San Francisco Giants Morning Minute: June Not So Kind to Everyone

On this edition of the San Francisco Giants Morning Minute, we discuss a couple of guys who have really struggled through June.

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Good morning, San Francisco Giants’ fans, and welcome to another edition of the Giants Morning Minute. On Monday, the Giants opened their four-game, home-and-home, Bay Bridge Series with the Oakland Athletics, dropping game one, 8-3. Rookie Daniel Mengden was spectacular en route to his first career win, while Jeff Samardzija took the loss to fall to 8-5.

The Los Angeles Dodgers salvaged the series finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates, taking one of their four games. They made a small dent in the National League West deficit, and are now seven games back.

Here’s what went on Monday.

1 – Jeff Samardzija with Another June Stinker

As a nice change of pace, the Giants are enjoying a very nice month of June. Samardzija, on the other hand, is going full-on “June swoon” mode. In his fifth start of the month, Samardzija gave up six runs in six innings, the third time in five starts he’s given up six runs, and watched his ERA balloon up to 3.91.

In the simplest way of thinking, Samardzija is still throwing a lot of strikes. 65.6 percent of his pitches this season have been strikes, and 60 of his 89 throws on Monday were strikes. The problem is that, lately, the amount of quality strikes he throws has gone way down.

Earlier in the season, Samardzija was hitting his targets with consistency, nailing the corners at whim, and overall, just looked like he was playing catch with Buster Posey out there. But that command has left him in his most recent starts. He’s no longer pounding the lower part of the strike zone, instead leaving an inordinate amount of pitches up. Despite him routinely hitting 95-plus in the velocity department, those pitches up and over the plate get crushed. That’s what big league hitters are paid to do.

Samardzija has also been hurt by his lack of a viable, consistent off-speed offering. Of his 89 pitches Monday, only 24 came in under 90 miles per hour, mostly a mix of his splitter and slider. He’s not changing speeds on the batter enough to keep them off balance, and hitters are able to sit on his fastball, which as mentioned before, are too often very hittable.

The Samardzija that dominated his way through April and May, the one that owned a 2.84 ERA and 1.092 WHIP when June came about, is still in there. He can still go out there and dominate, as he did against the Tampa Bay Rays on June 17th. But the coaching staff, and Dave Righetti in particular, have some work to do to bring that pitcher out again.

2 – Denard Span Should Get Some Rest

Earlier in June, the Giants basically needed their center fielder Denard Span to play just about every day. With Hunter Pence and Angel Pagan both injured, Span’s presence in the middle of the outfield was almost a necessity. But riding Span so hard, even while he dealt with his own sore neck, may have taken too much of a toll on the outfielder.