Giants Ailing, TB Test Today

Giants lose, another shutout, give Ray no help. (At least the SBOD hit.) After a quick recap of last night, M does a brief analysis of tonight's matchup between one of his favorite Giants pitchers facing an opener and a long reliever.  That leads to a game prediction and today's Safe Bet of the Day™, which was limited because of the Rays pitching situation.  He then has to apologize for misnaming yesterday's song of the day, was supposed to be Whiskey River not Whiskey Fever.  Calling a song the wrong name is no good, which is the title of today's song of the day, "No Good" by Kaleo.  No pod tomorrow because M is away for the weekend.  Enjoy yours.  Go Giants.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Giants free game podcast. Preview previews, free gift, and free 54 every giant game. Good morning and welcome back into the pod. It is Saturday morning, May 2nd, and we are coming to you again after another Giants loss. That's kind of getting to be old news. That is four in a row now. Seven shutouts for the Giants this year. They lead all of baseball in that category, which is not a good category to lead in. Just an ugly game for him again. Terrible at the plate, no offense. At least the safe bet of the day hit, the no runs in the first, and that even looked kind of ugly with that Bunt single to start the very first pitch. Guy Buntsett gets on base, but then with the pick off, the strikeout on the grounder ended up getting out of that. So we got that for the win, which was good. Takes a little bit of the sting out of the Giants loss, I guess. Ray pitched fine. He did his part, he just did not get any help again. No offense, didn't get any help from the offense. Kind of this year's Verlander, I guess. He doesn't get any help. Although that could probably be the case for all of the pitchers. None of them are getting any help. So let's just move right on to today's game. And I said yesterday it was supposed to be Jesse Schultons, I guess is how you would pronounce that for Tampa Bay. But I see what they're gonna do actually is they're gonna have an opener called a guy named Griffin Jax, and then they're gonna bring in Shultons. He's kind of a long reliever. So the idea is that Griffin Jax comes in for one or just as long as they can whatever they can get out of him. He's been averaging around one. Sometimes he's gone a little more, a little bit less. And then they bring in Shultons as a long reliever to try to go four or five innings. Now, Schultons, he's he's an older guy, he's 32 years old, righty, but even though he's that old, he's only been in the big leagues for three years, or only had some experience in the bigs for three years. In 2023, he was with the White Sox, pitched 26 games, like a whole full season, but he was one and nine with a 5.29 ERA, so not very good. It had a low strikeout rate, kind of an average walk rate, but his whip was 1.53, so not very good. Then in 2024, he was out with Tommy John surgery, and then he was traded. No, maybe not. I can't remember if that was when he was traded. No, no, no. Then in 25, after Tommy John, he was mostly in triple A. He came up for a couple games of long relief, had a 5.40 ERA, and then after last year, he was DFA'd, and then that's when Tampa Bay picked him up. And so this year he's been in four games, mostly the long relief, a little bit of triple A, and then up for long relief. He's been doing much better, 3.20 ERA, but most of that is because his first two games he did really well. He gave up no runs in four and two-thirds, and then no runs in five. But the last two games have been more like his old self. He gave up five runs in five and two-thirds, and then two runs in only four and a third. See, more base runners in the last two games than those first two. So even though he's been pretty sharp with the rays overall, his last couple games were not as good as his first two. So he's kind of a wild card. I'm not really sure what to make of him, but I do like the Giants' chances against him. He's certainly not an ace, not some young, hard throwing, you know, fastballer type of guy. So I like our chances against him today. And he is going up against Landon Roop, and you know, he's kind of like Ray. I've been speaking highly of him all year. He is at a 255 ERA right now. He has still only had the one bad game. He's got a high strikeout rate, low walks, very few base runners allowed. It's pretty hard to bet against him right now, even though all pitchers have bad outings. At some point, you just have to figure that he can outpitch Griffin Jacks and Jesse Schultons, especially after that one bad pitch cost him three runs that last time out. It seemed like he was pretty upset about that. And I figure he's gonna be locked in today. So, my kind of the way I feel the game is gonna go. I think the Giants should be able to get some runs off of this old Righty's 32-year-old, 32 years old coming off Tommy