SBOD Update--Time To Hit The Gym

Still shocked that the Giants lost a game he attended, M recaps Wednesday's  game before moving on to tonight's against Pittsburg-- Ray back on the mound for the good guys facing Carmen Mlodzinski for the Pirates.  He switches gears and inserts today's song of the day, "Echoes of Velo" by the Slick Kruger's, earlier than usual so he can get to the SBOD update.  After a lengthy discussion of this seasons wagers and outcomes and the SBOD's record thus far, along with a reminder that it's all in fun, he finally is able to dig up today's Safe Bet of the Day™.  

Transcript

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San Francisco Giants pre game podcast. Preview previews, predictions, and predictions before every Giants game. Good morning and welcome back to the pod. It is Friday morning, May 8th. It looks like a beautiful sunny day out there in the Bay Area. Hopefully, just as nice where you are, although I see it's going to be cool by game time, so we'll see what it's going to be at that time. Just a little warning in advance: this is going to be a little bit longer of a podcast this morning because at the end I am going to give you a safe bed of the day update, kind of a lengthy transparency update on how it's gone so far this year. Before that, let's recap, I guess, getting to today. And there was a day off yesterday, so no game. And on Wednesday was another loss for the Giants. That was the game I was in attendance. Another beautiful Sunday day t-shirt weather out there, but the Giants lost five to one. I still can't believe it. I'm in shock. How can they have the nerve to lose a game that I was at? But I'll tell you this: they looked like they've looked. No offense, just the one run, three hits. Dever's the only run was Dever's home run, and it barely got over. But that tied it up at the time. And so there was a little bit of hope there after, I think that was the bottom of the fifth, but that didn't last long. And then it just got out of hand after that. The only good news was the safe bet of the day was canceled again because the Padres went with an opener and then brought on Waldron after. And since Waldron didn't start, the bet got canceled, at least for me. That's how it worked. Luckily, I had no runs in the first, which hit, so I had a little bit of a winning day other than the Giants losing. Yesterday then was a complete day off for the Giants, no traveling, etc. Hopefully they got rested up because today we have the Pirates coming in. And let's see, what is it about the Pirates? Pirates coming in. They just defeated the Diamondbacks yesterday, and that took their record to 21-17. They are in a little bit of a roll. They've won five of their last six. They swept Cincinnati and then took two out of three from Arizona. If you look at their hitting, they are in the top 10 in pretty much every hitting category. Their team batting average is 247, which is 10th. Their on base percentage is 333. That's seventh. The Giants are last in that category at 282. They have scored 181 runs, which is seventh in the league. Giants are last in that also at only 115. They haven't hit a lot of home runs. They're right in the middle of the league with 39. Giants are last in that category also. 23. It's starting to get to old. They are 14th and slugging at 387. Giants are 29th. Hey, we're not last at 355. So let's see. They also draw a lot of walks, which is something the Giants don't do. So pretty much better than the Giants in every offensive category. And so you would hope that maybe we'll get them in the pitching categories, right? Not so quick, because they are also better than the Giants in every pitching category. Their team ERA is 375. That's eighth in the league. Giants are 12th at 396, and they're all pretty much the same as that. Their team batting average or batting average against 219, which is third. Giants are 12th at 236. So you can see it's a little frustrating that they are better than the Giants in pitching and in offense. And that's not gonna bode well going into this series. And let's see, for the Pirates tonight, they are putting out a guy named Carmen, I guess it's Ludzinski. He's got an M at the front, Mladzinski. I'm not sure how he pronounces it. I don't know anything about this guy. I looked up, he's a 27-year-old righty. He was a first-round pick in 2020. He's only been in the bigs for three years, and most of that has been as a reliever, but he's been pretty good. In 23, let's see, he pitched in 35 games, only 36 innings. So he's coming in for one inning each time as a reliever, and he had 2.25 ERA, which is really good. And he had 34 strikeouts and 18 walks in those 36 innings. So almost one strikeout in an inning and one walk every two innings. So that's not too good for the walks. But the next year, 40 games more than so he had 35 to up to 40, and from 36 innings up to 50 innings. But his ERA went up to 338, so that's not as good. And he had 46 strikeouts again, so it's still almost won an inning, but his walks were down to 19, so he's gotten a little better at his walks. Well, then in 2024, I mean 2025, he was in 34 games, but this time he did some relief and some starters. He did actually 99 innings. His ERA went up again, 355 now. But and let's see, but his strikeouts stay the same. 89 and 99 innings, though, not bad, but his walks were down to 27 walks in 99 innings. So even though his ERA is creeping up each year, he's