden. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. I want to get started by talking about what a refreshing game that was last night. Adom has kicked it off with a solo shot in the third, making me look like I know what I'm talking about after my home run guarantee yesterday. And then the floodgates just opened up. I mean, there were 12 hits total from the Giants, including three doubles from Casey Chasey Schmidt, who's hitting 333, by the way, now. So that is freaking amazing. And every single giant had a hard hit ball yesterday, except for Arias, who drew two walks, so he's doing just fine. But that was a total of 15 hard hits overall. And it just felt like their runners on base the whole time, which is super fun to watch. Meanwhile, Landon Rupert shut him down. He only gave up four hard hit balls in his six innings, and he just looked in control and dominant throughout the whole game. And it kind of started in the first inning because he got the first two guys, and then he did give up a double to Adley, and then he followed that up by throwing three straight balls to Pete Alonzo. And obviously, Pete's not hitting like he usually does. I think he was came into this game like at 188 or so batting average. But he's still scary. He's still Pete Alonzo, he's still getting paid like Pete Alonzo. And so you don't want to be down three to nothing. Or sorry, you don't want to be down three balls to no strikes to Pete Alonzo right after giving up a double in the first inning. Uh and then he dotted three straight sinkers right at the bottom of the zone. And boy, I think that just gives you so much confidence to go in there with the same pitch three straight times, same spot all three times, had him looking on all three, and it really just showed for the rest of the game. Uh Roop looked like he was in control of his pitches. He had confidence and he settled in. He only gave up one run in all six innings, and really uh was probably the player to the game. Maybe it was Casey Schmidt or Jung Hu Lee with his his homer. Uh, but overall the Giants just looked good and took it in commanding fashion, six to three. Could have been six-one. Freaking Blade Tidwell didn't give up a two-run shot with two outs in the ninth inning. But no problem. Still won at six to three, and a safe bet came in, so it's a great day. And now we got a three-game win streak going. Uh hopefully we can keep that going tonight with Logan Webb taking the mound against Chris Bassett. And I want to start with Webb because uh I was kind of concerned. He hasn't been as dominant through his first two starts as we're used to seeing him. And uh I'll be kind of interested to see if he gets more comfortable throughout the year with his pitches because uh through two starts, uh he has small dips in vertical movement on his changeup, his sinker, his sweeper, his four-seamer, pretty much all his pitches haven't been getting quite the movement they used to. But it's not a ton, but it's a little bit. And it's kind of to be expected because Webb is 29 and a half years old now. Uh-huh. And we typically think of that age cliff for pitchers being at about 30. I'm less uh concerned with Webb than most pitchers for that 30 spot because obviously, first of all, he's an ace. Usually aces decline a little bit later. And he's the epitome of a workhorse. Uh he does not throw like hard stuff, he's not a power pitcher, although his fastball has been his pitch this year, which is kind of unusual. But the point is that he's not one of those guys that's throwing 100, 101 and is going to turn 28 and fall off a cliff. Uh he's he's got the stuff to continue getting grounders late into his career. So I'm not too concerned with him hitting that cliff in, you know, six months when he turns 30. With that being said, I think that the expectation for Webb should shift a little bit. Uh I don't think he's gonna be putting up uh a 2-9 ERA like he did in 2022. I think we should be expecting mid to high threes. I'm hoping, you know, 3-5, 3-4, that'd be fantastic. But if Webb ends up with a 3-7, 3-8 ERA this year, I don't think anyone should be too surprised. Uh however, he's still way better than 37-year-old Chris Bassett, who was a stud there for a few years, I would even say last year, uh, but he hasn't been below a three and a half ERA since 2022, and he's been hovering a right around 4-0 ever since then. Uh well, it was until he dropped a couple of super ugly starts to start this year. He gave up in his first one four runs and four innings, and then last start, six runs in two innings. And it was kind of hard to explain those at first, uh, because uh obviously last year he was a super important part of that Blue Jays run. He had a 396 ERA last year, and his uh pitch mix hasn't changed hardly at all. Uh and he's throwing pretty much the same induced vert on all of his pitches as he has the last couple years. So he's looking like the same kind of pitcher that that he normally has been that has been successful. Now, I will say for some reason his fastball has been getting lit up this year to the tune of negative 14.2 run value per 100. And that's obviously a pretty small sample size. He's only pitched in 6.1 innings, so you can't tell a whole lot, but for some reason that fastball in particular has been getting lit up despite him actually gaining 0.8 inches of induced vertical just since last season. But I think it's his ability to locate. I actually went back and watched his last outing. It was only two two innings, but he did throw quite a few pitches. I think he got up over 60. And he just wasn't able to locate. Everything was ending up middle, middle. And he was just really serving