Spring Cleaning Time, Grab A Broom

Giants win again against rival Dodgers!  M goes over the unlikely heroes that were Tyler Mahle and Patrick Bailey in last night's game.  He then moves on to this afternoon's game by focusing on the pitching matchup. Finally, reviewing the various odds leads to an explanation for today's Safe Bet of the Day™, a somewhat counterintuitive, rare strikeout wager. He finishes off with today's song, "Idi Amin Stomp" by Artful Dodger.  You youngsters will have to google Idi Amin. 

Stay safe.  Go Giants!

Transcript

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And welcome back to A MBA and San Francisco Giants free game podcast. Bring you previews, projections, and predictions before every Giants game. Good morning. Welcome back into the pod. It is Thursday, April 23rd. I believe it's NFL draft day today, right? But more importantly, it is my cousin Hal's birthday. Happy birthday, Hal. He has just retired. I'm sure he's gonna enjoy that birthday. We are coming to you this morning after another really nice Giants win, and admittedly unexpected Giants win. Honestly, I thought with Otani Malley matchup that I did not have much hope for the Giants, mostly because there was no reason to believe that Tyler Malley would do what he did. Or Patrick Bailey for that matter, because we basically had two unlikely heroes for the game last night. Tyler Malley, sharp. I have a little note here. He looked sharp through three, and then through four, and five, and six, and seven. I did not foresee Malley going seven innings. He was throwing darts out there, he looked just so good, lots of strikes. And then Otani, oh my lord, he was overpowering with that high speed, the fastballs, both of them together. What a pitching duel that was. It was just a really nice game to watch, a really good pitching duel, just both pitchers just on top of their game, doing really well. Let's see. Also, a lot of good defense by the Giants last night, got out of a lot of jams. I was glad to see Jung Hu Lee played because there was a chance that he was going to be hurt. And then who would have thought that the much maligned Patrick Bailey, our ninth hitter hitting 150, would get a three-run home run in the seventh with a two-strike count. So just like I said, two unlikely heroes between Malley pitching like he did and Patrick Bailey getting the three-run home run. If you would have told me that the Giants were going to score three runs in each of the first two games of this series, I would have thought they probably lost both of those games. But we've had great pitching, better than I would have expected to keep this Dodgers offense where we have at 0 and 1. I'm guessing the Dodger fans are probably pretty disappointed that they've only scored one run in the first two games. So, anyway, let's move right on because that's what we do here, and we'll move right on to today's game. It looks like we have a nice sunny day out here today. It's going to be high 60, high 60s, the rain is gone. So it's back to a really nice day for a baseball game out there. And we have Tyler Glasnow and Logan Webb on the mound, which is should be a nice even match, another good pitcher's duel. Tyler Glasnow for the Dodgers, he's a 32-year-old righty. He's been around a while now. He spent quite a few years with Tampa Bay, like six years with Tampa Bay. He's been with the Dodgers the last like three years, maybe three and a half, two and a half. In 2024, his ERA was 349 with the Dodgers. And then last year it was 319. He only pitched in 18 games, but he's done really well. This year in four games, he's got a 3.24 ERA. So you can kind of see that's about where he is as a pitcher, the low threes as an ERA. He has been really good. If you look this year, he has had the four games. He gave up two earned runs in six, two earned runs in six, one earned run in seven, and then he had one bad game where he gave up four earned runs and six innings, but he only gave up five hits and one walk in that game. I didn't go back and look, but I'm guessing the hits must have come in a bunch, and then a home run somewhere must have got him because only giving up six base runners in six innings is pretty good, and not often that that will turn into four earned runs against you. He's I saw in an interview with him, he said he's working on some new foot turn in his delivery, and he's crediting that with his good start to the season. He feels comfortable on the mound. He does have a high strikeout rate, he's good on walks, he's had a solid career. He's solid numbers even this year. He's just one of those ageless guys. He just seems to be even at 32, he's looking really good this year. Logan Webb on the other side. You all have seen him plenty. We know his numbers are down this year. His ERA is at 5.40, but mostly that's because of that first game we've talked about against the Yankees. We hurt him so bad. Other than that, he's about mid-4 ERA, which is still maybe not Logan Webb numbers, but they're not terrible. Walks have cost him too many pitches, a little bit of control issue. But I think he's gonna be ready today. He's at home. It's a day game. He's got the Dodgers coming into town, he's gonna be focused. So my prediction for the game, it's gonna be kind of a deja vu all over again, kind of a game, a copy of the first two games, another low-scoring pitching duel, and that's gonna lead me very quickly today to today's Safe Ben of the Day. Now, if we look at the numbers for today, you can see so