Roupp to Help Giants Climb Out of Hole

A quick recap of yet another Giant's loss (is there an echo in here), is followed by an attempt at staying positive and a look at our new opponents, the SD Padres, who seem to be eerily similar to the Giants in many ways.  An analysis of the pitching matchup between youngster Landon Roupp and oldster Walker Buehler (I admit I have no right calling a 31 year old an oldster) reveals that I have a good feeling about today's game.  We finish off with today's Safe Bet of the Day™ and a hearty Go Giants.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to throw the slides. Good morning and welcome back to Safe with AM and the AM, your San Francisco Giants pre-game podcast, bringing you previews, projections, and predictions before every Giants game. Good morning everyone. Welcome into the pod. It is Monday morning, March 30th. It is actually a beautiful day outside today in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, not so beautiful for the Giants on Saturday. Another frustrating loss. And our first safe bet of the day lost, which was equally frustrating. I will get into that later. Felt like we had the game pretty much nailed. Molly pitched really well. The Giants touched up Warren like we thought. They just could not bring in the runners. First and third early on with no outs, they get no runs. A strikeout and a double play. Later, they have first and second with no outs. They get again no runs. Another strikeout followed by a double play. They hit into four double plays today, which very frustrating. Usually we are on the other end of that. We seem to turn double plays more than we hit into them, but that was not good. We had a lot of other base runners. We had nine hits, three walks, just could not bring anybody around. The bullpen didn't look too bad. They only gave up the one run in five innings. They did give up five walks, which was a little concerning, but two hits, you know, held held them to one run, so that's not terrible. The defense wasn't that bad. Ramos throwing out Rice at home was a beautiful play. Cut him down, saved a run, stopped the the rally they had going. And then Arias had a really nice over-the-shoulder catch in shallow center. So the defense wasn't bad. The pitching wasn't bad. We just could not get any runs around. We just kind of look lost at the plate. Feels like they don't have a plan, like an idea, like a real solid approach. Anyway, frustrating game again. Four now, so let's put that behind us. It's a series against the Yanks. You know they're going to be World Series contenders. So let's put that behind us, move on. I'm not going to be too negative on the team because, like I said, to lose three games to a World Series contender in a hundred and six game season, that seems a little bit short-sighted. It's a long season. We're going to keep going back to those cliches. It is too early to really give up on the team. Yeah, obviously, especially if you're a fan. So let's get to this next series against the Padres, because I listened to a couple Padres podcasts, and I'm telling you, they sounded exactly like they could be Giants podcasts. You could have substituted the word Giants for Padres, and it would have been just like listening to somebody complaining about the Giants. They were complaining about the runners left in scoring position, complaining about all the squandered opportunities, complaining about some of the managerial and lineup decisions, the lack of offense. They have been really struggling also, offensively, also. They've left a lot of runners in scoring position. They've only scored two earned runs in each of their games. It's not like they're lighting it up. They gave up eight the first, five in the second game. They lost eight to two on opening day, just like we got shelled on opening day. Their ace, Pavetta, got pounded. So, in a lot of ways, they're saying their issues are the same as the Giants. Their bullpen was supposed to be really good, and it was the first and the third game, but then they blew it in the second game, gave up three straight walks to lose that game. So, uh, anyways, it's going to be fun to watch. It's like in many ways, we have two very even teams, two mirror image teams in a way. They're both struggling offensively. They both have questions about their pitching, both have a new coach this year. Both teams started the season against really tough opponents. We had the Yanks, they had the Tigers. So it should be a fun series to watch. And I guess with that said, let's get right to today's game. It is gonna be Roop versus Walker Bueller. And I guess I need to apologize. It was my mistake on Saturday. I think I said Hauser was going today, and I thought it was gonna be Hauser today and Roop tomorrow, but I was wrong. It's actually Roop today. And I saw that the Giants have scheduled Webb for tomorrow and Hauser the day after that. I guess it's because with the two days off with the funky start to the season, that they're going to skip Hauser and go right back to Webb, probably to keep him on his five-day rotation, to keep him on schedule. And I kind of like it. It means Webb is going to match up tomorrow against Hermon Marquez, who has just been terrible. So that's gonna be really good instead of having to face the ace. He usually has to face the other team's ace all the time. He rarely gets to face a team's fifth pitcher, and then that will put Hauser against Pavetta, which will be just interesting, and Ray against King. And I like those matchups pretty well. So anyway, it's gonna be Roop today, not Hauser. And most of you might know, I don't know. Roop, he's pretty young. I don't know if you remember much about him. He came up in 24. He only pitched in 23 games, mostly a reliever, just 50 innings, had a 3-5-8 ERA. He did pretty well. And then last year he was a starter in 22 games before he got injured. And in those 22 games, he ended up with a 3.80 ERA, but it was actually much better than it. He started out a little shaky. It was up to five right at the beginning of the year. And then throughout the year, he brought it down to 3.11, and that's when he got hurt. Right after the 3-1-1, he had two really bad outings, and that's when they put him on the I. Actually, his final outing last year, when they did figure out that he was hurt, was against San Diego. He only went two and a third innings, gave up five runs, and that's when they put him, pulled him in. He was on the I. L the next day. Before that, he was having a really good season. And like I said, he was below three for a lot of the season with his ERA. And so he's come back now. He was then he didn't come back after he didn't pitch at all the rest of the year after they pulled him after that San Diego game. But talking, um