{"id":59471,"date":"2023-07-14T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T16:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=59471"},"modified":"2023-07-14T14:13:13","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T18:13:13","slug":"second-half-sf-giants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/07\/14\/second-half-sf-giants\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Half Takeaways and Situations for the Giants"},"content":{"rendered":"

The All-Star break is over, the second half of the season is here, and the\u00a0<\/span>San Francisco Giants<\/span><\/a>\u00a0must start on a strong note. If they can play over .500 baseball, they are about to plunge into the final stages of the National League playoff race. This is the part of the season when things get intense. We’ll know in weeks which teams will be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline. Right now, as things stand, San Francisco occupies third place in the NL West.<\/span><\/p>\n

[metabet_core_odds_compare query=”bbm\/san_francisco_giants” size=”350×300″ site_id=”lastwordonsports”]<\/p>\n

Thoughts About the Giants Second Half\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

The Giants Situation After Their Four-Day Rest<\/span><\/h3>\n

Hopefully, the All-Star Break has given the Giants hitters a chance to recuperate and return to their former intensity level. Surviving without\u00a0<\/span>Thairo Estrada\u00a0will be a task. But it shouldn’t be impossible, given the Giants well-rounded hitting ability. And\u00a0J.D. Davis,\u00a0Patrick Bailey, and\u00a0Joc Pederson\u00a0are still producing highly productive overall numbers.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the Giants were fortunate enough to win with only one run since\u00a0Logan Webb\u00a0was lights-out. Surprisingly, Webb won’t be starting the Giants second half on Friday.\u00a0Ross Stripling\u00a0will take the mound for at least a couple of innings. Stripling’s 6.37 ERA is disastrous, nothing near Webb’s dominance. With a four-day gap between Friday and Sunday, Webb would have been starting on regular rest. The Giants may want to give him an extra day of rest before his next start. But frankly, they’d be hard-pressed to prove this is a better option than giving Webb every start he can get.<\/p>\n

Zooming in On the Pitching Concern<\/span><\/h3>\n

It isn’t fair to call pitching a concern when the Giants sent two pitchers to the All-Star game. And it could be argued that Webb should have joined\u00a0<\/span>Alex Cobb\u00a0and\u00a0Camilo Doval\u00a0in the midsummer classic. There’s also a case for\u00a0Tyler Rogers, given that his ERA is lower than Doval’s. Doval has a much higher strikeout rate but a walk rate nearly twice as high as Rogers’. These last two statistics reflect that the two pitchers have different styles.<\/p>\n

Doval is a power pitcher, and Rogers is a control pitcher. Strengths and weaknesses thus exist for both. The failure to select Rogers for the All-Star game probably reflects baseball’s longstanding mistreatment of non-closer relief pitchers.<\/span><\/p>\n

We see that the Giants do possess some good pitching. But Stripling,\u00a0<\/span>Sean Manaea,\u00a0Alex Wood, and\u00a0Anthony DeSclafani\u00a0have all disappointed.\u00a0Jakob Junis\u00a0has also underperformed, although he did have a massive save against the\u00a0Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>. A reinforcing move by the Giants would be a good thing. The Dodgers are already looking at\u00a0Lucas Giolito. The Giants had better give them some competition on him.<\/p>\n

The rotation is of more significant concern than the bullpen at present. The Giants are better equipped to leverage their quality back-end bullpen talent to produce positive results than to keep throwing everybody in on days when they don’t have a trustworthy traditional starter.<\/span><\/p>\n

That said, they should still keep their eyes open for bullpen reinforcements for the second half. The pitching, in general, is talent-equipped up to a point, but a gap must be filled one way or another for the second half of the season.<\/span><\/p>\n

When to Call Up Kyle Harrison<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Farhan Zaidi said Giants still expect Kyle Harrison to pitch in big leagues at some point this season. They\u2019re still assessing his hamstring injury, but he\u2019ll be down at least a few weeks.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) July 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n