What You Need To Know: Eddie Butler was just a little better than Jeff Samardzija, only giving up one run while Shark gave up three solo homers on a day when both teams definitely had a plane to California to catch. From there Mike Montgomery got the old school save, pitching the last four innings on just 41 pitches. That’s how you head to L.A. Well, I head to L.A. slightly differently, but that’s not why you called.
Next Level: In fairness to Shark, Butler wasn’t actually better than him today on a few levels. Butler was hit really hard, and only struck out one guy. Butler only got five whiffs in total as well. But most of the loud contact was right at someone, with Bryant, Happ, Zobrist all having to make tough plays to get outs. He was just luckier.
Butler didn’t have the problems with walks like his last outing, thank god, but he still didn’t seem to have the best command. Butler gets a lot of run on his cutter and even his sinker/four-seam, but instead of it diving toward the nether regions of the zone to below, it starts out higher and kind of dives right into the hitting zone. On television it looks like it has a hump to its path instead of just a straight dive. When he can drive it inside at the ankles of righties, which he did to Buster Posey once, he can be pretty effective because it starts in the zone. He doesn’t seem to have a pitch that would do the same to lefties, which is what Hendricks figured out in year two. That’s why the Giants’ lefties accounted for seven line-drives today in just five innings, or nine ABs. It’s just that six of them resulted in outs.
-Meanwhile it’s easy to see why Shark has been highly effective this year. He’s got a much more controlled motion which has clearly helped his control, and is featuring a curveball I don’t remember him having here in Chicago. Both Heyward’s and Bryant’s homers were wall scrapers, illustrating the difference in luck today.
-Speaking of Heyward, while I certainly appreciate the better numbers and exit velocity and all that, I won’t drop my guard until I saw him turning on fastballs and good ones. Well looky here boys! J-Hey took a 94 MPH fastball that was up in the zone and crushed it. When this starts happening on the reg, you can find me on the dance floor.
-So here’s the thing, and you know this is coming. It’s clear that Montgomery is better than Eddie Butler. It’s clear that he’s better than Brett Anderson. So you know the rabble are going to call for him to be in the rotation soon. But I’m guessing that Immortan Joe Maddon just finds him too valuable out of the pen. He’s the only guy who can give multiple innings to hitters on both sides of the plate right now. And that will be even more valuable come October, if you’ll allow me to put all the horses before all the carts. Today saves the rest of the pen for what will probably be a tough series in Chavez Ravine, and that’s not to be discounted.
-Boy this Giants thing… And I don’t think the return of the corpse of UnderPants (Hunter Pence) is going to do much for them.
Top WPA Play: Heyward’s homer in the 5th that put the Cubs up two runs. Look where this pitch as located:
Good stuff. (+.145)
Bottom WPA Play: Belt’s double in the first that scored the only Giants run of the game, in an inning where the Giants hit every ball at 254 MPH. (-.070)
Today’s wrap brought to you by The Clash’s self-titled album. Onwards…
Lead photo courtesy David Banks—USA Today Sports
How often do you need Monty out of the pen though if you don’t have Butler/Anderson? probably not much and Duensing + retooled Grimm (or give Rosario or Cease a shot if Rob Z hasn’t fixed himself yet).
I understand extra innings, but since you are only getting4-5 out of Butler/Anderson and 3+ from Monty – you are burning 2 pitchers for 5 and 3+ days instead of normal rotation and 1 long relief occasionally. I don’t see the math to keep covering for guys who can’t consistently eat innings, especially since it seems all but (possibly) Lackey are back on track.