John. He can't be that good. And the Giants have had a day to recover from the doubleheader and the travel, they should be a little more ready today. So I'm kind of unsure of the full game because of the bullpen uncertainty. We you we've still used a lot of our bullpen, but I do feel good about Landon Roop outpitching Jesse Schultons and Griffin Jacks through the first five. So I'm gonna take that, and that's gonna lead me to today's safe vet of the day. And like I said, we hit yesterday's the no run in the first. I looked today. I was thinking about going back to it again today because you know, just go back to the well, but I'm not so sure. It's actually even higher, minus 139 or 140. And I mean, I think the Giants might score off this guy, Griffin Jacks. He's been he either has a good game or a bad game. So there's a good chance we could score off him in the first. That's what I'm hoping. So there weren't that many lines out or numbers out because of Schultons being the long reliever and not the starter. I was thinking I had made some notes, I was gonna look at his under outs, as we're gonna look at his strikeouts, but none of those are out. I'm guessing because he's not starting. And the roop numbers are just unplayable. The numbers are again 150 on his strikeout rate, his earned runs was like 170. All of his numbers are way, way too high, juicy. So, what I'm gonna go with is like I said, I think that Roop is gonna be able to outpitch Jackson Shultons through the first five. So I'm gonna focus on the first five, and the first five under is four, but I'm not so sure. I kind of think the Giants might score off those two guys. So I'm gonna go with Giants first five money line. It's even money at minus 110. And I'm just I really do like Roop's chances against the opener and the long reliever for Tampa Bay. If there's I don't know, it just seems like a setup where we should be able to at least be even or ahead after five. And so the Giants money line would be a push if we stayed even, but I have a feeling I'm just hoping we're we'll take the lead on them and actually hit that one. So I'm gonna take that as today's safe bet of the day. Giants first five money line at minus 110. And that will take me to today's song of the day, and I need to apologize because yesterday I said the name of the song was Whiskey Fever, and it is actually Whiskey River. I must have been in a whiskey fever when I was given that song out. I wish I had that excuse. Actually, I was completely sober, so I don't know. I guess it's easy to make that mix up whiskey fever, whiskey river, but it's actually whiskey river. If you weren't able to find a song called Whiskey Fever, look up Whiskey River by Zach Bryant. It's a good one. And then so for today's song, this is another guy that Aiden turned me on to, a guy named Kaleo. It's K-A-L-E-O, and the song I'm gonna give you is called No Good. Kind of like the Giants four game losing streak is no good, but it is a great song. Kind of a what would you call it? The guitar riff is kind of a standard guitar riff, but man, the guy has a voice that is unbelievable. If you haven't heard much Kaleo, go ahead and listen to some other songs of his. But this is one of my favorites, it's called No Good. Hopefully, you will like that one. And tomorrow, there will not be a pod again tomorrow because I'm gonna be out of town heading to the big town of Fresno, the Jewel of the Central Valley, and I see it's supposed to be like 90 degrees there, so it's gonna be a nice toasty one in Fresno. I see the pitchers tomorrow are Tyler Malley for the Giants and Steven Matz for Tampa Bay. And you remember last time it was Tyler Malley, the Malle cat, and he didn't do too well. He got declawed. And so I don't have too much faith about his game. And Steven Matz is boy, he's a well-traveled, wily, 34-year-old lefty who is now with Tampa Bay. I don't really have much. I think if the numbers are good for the over-under, I would lean toward the over if it's seven, seven and a half, because Mally and Matz, I would hope, I don't know. I used to say hope Mally was gonna give up some runs. I hope that's not the case. But if anybody from the Giants is gonna give up runs, it's gonna be Mally. And Matt's, I think the Giants should be able to get to. So if there is gonna be an over, it would probably be tomorrow's game. So we'll see what that number is tomorrow. Back on Monday against the Padres, and hopefully on Monday, I will have a full safe bet of the day update. At that point, it's been a little while. I was trying to get to whatever the next I think we did it at 20 or 22 games, so this will be 30, 32, something like that. So hopefully, I have a full safe bet of the day update. I will have a new song. We will have a couple of wins by the Giants to talk about, right? That's what we're gonna hope for. So, anyway, have a great weekend, have a safe weekend, and let's have a victorious Giants weekend. So, go Giants.