Sharp Claws On The Mahle Cat

Giants win on Sunday! M reviews the last Giants win and Landon Roupp's impressive outing.  Then it's on to today's matchup with the Phillies in PA.  Is Jesus Luzardo as bad as his ERA? Is Tyler Mahle as good as his last start? Probably no and no.  A quick look at some numbers leads to a brief thought about how the game will go. And that leads to a look at the odds and a few ideas about whether to stay safe or not, like on Sunday.  M seems to like a few too many of the numbers, which worries him (a trap?), but he stills comes up with a confident Safe Bet of the Day™.  He finishes off with an old song from a Disney movie that few are going to know,  O'Malley, The Alley Cat. 

Transcript

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I know you've been singing that song since Sunday, just like I told you you would be. I should have probably warned you about the explicit lyrics. Hope that didn't catch anybody off guard. Anyway, welcome back to the pod. It is Tuesday morning, April 26th. And we are in a good mood this morning because the Giants won again on Sunday. Three series in a row, seven and three in their last 10. Landon Roop had another great outing, two hits in eight innings. Wait, I guess it was only seven and two thirds, huh? He got pulled right after that walk, just before the eight. He only had the one bad pitch. Oh game, it was the one that cost us the safe bet of the day and allowed the Marlins to score first, which was unbelievable because Jung Hu Lee started off the bottom of the first with that triple on the first pitch. Guy on third, no out. Chapman strikes out, Arias pops out, and Schmidt then strikes out on a ball that was out of the zone that he didn't challenge. And I knew at that point that was uh left me with a bad feeling. And then sure enough, they come up and on an 0-2 pitch to a guy who hadn't hit a home run all year, he throws a meatball right over the plate, hits it for a home run, and they score first. But on the other side, at least, the money line came in, and the under 15 and a half outs for Meyer came in, and the Giants won. So that was all good. And I really like those lineup changes, like we are talking about. It was good to see Lee up at the top, it was good to see Devers move down, and they just look more formidable as an offense. They're hitting the ball around, it just was good to see all the way around. So now they have been on the road. They are on the road today against the Phillies at 340. And this is a Phillies team, like I said yesterday, that has really been floundering. They lost to Atlanta on Sunday, they were off yesterday. They are 9-19 right now, but they started out six and four to start the season, which means they're 3-15 since then. Now you might remember we did play them in early April. They were here in San Francisco at Oracle. We took them for two out of three, actually, shut them out twice, beat them six nothing and five nothing, I think, something like that, or maybe both were six-nothing. Anyway, we shut them out twice. And if you look at their numbers, they are not good. Both their offensive numbers and their pitching numbers are toward the bottom. For example, their bat team batting average is 219, that's 29th in the league. They their pitching numbers, ERA, team ERA is 5.13, that's 28th in the league. The team batting average against is 286, that's last in the league. The whip is 152, that's 29th. For comparison's sake, the Giants are 7, 9, and 11, basically in the top 10 and all of those, while the Phillies are the bottom or pretty darn close to the bottom in both pitching and their offensive numbers. Although Giants' offensive numbers are pretty bad, also, other than their batting average. But yeah, it looks good. I mean, it's always good to play a team whose numbers look that bad in both sections of the game. Usually, you know, somebody's good hitting team, bad pitching, or vice versa. So anyway, I like the way that lines up. And we have Tyler Malley back on the mound again today. You might remember his last outing was the one where he had the really good outing against the Dodgers. Zero runs over seven innings. And if you look at his, he's had five games this year for the Giants. He's had two good ones and three not so good. His two good ones were that last one I talked about. And the other one he gave was against these Phillies, where he gave up no runs in five and two thirds back on April 8th. Now he's on the road this time. Both of his good games were at home. He is gonna be on the road this time. His other road, he's only been on the road one game, and he pretty much got shelled in that game. He gave up eight earned runs on eight hits and five walks to Cincinnati in only four innings. So he didn't do well in his one road game. So let's hope that's not indicative of how he's gonna do on the road. So you wonder which mally we're gonna get. Hopefully, we get the Mally that threw darts against the Dodgers or the Mally that shut down the Phills earlier this year. In that game, let's see, no earned runs over five and two thirds. Only three hits he gave up. He did give up four walks. This is a little bit troubling. Sometimes he does give up a few too many walks. Six strikeouts in five and two-thirds, so that's pretty good. It was his best game, other than the Dodger game. For the Phillies, they have Jesus Luzardo on the mound, who is a 20-year-old, 28-year-old lefty. We did not face him when they were in town in April. He wasn't in the rotation at that point, or what not one of the three that we came up across. Now, let's see. You know, Giants can have trouble against lefties. He did just sign a big contract before this year, so they were expecting big things out of him. Let's see, for the last couple three years in 2022, he got traded from the A's to Miami and pitched 18 games, was a 3.32 ERA, which is very good. Then he got traded to Philadelphia after that for and had a complete season there, 32 games, 3.58 ERA, which is good, good, good. You gotta be happy with that. He must have gotten injured because in 2024 he only pitched in 12 games and had a 5.0 ERA, so that's not good. He actually, boy, that's a pretty bad regression backwards. But then last year, back