cut down on the walks per inning, and that leads us to this year, in which he has been a starter the entire year for seven games. Now his ERA has continued to climb. It's up to 476 now, which you would think, boy, that's not very good. He has just gotten worse every year. But that ERA was at 177 after his first four games because he had two shutouts, a five and a third inning shutout and a six inning shutout, and his strikeouts were way up. But then his last three games have not been very good. Let's see, five earned runs in four and a third, four earned runs in three and two-thirds, and five earned runs and five and two-thirds. And that sounds bad, but if you look at it really, his hits and his walks have stayed consistent through all of those games, the good ones and the bad ones. His runs went up. So in those first four games, he had scattered out his runs and his or his hits and his walks, but in the last three, the teams were able to bunch him up and score some runs on him. But really, it's a little deceiving because he had the same amount of base runners in almost all of those games. So I'm not so sure the Giants are the team that can bunch up hits and walks because we don't take walks. And so I don't know how we're gonna do against him. He's really a wild card. He tends to give up on average, you know, five hits and two walks for each game, a couple of runs, about six strikeouts. So that's kind of just how he's been in general. Now for the Giants, it's Robbie Ray on the mound, and you guys heard me rave about Robbie Ray all year. He's 295 ERA and has been very, very consistent. You can pretty much count on him to give up a couple runs, usually due to the long ball, he'll have a home run or a walk and a home run or something like that. He didn't walk anybody in his last outing, but usually he tends to walk too many guys, and he he has given up one or two runs almost every game, but usually only on like four hits and a couple walks because the long ball has hurt him. So that's oh, wait a minute. I was gonna say that's gonna take me to my game prediction, but I'm gonna mix it up a little bit today. Usually, this is where I would go to my game prediction in the safe bed of the day, but because I'm gonna save that till the end, I'm going to sneak in my song of the day right here. And for the song of the day, it is another one from Aiden. I talked to Aiden after the game on Wednesday, and he explained to me that because of his job, they're kind of in the middle of a huge project all the way through like August or September. So he's hardly been able to pay attention to the Giants, hasn't really watched too many games. So it's gonna be mostly me from here on out, except that I'm going to use a lot of his songs from his playlist as his contribution. And this is another song from one of his playlists. It's a song by a group called Slick Krugers, S-L-I-C-K, like Slick and Krugers, kind of like the grocery store, K-R-U-G-E-R-S. And the song is called Echoes of Velo, V-E-L-O, which I hope the Giants, which the Giants pitchers seem to be having lately, Echoes of VLO, but anyway, it's not anything about that. But it is a really good song, got a really nice, cool groove to it. So listen to Echoes of Velo by Slick Krugers, and then that is gonna take me to my safe bed of the day update. Okay, so here's where we are with the update. The Giants have had 37 games right now. They are 14 and 23, and we have had 37 picks because we put one out for every game. Now, out of those 37, eight of them have been pushes for one reason or another. We had two just straight-up pushes where we had like the over-under a seven and it came in seven and it was just a push. We had two times where there was a pitcher change, like on Wednesday, where they brought in an opener instead of the pitcher that was named as the starter. And when that happens, at least on mine, it gets canceled because the one pitcher has to be the starter. We had a couple where I was in Fresno and just wasn't able to do a podcast, so I just count those as a push because we didn't put one out there. And one where I went to the game and didn't have time between work and the game, and then one where we had the rain out. What was that against Washington? I think about a week and a half, two weeks ago, and everything was postponed till the next day, and the pictures were changed and the times were changed and all that. So we've had eight times where we've had what's called a push, a lot lately, especially. The rain out was recent, the the opener was recent. I was in Fresno recently, so we've had four or five of them just recently, but eight different times where we've had a push or something has happened where the bet hasn't gone through. And that leads us then with 29 games left that we've had results in. And in those 29 games, the safe bet of the day is 13 and 16, which I know does not sound very good because it's a losing record, but actually, I don't think it's not that bad considering the Giants' record of 14 and 23, and considering their offense and considering their general underperformance. You know, and at the beginning of the season, we can only start the season making bets on what the expectations are, and the expectations were high for the Giants. We thought they were gonna score a lot of runs, thought their offense was gonna be good, and that just hasn't lived up to reality. And also, if you remember, early, early on was when we had the