scheduled tribe. Lewis–The Giants knew they wouldn’t be a fast team this season. They tried to add athleticism in free agency and open up doors for younger players to win jobs, but you can only make so much change in one winter, and when Jung Hoo Lee got injured, they lost their biggest one. Communication of speed.
They didn’t expect the speed differential with their opponents to be so large on a daily basis, especially because they were building around a young catcher who might already be the game’s best defender behind the plate.
The St. Louis Cardinals continued a worrying trend and stole four bases in their victory over San Francisco on Sunday. It was the third time on a 1–5 road trip that the Giants allowed opposing runners to steal at least three bases. He himself has done so only twice all season.
Through 78 games, San Francisco has allowed an MLB-leading 86 stolen bases, and the momentum is going in the wrong direction. Their pitchers have done a poor job of holding runners down all season, and it didn’t take long for the opposition to figure this out and start punishing them.
In June, baserunners have attempted to steal 26 bases from the Giants. He’s only been caught once, a completely unacceptable rate no matter who’s behind the plate, but especially when you have a catcher like Bailey.
“We’ve got to be better about that, and I’m a part of that as far as throwing it and throwing slide steps,” manager Bob Melvin said Sunday. “You have to balance the enormity of a particular pitch versus whether you want someone to be a little faster. There’s a lot of that, but we definitely have to be better about it. That’s one of our shortcomings this year, for sure. ”
This is something that is costing them dearly at a time when they have other flaws that will be very difficult to fix.
The Cardinals stole three bases in the first two innings Sunday and took a 4-0 lead. Alec Burleson had his biggest jump of the year in the first and swiped second without a throw, sending him home on a ground rule double later in the inning. In the second, Cardinals catcher Pedro Paiges stole his first career base and walked two batters later on Burleson’s two-out single to center. Burleson immediately took second and stole it with ease.
Paige’s steal led directly to a run that otherwise would not have been scored. It hurt when the Giants cut the deficit to 4-3 in the top of the eighth.
Logan Webb has always had trouble catching runners and it’s something he’s worked on all spring, but he reiterated Sunday afternoon that he’s “got to get better at it.” Webb said he just got into a rhythm and started taking off before St. Louis even started his delivery.
He said, “I let a catcher steal today.” “It’s absolutely bad. Not good.”
The problem is almost universal for the staff, which ranks 28th in Baseball Savant’s metric of how well pitchers prevent runners from taking extra bases. Late-inning right-handers Camilo Doval and Ryan Walker have allowed a combined 13 steals in as many attempts. Runners are perfect on nine attempts against Blake Snell and eight against Jordan Hicks, who was hurt twice on Saturday.
The two runners who stole on Hicks came into the game with five combined stolen bases. Both received heavy tosses, and Melvin noted that the Cardinals may have had some influence on Hicks’ delivery.
“Teams are getting a lot of information now that maybe just a slight nudge or something like that turns a 1.3 (at the plate) guy into a 1.6,” he said. “With the two guys that ran (Saturday), I think it was more that they had something on him that made them feel like they could attack him early, and they attacked him early.”
It was a long and quiet flight home from San Francisco on Sunday to find some solutions. They have only 25 stolen bases of their own, eight fewer than the next closest team, and as the season has begun to wind down, it has at times felt as if their competitors in the wild card race are literally running away from them. Are.
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