to a full season, 32 games and a 392 ERA, so much better. Seems to be back at it last year with respectable numbers all the way around, which is why it's surprising this year when you look at his numbers because they have been not very good. He's been in five games so far for Philly, kind of like Maui. He's had two good games and three bad games. Strangely enough for him, both of his good games were on the road. The very first game of the year he pitched on the road against Colorado and gave up only one run in six and two thirds. And then his last game was at Chicago against the Cubs, and he gave up one run in four and two-thirds. Now, his other three games were not good. Six runs in six, five runs in four and two-thirds, and eight runs in five and a third. So not very good at all. Let's see, when he's had his bad games, he's had a lot of walks, so that's kind of been a struggle for him. Also, he had a high strikeout rate his first three games, seven, eleven, and eight, but it's really dropped off the last two. It's been only four and three. That last game against the Cubs was a good one. But even in that last game, which was a good one for him, he gave up five hits and four walks. He only gave up one run, but usually you give up five hits and four walks, and that was only in four and two-thirds, because it took him a hundred pitches to get through four and two-thirds, and then five hits and four walks and four and two-thirds usually translates into more than one run. So he got kind of lucky to only give up the one run. Now, given all those games, his ERA this year is 7.94, which is absolutely terrible. But if you look at his field independent pitching, that's only 294, and his expected ERA is 359. So obviously, he's been getting really unlucky. His defense must not be good behind him so far. So I'm not sure you can count on a 794 ERA. But if you look at, I mean, he's been getting up a lot of contact, and I don't know if you can count on a 3-4 a 3.59 expected ERE ERA either. So my prediction for the game is now everyone is projecting Luzardo to be good and to get back and have a regression to the mean and all that kind of thing. But I think the Giants are gonna be just fine in this game. I could see Mali pitching just as well or better than Lazardo. Both bullpins are fresh, but I think that's still gonna be in the Giants' favor. So let's take all that and get right to today's safe bet of the day. And last night when I was thinking what what numbers am I gonna look for this morning, I had written down, I'm gonna look at the Giants money line because if it's even anything good, I would love that one because I think the Giants are gonna take this game. I also have Mali strikeouts at four. If it's anything around four and a half, I was I like that one. Or Luzardo, 18 outs, I would take the under. And then when I got up this morning, Mali's strikeout was four and a half at minus 120. So I like that one. And Lozardo's outs was 18 outs. He's only gone more than 18 outs one time out of his five games so far this year, but that's minus 122. I kind of like that one. Now, obviously, the books must be thinking that the Philos are gonna win this one handily because the money line is plus 147. I love that. I can't believe, I mean, I love the Giants in this game, and I can't believe it's plus 147. Now, given that there was 147, I'm not sure if that's the safest bet. But the other one that I like the most that I'm gonna take is a little bit safer than that, and that is Philadelphia under four and a half runs. I was surprised. I thought it would have been three and a half runs, but they must think that their offense is gonna be able to score off a Mally. And I don't think so. I mean, just because he's had a couple of games where he gave up where he didn't look good, but in general, he's not been that bad this year. So I love Philly under four and a half runs. It is minus 125. Again, it's kind of juicy, but it's safer the other day when I gave out the two bets. I said the Giants money line is the safe bet, but I'm gonna take whatever the team to score first, even though it was plus money and it was less safe. And I should have just gone the other way around. So I'll do that today. I'll take the safe one, which is Philly under four and a half at minus one twelve, and leave the one, the other ones that I like. I love the money line at plus one forty seven. I like Mally's strikeouts over four and a half at minus one twenty, and I like Luzardo under 18 outs at minus 120. But we will have as the safe bet of the day today, Philadelphia under four and a half runs at minus 125. And that's gonna take me to today's song of the day, and it's gonna be something most of you have probably never heard. A real kickback to a movie I used to watch, or me and my ex used to watch with the kids all the time, called The Aristocats. And there's the best character in the whole movie is Thomas O'Malley the Alley Cat, and he's got a great song called O'Malley the Alley Cat. So we're gonna have that be the song of the day. Hopefully, you can find it. It's from the movie The Aristocats, it's gotta be way back in what, the 60s or the 70s. It's that old, it tells you how old I am. That kind of thing. So it's called O'Malley the Alley Cat. And I have a feeling it's probably a lot better if you watch the scene in the movie than just listen to the song on its own. I'm not quite sure. But he is the star of the show. He's got a great scene in there. Not as good as the scene with the butler on his little motorbike with getting chased around by the hound dogs. But anyway, go watch the movie. It's it's not the jungle book, but it's pretty good. Anyway, that'll be our song of the day. Oh, Malley, the alley cap from the movie The Aristocats. Join us tomorrow. It is Logan Webb on the mound against Christopher Sanchez, 340 again. Logan Webb did not face Philly when they were in town here, but we did face Christopher Sanchez. He did face the Giants. So we will talk about that last time we saw him, talk about the matchup in general. Recap today's game. Hopefully, all those picks come in. Analyze tomorrow's game, try to pick out another good safe bet of the day. With that, as usual, make sure and stay safe out there and go.