him up up there. Even his six outs that he got were really lucky. One of them was a screaming line drive right at first base, and Alonzo just catches it and steps on first and ends up getting a double play out of that one. And then one of the next outs was a sacrifice fly that went to the warning track on a super high ball in one of the deepest parts of the park. So it seems like he got kind of lucky to even get that sack fly. And then there was another one. Keep in mind, he only got six outs here. We're talking about four of these outs were super lucky because another one was just a tattooed line drive right at Alonzo, and he ended up catching it on a hop and was able to throw home to get a force out at home in that situation. But he just did not look good. He was giving up hits, he was giving up walks, and the outs he was getting were just lucky. So that leads me to kind of two ways that Bassett could go today. I think on one hand, he could still not be able to locate, and the Giants just light him up as the last two teams did against him, or maybe he figures it out a little bit. You know, after all his stuff is pretty similar to last year. But I don't know if it's the homer in me, but I feel pretty confident that he's going to be closer to the former. For one, he's 37, and I think he will certainly hit an age cliff at some point. That's I don't know why I said I think he will. He will hit an age cliff at some point. I think it will be very soon. And then second, the Giants have been uh putting up lots of runs. We put up six and then five and then six the last three games. So the bats are feeling it. I mean, they're going hot and they get in the face of pitcher who's not. And so I'm gonna take the side that the Giants are going to be able to do something against him. And third of all, I even if Bassett does regress a little bit back to his mean, I struggle to see him being able to flip the switch completely. I really think his ceiling is about 5.2 innings, maybe gives up two or three runs. I don't see him doing any better than that. And his floor has already proven to be six runs and two innings of work. And so I'll take the the middle ground there and say he gives up about four runs in five point one innings or so. And meanwhile, this is a pretty favorable matchup for Webb. So I imagine he'll keep the Orioles to about two runs in six point one innings. So that's kind of my prediction for the game, which leads me to a few bats that I think are pretty safe. One of them is the Giants over three and a half runs at minus 125. Obviously, you're not getting great odds on that, but I really believe that the Giants will put up three and a half runs just against Bassett, and then hopefully a couple more after that. I think we end up with five or six runs in this game and smash the over on that one. I like the Giants money line overall at minus 120. Again, not the best odds of all time, but when you got Logan Webb going up against a struggling pitcher in Chris Bassett, I think the Giants have a great chance. I think it's a very safe bet to take Giants money line in this one. And then the last bet that I like, it's a little bit riskier at plus 114, but it's the Giants' first five run line. Obviously, that's a run line, so the Giants have to be winning after the first five innings. But I like I said already, I think they're gonna put up about four runs on Bassett, and I just don't see Logan Webb giving up four runs in the first five. So I really like the Giants' first five at plus one fourteen. Anyway, that is all the time I have for you guys today. So I will turn it over to you, Dad. And as always, go Giants.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Good morning and welcome back into the pond. It is Saturday, April 11th, and first of all, thank you, Aiden. Aiden is back, back-to-back appearances. We are on a roll, and actually, he has made it so easy for me because he's done almost all the work. So I'm just gonna go through and add a couple little touches here and there. He did a fine job of recapping the win last night, the 12 hits, the offense in general, the hard-hit balls, how well Roop looked out on the mound. So I don't really need to add anything to that. He did not give himself enough credit for the 100% guaranteed locked-in loaded pick of the night, the home runoff shape Shane Boss. And sure enough, in the third, Adamus hits that. I liked the three-pitch run in the fourth where Schmidt comes up in his first pitch, gets the double. Then Zhung Hu Lee gets out at first but moves into third. And then Ramos on his first pitch gets the single to right and knocks in Schmidt three pitches for a run. That was pretty nice. I like to see the Giants finally swinging the bats. So, anyway, Aiden did a fine job of all that. As far as tonight's game goes, it is Webb and Bassett. And Aiden did a fine job of talking about the pitchers too. A couple things about Webb. I think I mention mentioned in one of the earlier podcasts about how because of the odd start to the season with those two weird days off, he has matched up, he's not matching up with other teams' aces like he did. It seems, I swear last year, every time he came up, especially at the beginning of the year, he was always coming up against the other team's ace just because of the way if everyone's on a five-man rotation, it's just gonna match out that way. But it hasn't this year. This is the second time he's facing someone that's not an ace, and I think that's gonna be in his favor. I like that just for various reasons. And also, if you look at his three starts, his first one he gave up six earned runs, second, three earned runs, third, one earned run. Also, in