In the Battle of Snubs, James McDonald reigned supreme. Winning his fourth straight victory, McDonald struck out 10 batters. Actually, embarrassed would be the more fitting verb. Giants hitters looked absolutely lost today, especially Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Belt.
McDonald clearly has the Giants number. Back on April 13th, McDonald’s two-out single in the sixth inning broke up Matt Cain’s otherwise perfect game. Cain didn’t allow another base-runner for the rest of that game.
But it’s not just the Giants who McDonald is tormenting. It’s the entire league.
For giggles, lets compare McDonald’s stats to Matt Cain’s.
| IP | K/9 | BB/9 | ERA | FIP | xFIP | |
| Cain | 120.1 | 8.83 | 1.80 | 2.62 | 3.13 | 3.55 |
| McDonald | 110.0 | 8.18 | 2.54 | 2.37 | 2.98 | 3.60 |
Despite the career year, it is really no surprise that McDonald was not selected to the All-Star Game. For one, he pitches for the Pittsburgh Pirates, playing for the people of Pennsylvania. Joey McMurry already explained why small market teams are at a disadvantage when it comes to All-Star games.
It is mostly unsurprising because McDonald was pretty bad last year. Unless they’re a knuckle-baller, one-year wonders don’t typically make the All-Star Game. Feel free to prove me wrong in the comments section.
Speaking of proving me wrong, commenter Adam did just that on the 4th of July. In my eagerness to construct a heat-related metaphor for Lincecum’s struggles, I overlooked one thing: Lincecum struggles are not heat induced.
What do these charts mean? Well, in Adam’s words, “there is practically no correlation between the temperature and his ERs or game score (an R squared of 0 means there is actually no correlation).”
Tomorrow, game-time temperatures are predicted to be in high 80s, low 90s. That’s not entirely too bad, but there is supposed to be 61% humidity. I’m sweating just thinking about that. We’ll see how Lincecum fairs.
Stolen BASGs
–The Giants’ new rotation will feature Lincecum between Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain, according to Alex Pavlovic. The order of the final two spots has not been decided yet.
–Hat tip to @GiantsNirvana for this tidbit. Scouts from several teams, the Giants included, were up in arms over Zach Greinke’s ejection from Saturday’s match up against Detroit.
Apparently, the Giants are in the market for a starting pitcher. Who knew? Even with Lincecum’s struggles, I though the rotation was etched in stone. It might not even matter, as Jon Heyman believes the Braves and Orioles are the favorites to land Grienke.
–Finally, since I ended yesterdays post-game notes with a cute video, I thought I’d continue the trend. This isn’t as cute as baby Pandas, but it’s Buster Posey, so…
