Tonight’s contest presents an opportunity to continue a 2017 wave with Matt Cain on the mound in Atlanta.
Just short of 3 weeks ago, David Malinsky wrote in his daily column of the demise of Cain and mostly his blatantly poor road record. Click here to read David Malinsky on Matt Cain. Since then he has done very little to dispel the notion that Cain represents a great road fade for 2017. His season numbers read:
W/L ERA FIP WHIP K-BB %
Home 3-2 2.77 3.62 1.36 9.80%
Away 0-4 7.46 6.04 2.06 -0.012%
Cain struggles on the Road. His rank among pitchers on the road this season is (FIP) #91 of 101, and (ERA) #95 of 100.
David’s Point Blank column spoke that Cain did not need to pitch around batters at cavernous AT&T Park. Many well-hit balls would be swallowed up that present run opportunities in other venues. Cain’s 2017 O-Swing% of 23% ranks #80 out of 81 pitchers with at least 70 innings this season. O-Swing measures the pitcher’s ability to coax the batter to chase a ball out of the strike zone. Clearly, Cain lacks this strength. In a park like AT&T (#30 in HR’s) he can get away with this weakness, but the road is a completely different matter.
Now lets look at Jaime Garcia from a similar lens.
ERA FIP WHIP K-BB %
Home 3.63 3.39 1.18 17.6%
Away 3.56 4.61 1.31 2.0%
Equally detectable, outside of K-BB%, Garcia is consistent as well and accomplished both at home and on the road. In fact, his rank among pitchers at home this season is #25 of 101 in FIP and #50 of 100 in ERA. He led the Braves to a 2-0 win over the Giants in SF on May 26, 5 starts ago, coincidentally Matt Cain took the loss in that contest. The Giants struggled in that game for 4 hits over 6 2/3 innings. Actually, the Giants have struggled season-long against LHP.
BABIP OBP OPS Raw Offense
.292 .307 .673 3.3
Additionally, take a look at Garcia’s 30-day trending statistics compared to his career.
ERA FIP
Career 3.5 3.5
Trending 2017 2.9 3.1
The Giants return home tonight (crossing 3 time zones) to begin a 3-game set with the Mets at AT&T tomorrow. Might they approach the last road game of 8 in 8 days (currently 1-6) with a “let's get home attitude”?
Too many signals to ignore tonight in Atlanta.
- Cain on the Road.
- Garcia 2017 season
- Giants vs. LHP
- Getaway day for the Giants
We are laying the wood, with one full unit Braves ML (-144) over Giants (Cain/Garcia) and ½ unit on Braves RL -1.5 (135) over Giants.