six-game losing streak, and that really cost us because we've been trying to creep our way back ever since. We've made up ground, obviously. We're 13 and 16, so we're not six under. I don't know, and it seems like every time we get close to getting back to even, we get a couple more losses and fall back into the hole. But anyway, so at 13 and 16, it puts us about four and a half units behind because of the juice in some of those bets, which is actually manageable. And I have a feeling I, you know, I got uh confidence we'll be able to make that up. And here's the other thing I went back over the last 30 days and wrote down every bet I've made on the Giants games because a lot of times I do more than just the safe bet of the day. You can hear me sometimes say, Oh, I like this or I like that or something like that. And in the last 30 days, I have put down 98 bets on 26 games, 45 of them were losers for$301, 53 were winners for$296, so minus$5 after all of that in the last 30 days, which is not bad considering the Giants' record over the last 30 days, which means I've been able to kind of pluck out a few here and there, even when the Giants are losing games. Also, three times I only put a half a unit, insinuated that I don't really like this one today, you guys. And three times I only put half units down, all three of those lost. So I should have told you guys just hey, put down a half unit. Two times I put down two units on games, and both times those won. And a couple times I've even said something like, Boy, I really like this one today. And both times those came in. So maybe I should going forward, I should start telling people, hey, I don't like this one, maybe a half unit, maybe put two units on this. I would do it rarely, but maybe every now and then if I just feel bad about all the options or I feel very good about one, so I might start doing that. But overall, it's not as bad as it looks. I feel like we're still recovering from the six-game losing streak. And with the side bets and the half unit plays and the two unit plays, it's actually been pretty much even money. So just you know, hang in there and remember it's all in fun. If you're not betting responsibly, don't bet. If you get overly upset after a losing day, don't bet. If you don't enjoy your wins as much as you feel your losses, you shouldn't bet. This isn't for professional gamblers, it's for the 99.9% of us out there who are just having some fun. So, you know, for a few dollars here and there, it's been pretty cheap entertainment for five dollars for me for the last month. So hopefully you guys aren't losing too much money. Hopefully, you hopefully you're able to hear my tone of voice and know when I'm liking or not liking some. But I feel like we're now starting to know the giants a lot better. We have been improving, and I think we're gonna be able to creep our way back to even. That's the goal, anyway. So, anyway, that's the update on the safe bed of the day. I kind of want to just give you a long overview of how it's been going for the official calls and how I've been doing on my own, just as a way to show that there might be some changes going forward, but we'll kind of see. And then, so that's gonna take me to today's day, finally. And so far this morning I just looked at, and there are no numbers out for Ray yet. There's only two numbers out for this Carmen Ladzinski guy, and they're at both 160, so the pitchers are completely out. I don't really like the over-unders because I think this Ledzinski guy is a bit of a wild card. I don't know much about him. I'm not kind of I'm just not really sure what to make of him. Also, the first game of a series is always tough because I haven't seen the Pirates play all year. I like to take that first game and kind of just watch it, see how their lineup looks, see how they're pitching, see what the announcers are saying about them just to get some information, that kind of thing. So I'm not I don't like the over-unders because of the wild card of Ladzinski. There's nothing to do on the pitchers right now, so it leaves me with very few choices. The nerf is minus 145, that's too much. So the only couple I could come up with that I could live with are I kind of like Giants to score first, and just hopefully we could take advantage of this Ledzinski guy with Ray on the mound. Hopefully, Ray could keep him down for a couple, three, four innings, and maybe we can get to this guy. But the one I'm gonna go with is again based on Ray and Ladzinski, and I'm just gonna go with the Giants first five money line. It's minus 118. Just hoping that Robbie Ray can outpitch this guy, Carmen Ludzinski. You know, I given the I just want to take the bullpen out of it because Pittsburgh is such a good team right now, they're hitting so well. I'm a I'm not really there are no numbers for the out yet. So maybe later, if I look at the numbers, and there's some other ones I could come up with something. But what well with what's available right now, I'm gonna go with, like I said, the first five money line minus 118. And I think that's everything I have for today. I told you it was gonna be lengthy. I feel like I'm forgetting things. I probably am. What am I forgetting, you guys? I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I'll try to remember to put it in for tomorrow. If I am forgetting something, I apologize. With that, have a great Friday, keep it slow and safe out there, and go, Giants.