Giants Offense: We Don't Get Weekends Off?

So Timmy has finally met his match. Fortunately (at least for the time being), the Giants will face Marcus Thames every three years or so.

But despite Thames's two bombs (which increased Lincecum's home runs allowed for the year by 40%) and a season-high four runs allowed, the Giants bail Timmy out and, after losing their past six in interleague play, get an elusive triumph over the Junior Circuit.

As many AL fans have found out, the Tigers, for all their offense and decent starting pitching, have been largely done in by their 28th ranked bullpen.

As Freddy Dolsi (yes, the Freddy Dolsi) and Fernando Rodney coughed up what was a solid performance by Detroit fireballer Justin Verlander, I could only hope and pray that Brian Sabean had used his rotund frame to corner Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski and convince him that Tyler Walker had some combination of traits that included "upside," "track record," and "big-boned."

Props to Freddy for another solid game with the homer and three RBIs. And, of course, big ups to Bam Bam Bowker.

Speaking of, in watching Bowker these past few weeks, I've been curious as to why his line (.269, 6 HR, 25 RBI) seemed just a bit low to me, considering how well he's stroked the ball for the better part of a month now.

Luckily, over at the absolutely fantastic blog Bay City Ball, Chris looked into this notion using things like numbers. He originally wrote this piece a week ago, when Bowker was sub-.250:

To figure this out I checked John Bowker’s FanGraphs stats page and noticed something, he’s hitting a bunch of line drives. In 154 PA’s this year, Bowker’s LD% is at 26.4% which is very solid. Check out the leaders in the National League for LD%.

(Snip)

Of course, 150 PA’s is a small-ish sample size but John Bowker is hitting line drives on par with Chipper Jones. Why are line drives such a good thing? Because of the three types of contact a hitter can make — groundball, flyball, and line drive — the line drive is the best type because they fall for hits 75% of the time. Hitters that hit a bunch of line drives tend to have high averages and good seasons.

(Snip)

To answer my question, yes, John Bowker has been a little unlucky this year. He’s hitting a ton of line drives and that’s always a good thing for hitters. If he can keep his LD% fairly high, you should start to see his overall numbers improve. Hopefully the Giants will keep sending him out there because he’s squaring up nicely on some balls right now. Keep an eye on Bowker.

Today, Chris writes:

A little over a week ago I wrote a post trying to answer the question of, has John Bowker been unlucky so far this year? The basis of my argument was that he’s hitting a ton of line drives and his BABIP was very low for someone that’s hitting line drives almost a quarter of the time. When I made the post, Bowker was hitting (.248/.299/.411) with a BABIP of .280. A week later, his line has improved to (.273/.320/.460) with a BABIP of .314.

What’s the difference between this week and last? Nothing. Bowker is still hitting line drives at a great rate but the difference is that they are going for hits. Line drives fall for hits 75% of the time and Bowker was running into a little bit of bad luck previously. I love this quote from him in the recap from SFGiants.com on his approach.

“It’s a big park, but you can’t let it mess with you,” Bowker said. “You have to hit line drives. Line drives are still hits.”

The Giants need to keep playing Bowker at first base against righties. I even wouldn’t mind seeing the Giants give Bowker some AB’s against left handed pitching, either. Great game from Bowker and it was good to see him have some good luck. His first two hits on the night were line drives that he stung.

Yes, Chris is good.

- In today's piece, he also opines that now that Willie Randolph and Rick Peterson, among others, have been mercifully canned, there is little reason to the Giants to try and nab Peterson to simply fix Zito. Zito, he says, is not the same pitcher he was in Oakland.

I agree wholeheartedly. But, like I said on Friday, I'd pick Peterson up because he's a good pitching coach and would probably improve our staff as a whole. The fact that he may be the only guy who has the ability to help Zito is icing on the cake.

- Although Brian Wilson surrendered two runs in a laborious ninth, it was strangely reassuring to me: Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera, arguably the two best closers of all time, are historically worse in non-save situations. And Brian seems to be following suit.

Now, I can hear many of you saying: "Well, Brian Wilson ain't Trevor Hoffman or Mariano Rivera."

My response is: "Well, that may be true, but your parents never loved you."

Thanks and come again soon!