the first, so so that's from six to three to one, so getting progressively better. In the first out in, he only went five innings, then six innings, then seven innings. So he's given up less runs and pitching more innings. So that's a nice pattern to be in. Not that he's gonna keep that up, but at least uh you can almost throw away that first game. Like Aiden said, he's 29 years old, he's not washed. I think control is gonna kind of be big for him. If he keeps the walks down, he does just fine. So let's hope he can throw strikes and avoid some of that contact. Uh Chris Bassett, like Aiden said, 37-year-old Riley for nine seasons. He had he was sub-ERA for nine seasons, sub-four ERA for nine seasons. And then if you look in 21, he was 3.15, then it went to 3.42, 3.60, 4.16. So he's been getting a little bit worse over the last few years, although last year he had a 396, like Aiden said, a very good year. So it's hard to kind of predict how he's gonna be. Is he past his prime? He probably is, but probably still serviceable. The fact that he got 396 over 32 games last year. And like Aiden said, he had a rough start to this year. But you know, will he settle down or is he just too old? Has he lost it? It might be a little too early to say, but I kind of agree with Aiden. I think he's on the downside. He just hasn't looked good the first two outings so far this year. One of the Orioles writers tagged him as control challenged. And that's not a good thing. You want to be at 37. If you can't throw strikes over, you're gonna be in trouble. So since I agree with Aiden, I think that's really all I have. Like I said, Aiden did all the work, and since I agree with him on how last night's game went and pretty much on how his predictions of tonight's game is gonna be, I'm gonna get right quick to today's safe bet of the day. Now, it's funny because, well, first of all, yesterday it was nice that Aiden and I agreed. I was leaning kind of toward either the under eight and a half or the Giants money line. And then Aiden liked the Giants money line, so we went with that, which was the winner. And the eight and a half, the guy gave up the two run over with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to put it to the over. So that was funny. So anyway, the the money line was the one we were going with anyway. That was the one we both liked. And today, it's so funny. So last night after the game, I wrote down five different picks that I wanted that I was going to be interested in when they came out this morning. And it was Bassett strikeouts, bassett's earned runs, the first five run lines, the money line, and giants runs. And three of those five are the ones Hayden chose as his three picks Giants over three and a half runs, the Giants money line, and the first five run line. The Giants over three and a half runs is minus 126, which is a little too juicy right now, although I do like it. And the Giants money line is minus 113 when I looked, and I like that one too, but that does leave the bullpins in. And what I'd like to do in this game, because I'm much with Aiden, I really like the idea of Webb out pitching Bassett. I was looking at Bassett's under strikeouts and the earned runs because I was just kind of gonna bet on him being washed and the Giants teeing off on him. But I like instead the same one Aiden likes. The one I like the most is first five run lines at plus 115. Now the money line is minus 128. Not that juicy, really, but I like them the run line anyway, because I like I said, I think Webb's gonna be able to outpitch Bassett. And the way the Giants are hitting, I think we should be able to get some runs and we should be able to be it ahead after five. So that's really what we're gonna go with. I guess that will be the safe bet of the day today. The Giants' first five run line at plus 115. And that's really all I have. Like I said, Aiden did all the work for me, all my little notes. He already had most of it out there. So I'm gonna make my end of this pretty quick. Let's see. Tomorrow we have a real early game, 10:30 Pacific time. So I will try to get up and get this out by like eight o'clock so that you can have it all locked in while you're having that lazy Sunday morning cup of coffee. It is Adrian Hauser against Cade Povich. And somehow we have it, we've had a good matchup for the Giants in this series because we've faced their three, four, and five pitchers in their rotation. That's nice. So hopefully Cade Povich is, according to the Orioles, their number five pitcher. And that might be good because I'm not quite sure about Hauser right now. So we will go into that tomorrow after we have some time to do a little analysis. Like I said, I will try to get that up by about eight if I can. With that, that's all I have. Have a great day. Thank you again, Aiden, for doing all my work for me. It's not a very beautiful day here. It's kind of rainy. So hopefully you guys are having a better day of weather than we are here in the Bay Area. The Giants got out of town just in time. We're supposed to have rain all weekend, so it's kind of funny that it was such nice weather when I was at the game on Wednesday and they got out of town, like I said, just in time before the bad weather hits. So hopefully they can take advantage of that 70-degree San Francisco weather again today in Baltimore, and we will be talking about another win for the Giants, which would be four in a row. And they would already have won this series looking to sweep the series. So that would be a nice conversation to be having tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. With that, have a great day. Stay safe out there and go Giants!