we lost yesterday, the Giants, it didn't go over, but the Giants did win to it, so that kind of takes the sting off a little bit. And I told you I didn't like it. So hopefully you paid attention and either didn't do a half unit, something like that. I didn't like it. I could it was one of those games where I just couldn't find one I liked. But today, again, I think I found something I kind of like. We'll see, it's a little different, something we haven't done before. But the numbers are again juice to the Dodgers. The money line is minus 153 to the Dodgers. The first five Giants run line I thought of, they get the half a run, but that's minus 122. Thought at first that Webb would be able to pitch evenly with Glass now, and the Giants could at least be even after first five. Then I was gonna go the I was almost gonna go back to the well with the under 15 and a half hits, but I looked at it, it's under 14 and a half today, and it's minus 129. So I don't like it coming down a run, and I don't like the number being up that high for that one. And then I was gonna go also the under, it's seven and a half, and I did like that one because I do think runs are gonna be at a premium. We have two top pitchers dueling it out, and I think when when you get two top pitchers dueling it out, they both kind of rise to the occasion and you know they're trying to beat each other. The offenses are scuffling, the pins have been good, it's Oracle Park, so I do lean lean toward the under. But I came up with something a little bit different, and it's gonna be this, and it's gonna be Tyler Glass now under six and a half strikeouts, and you're gonna say, wait, he's gotten seven, seven, and nine in his last three outings. How can it be under six and a half? But this is why I like it. First of all, in those last four games, so if you look up strikeout numbers by the team, the Giants are 25th. They're six, let me see, fifth best in all of baseball. They only have 186 strikeouts. The Dodgers are 16th at 285. 205, I'm sorry. That would be a big difference. And if you look at Glasnow's last three outings where he had the good strikeout rates, first it was Colorado, they're the fourth worst, then it was Texas, they're seventh worst in strikeouts, and then it was Washington, who's 14th worst. So all three teams that he's had his good strikeout rates are high, high, high up on the strikeout metric. And the Giants are down at the bottom. They're they're fifth best in strikeouts. So put that together, and I'm gonna go with that just to kind of throw it off. It's something different. It's mix it up. We've only done one other strikeout wager in the past. That one did hit. So we're gonna make that our safe bet of the day. Tyler Glass now under six and a half strikeouts. It is at minus 125. So again, it's a little high, and I really don't understand that because his strikeouts are so high. It seems like it should be much better. I'm hoping that changes maybe by game time. We'll see. But right now it's at minus 125. But I'm gonna go with it for those reasons because he's had his good high strikeout games against teams that have terrible strikeout rates. And I know it's hard to believe the Giants are doing that well because as a fan and watching the games, it sure seems like they strike out a lot. But anyway, we're gonna go with those numbers because that's what they say. And hopefully, I just haven't been overrating our strikeouts because, as a you know, as a fan, they just seem to hit a little harder. So maybe I'm just misreading all that. So, anyway, that's my reasoning for taking Glass now under six and a half strikeouts. The one worry I have is that because it's a day game, I'm not sure what the lineup is. I haven't seen the lineup yet, and hopefully the Giants aren't resting too many guys and bringing in replacements that might have a higher strikeout rate. So that is a little bit of a worry, but I'm still gonna go with it. Glass now under six and a half strikeouts, minus 125, as today's safe bet of the day. Also, I realized that for yesterday's song of the day, I did the Felice Brothers Frankie's Gun, a song I really like. But what I should have probably done was because I had something about Giants trying to take down the Artful Dodger in the title, I should have put a song by Artful Dodger. Now, they're a group most of you probably don't know. They were back in the 70s. My older brother Dave had an album by them called Babes on Broadway, and it was pretty bad. It was mostly schlock, a lot of bubblegum type stuff, but they did have one good song on there that I like, Idiomine Stomp. So go ahead and look that one up. That will be today's song of the day, Idy Amin Stomp by Artful Dodger. If you don't know who Idi Amin was, you'll have to look it up. That is spelled I-D-I-A-M-I-N. Little history lesson for you. Anyway, that will be today's song of the day. With that, tune in tomorrow. The Giants have the Marlins coming into town. I forgot to look to see who the pitching matchup was. So I apologize for that. But tune in tomorrow. We will recap the last of this series. There's that little tiny hope that we could actually sweep the Dodgers. That would be amazing. The fact that we got two is amazing. I was just hoping that we'd get one. And we got two and a chance for three with Webb on the mound. So we will recap the game, the series. Look ahead to the Marlins game. With that, have a great day today. Hopefully, it's nice and sunny where you are. And stay safe as always. And go, Giants.