San Francisco Giants Morning Minute: Shark’s New Pitch, An Impressive Youngster

On this edition of the San Francisco Giants Morning Minute, we discuss Samardzija’s new pitch as he attempts to turn a corner, and a youngster impressing down in Triple-A.

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Good morning, San Francisco Giants’ fans, and welcome to another edition of the Giants Morning Minute. On Wednesday, the Giants earned a hard-fought 1-0 win to clinch their first series win of the post-All-Star break schedule against the Miami Marlins. They also clinched a season series victory against the Marlins, winning four of their six contests this year. Jeff Samardzija (10-8) was the winner, while David Phelps (5-6) took a tough-luck loss. Santiago Casilla closed the door for his 26th save of the year.

The Los Angeles Dodgers couldn’t complete a sweep against the Philadelphia Phillies, dropping the series finale, 6-2. After tying the Giants atop the National League West on Tuesday, they fall a game behind. Things are setting up to be hot and heavy down the stretch between these two.

Here’s what’s going on.

1 – An Equalizer for Samardzija?

With the Giants looking for their first series win of the second half on Wednesday, it was Jeff Samardzija’s turn in the rotation, and based on his past two-plus months, that was a risky proposition. In his previous 12 starts before Monday, Samardzija was pitching to a 6.30 ERA, 1.414 WHIP, and .285/.332/.549 opponent slash-line, and was giving up well over a home run per start.

Monday was a different Samardzija, a Samardzija that looked a lot closer to the one that owned a 2.54 ERA and 1.056 WHIP, and allowed just five home runs in his first 10 starts. This Samardzija had a new trick up his sleeve, and he worked it to perfection en route to shutting out the Marlins over 5.2 innings before handing the reins to the bullpen.

In his first 21 starts of the season, Samardzija rarely threw a curveball, showing just 46 of them among his first 2,097 pitches of the season (according to BrooksBaseball). But last Friday against the Washington Nationals, he began to break it out at a higher rate. He threw 108 pitches that day, 25 of which were curveballs. And it was effective, as Samardzija got seven outs with the pitch, including three of his five strikeouts.

He brought it back to the party against the Marlins, and used it beautifully. Samardzija used it to steal strike one, going off-speed when hitters are sitting fastball. He used it to keep hitters off-balance, throwing it in fastball counts to keep the batter from timing it right. He threw it in just about any count (even doing so in a full count to Marcell Ozuna in the sixth, despite missing inside with it), a bold move considering he is just now beginning to throw it on a consistent basis.

The curveball mainly sits between 77 and 80 miles per hour, giving Samardzija a true off-speed offering for the first time as a Giant. The 15 to 20-mile an hour difference from his best fastball may be just what Samardzija needs moving forward.

In the past, hitters have been able to sit on the hard fastball from Samardzija, whether it’s his cutter, two-seamer, or straight four-seamer. Even the slider he features is hard, sitting in the upper 80’s most of the time. Hitters could look fastball and lock in, knowing that even if they get a slider, the velocity is not a huge step down from the fastball.

This new pitch, the big, slow curveball, is a true change-of-pace pitch. Hitters can’t get too comfortable looking fastball, because when a curveball comes in at 78 miles per hour, it will take the hitter’s lower body out of the swing. It might just turn out to be Samardzija’s equalizer.

But it’s not just the curveball for Samardzija. His control of the strike zone (despite how bad the zone was in this game, and the entire series, for that matter) with the fastball was paramount. Like early-season Samardzija, he pounded the lower-part of the zone, forcing a lot of weak groundballs off hitter’s bat and relying on his defense to make plays behind him. He didn’t leave fastballs over the middle of the plate where hitters can sit dead red and crush it.

It was just a few days ago (last Friday, to be exact) when Samardzija would have needed to be almost perfect to keep the Giants in a tight game as the offense struggled to plate a single run. He couldn’t do so, and the Giants lost 5-1. Monday was a different story, as Samardzija again received one run of support (thanks to Brandon Crawford‘s solo home run in the fourth inning), but made it stand with plenty of help from his relievers. His first scoreless start as a Giant paved the way for a much-needed win.

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This game was a big step forward for Samardzija, but he has to build on it now. He has to take what he did in this start (mixing speeds, locating well, and not letting innings snowball when things aren’t going his way) and do more of it as the season goes on. With the Dodgers breathing down the Giants’ neck, every game is critical from here on out, and Samardzija getting back into a positive groove is a huge boost.

2 – Minor League Report

Speaking of starting pitchers and positive momentum, Giants’ prospect Ty Blach has a lot of good things going for him. On Monday, the 25-year-old left-hander fired his second complete-game shutout of the season, holding the Tacoma Rainiers to two hits and two walks while striking out seven, leading the River Cats to a 2-0 win.

After a fairly rough start to the season, Blach has dominated the Pacific Coast League over the past month-and-a-half. In his last eight starts, Blach owns a 7-1 record with a 1.40 ERA, 0.844 WHIP, and is holding opponents to a .207/.228/.251 slash-line. As a testament to his fantastic control, he has walked just seven batters in 58 innings over that span (1.1 per nine innings), and is throwing 71 percent of his pitches for strikes.

Blach appears quite frequently on the PCL’s pitching leaderboards. He leads the league with three complete games and 144.2 innings pitched, is tied for the lead with two shutouts, is third with a 1.127 WHIP and 8.2 hits allowed per nine innings, and is fifth with a 3.36 ERA.

Next: Giants Morning Minute: It's a Brand New Ballgame

And that will do it for this edition of the Giants Morning Minute. Up next, the Giants will have an off day at home before starting a three-game series with the Baltimore Orioles, who are fighting with the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox in a tough American League East. Game one will feature Matt Cain, who is working on a 10-inning shutout streak, against rookie Dylan Bundy, who has been fantastic for the Orioles since moving from the bullpen to the rotation.