reading some of his interviews and watching him during spring pray spring training, he looks like he's fully healthy again. He looks sharp. Actually, his velocity has been up a tick on all of his pitches. So, you know, I got really good feel, I got high hopes for him, a good feeling about it. He is kind of a throwback, he kind of relies on his curveball, he has a really high spin rate on his curveball. And so that's going to be interesting to watch because sometimes it can take a game or two to get the groove for that curve. So we gotta hope that he is healthy and that because he looked so good in spring training that he will be able to find that groove. And if he does, I think he will be just fine today. He what he did pitch really when he was healthy last year, he looked good. Most of his games he had pretty good numbers for. He obviously had a few bad outings, but for the most part, he looked good last year when he was healthy. Now, Walker Bueller, on the other hand, he's 31 now, and I know it's a big name, and he used to be scary, and I can remember him pitching well against the Giants more than once. But he has not been well recently. In 2023, he went out with Tommy John, or he missed the whole season. In 2024, he came back, pitched in only 16 games for the Dodgers, and had a 5.38 ERA, which is not good. But you know, sometimes they say it takes that first year back after Tommy John. And so in 25, there were some high hopes for him. He got traded to Boston, and he did even worse. He pitched 23 games and had a 5.4-5 ERA. Up until the last at the very end of the season, he got traded to Philadelphia and pitched in two games for them and had two shutouts. So he he pitched 11 innings for Philadelphia and had a 0.66 ERA. But that was just a weird thing at the end of the year where he went over them, went over to them for the playoffs and pitched in two games, like I said, just 11 innings. So if you look at his numbers, he has a very low strikeout rate. He has an above-average walk rate. If you take out the couple games with the Phillies at the very end of last year, he did not look good at all. He was over five, like I said, 5'4 with Boston. He was a little better at the beginning of the year when he was fresh. So, you know, maybe he will come out a little bit better. But I think the Giants are going to be able to just touch him up, and they are due. They're overdue. I think they're going to be ready for a pitcher like Bueller, and I have just a good feeling about how they're going to hit today. Another thing about Bueller is he is only up with the team because Joe Musgrave is on the injury list. He was not even supposed to be on the team. It was doubtful he was going to make it. But then they have Musgrave and somebody else that they had a who was it? I can't remember the name, but they got someone else on IL also. So he will probably go back down when their pitching staff gets healthy. He did have a pretty decent spring. He pitched, let's see. I don't get the total innings. It was a 3.09 total ERA. And for his final spring outing, it was actually against the Giants. And he did shut them down. He pitched five innings. He didn't give up any runs, only three hits and two walks, and struck out seven on 77 pitches. But if you look at that lineup, it wasn't the spring training lineup. Half of the guys, if not more than half the guys, were not even on the team now. It was, I don't know, you know, all those, I can't remember the names now, those spring training guys that are not on the team anymore. So I don't put too much stock in that lineup that he faced during spring training. So given those two pitchers, my prediction for the game is that the Giants who are overdue are going to get to Bueller. Like I said, I think being on the road is really going to help them. Somehow there's, in a weird way, a little less pressure when you're pressing and the fans are pressing, and the fans are waiting, and it's kind of tense for everyone. They just look tense. Everyone looks tense. They need maybe getting on the road, they can settle a little bit, relax a little bit, and get into their groove. I think that's going to be in their favor to be on the road. I think Roop is going to do well. I think he is at least going to do better than Beeler. I think he should be able to outpitch Walker Beeler. So all of that together, that's going to take me to today's Safe Bet of the Day. And on the Safe Bet of the Day, we are 1-1-1 so far. One win, one loss, and one push. And the win was minus 105. So we're pretty much exactly even so far after a tough series with the Yanks. And feeling like we kind of got dogged on. But that's old news, right? Getting dogged, getting having a bad beat against you. Anyway, for today, my early leans, the first early liens I had were because of the pitching matchup, just the Giants money line to win. Although they are underdogs, it's plus 102. The Giants first five because I think Roop will outpitch Bueller. I like Giants over three and a half runs because I think they're going to finally get around to doing some scoring. And I was the other one was Walker Bueller over two and a half, giving up over two and a half runs. But the problem is that's a plus 125, and that's a that's kind of shaky. And the Giants over three and a half runs is minus 135, which is not good odds either. So what I'm gonna make for the safe play of the day, you probably have guessed it, and that is the Giants' first five money line is minus 117, because I really think that Roop should outpitch Bueller. I think the Giants are due to get some hits, and even if San Diego is also due to get some hits, I think we should be able to outscore Bueller. And I want to be able to leave the bullpins out because I'm still not sure of our bullpen. We haven't seen much of them. And supposedly San Diego's bullpen is supposed to be good. Although, like I said, they gave up the second game, did not look good. But after listening to their podcast, their fans are talking like they have a good bullpen. So we'll leave the bullpen out, just deal with Bueller and Roop and hope that Roop can outpitch Bueller and the Giants can outscore the Padres in the first five. So that's all I have for today. For tomorrow, please tune in tomorrow. We will be recapping the highlights of tonight's first Giants win, right? And we will discuss the matchup of Webb versus Herman Marquez. And if the Giants can't light up Hermon Marquez, then we are in real trouble because his numbers are terrible. So I have real high hopes for tomorrow's game with Webb against Marquez in particular. So hopefully tomorrow we will be talking about a win and discussing what should be another win. With that, I hope you all have a great day out there today. Always stay safe and go, Giants.