Fire Up The Kilns

M begins by explaining that he wasn't able to see last night's loss and isn't too enthused about going back to see the lowlights. The box score reads like something from Stephen King.  Looks like Aidan was right about Nolan Mclean. Then M mixes it up a bit by changing the usual order of things in an attempt to flip the mojo for tonight's game.  Instead of leading up to it, he dishes out the Safe Bet of the Day™ early and then gives his reasons for it.  Roupp to outpitch Clay Holmes mainly.  We'll see if it works.  (Of course, it will.  These superstitious moves always do.)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Good morning. Welcome back into the pod. It is Saturday morning, April 4th. Another beautiful day here in the Bay Area. I think it's supposed to be 75 today, which is going to be nice because I am heading down to Santa Cruz to hang out by the pool and watch a water polo tournament. So this might be a little quicker than usual. But anyway, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was not able to either watch or listen to last night's game. So I'm not quite sure of the shenanigans involved that led to that ugly loss. An ugly loss for the Giants, ugly loss for the safe bet of the day. We lost that by a wide margin, really swung and missed on that call. It looks like Aiden was right in his intuition about McLean. He must have done what we were frightened of. He must have been dealing, because I see in the box score he only gave up one hit and two walks. Hard to believe that even led to an earned run, let alone two runs. So I am going to skip the recap of that game because I didn't see it and probably don't want to see it. Perhaps tomorrow, if I have a chance, I'll take a look and address it, but not for today. Obviously, the pitching did not hold up so much for Tyler Malley and that fresh bullpen that I was expecting. So we are going to move right into today's tonight's game. And after three safe bed of the day losses in a row, which isn't terrible. I was telling Aiden since I've been doing this for quite a while. My record for losses in a row is 11 losses in a row, which is not good. My record for wins is 13 in a row, so that's good. But three losses in a row, it's not too much to worry about. I'm not too, you know, depressed or bummed out. I'm still thinking we got plenty of time to come back. We'll make this up. Well, last year we had our record was four losses in a row. Our record for wins was four in a row. So I'm not too worried. We'll get it back tonight or tomorrow. We'll get right back on, you know, the swing of things when we need it. But what I'm going to do today, because of three safe bets of the day's losses in a row, I am going to mix up, mix it up. I'm going to change the lineup. Not quite as drastic as, say, putting Willie Adamas in the one hole. But what I'm going to do is usually I give you the my game prediction and talk about the pitchers and all that and then lead to the safe bet of the day. But today I am going to mix it up and get right to today's safe bed of the day. And what it's going to be today is the Giants' first five money line at minus 110. And here is why. First of all, I want to go back to isolating the starting pitchers because evidently the bullpen didn't look too good last night. They gave up five runs, used three of them. They're not going to be as fresh if they were fresh. I didn't like to see Eric Miller give up two. Anyway, so taking the bullpins out of it and just isolating the starting pitcher pitching matchup again. I like that a little better for tonight's game. I like the fact that the pitchers are pretty much evenly matched, maybe slightly even in the Giants' favor. I'll get that to that in a little bit. I like that it's at Oracle, a little bit uh in Roop's favor there. I think that Roop is still a little slightly underrated because he's so young and new, and that that might make for a favorable number. Also, it's not McLean, which is nice. Instead, it's Clay Holmes. And if you look at Clay Holmes, he's 33 years old. He spent almost his entire career as a reliever, and he did well as a reliever, had right around a 3.0 ERA for quite a few years, five, six, seven years. But last year, the Mets transitioned him into a starter for the first time. He went 33 games and ended up with a 353 ERA and a 1.30 whip, which are both good numbers. Not really a high strikeout guy, a little few too many walks. He had 66 walks and 165 innings. So that's a little bit high for a walk rate, a little bit of control problems. This year he's pitched in one game so far. He pitched well. He went five and two thirds, gave up only two runs on four hits and three walks. So again, the three walks probably hurt him. He did have five strikeouts, which, so like you can see, it's an average strikeout rate, a little bit high on the walks, but all around a decent game. He got the W. Last year he started off hot. He was 2.42 for the first two or three games. So he starts off a year well. He's just a nice average serviceable pitcher right there, kind of in the middle. Now he's facing one of my favorite Giants pitchers, Landon Roop. My two favorite probably are Roop and Ray. I don't know why I like those two. They're for two very different reasons, very different pitchers. But I really do like Landon Roop. And in a similar way as Holmes, he was a reliever when he came up in 2024 and then a starter last year. But granted, he's he's young and he only did the reliever for one year when he was coming up. So last year he pitched and he pitched the full season 3.80 ERA, similar to Clay Holmes. And his last game out, he pitched the one game so far this year. He pitched against San Diego. He looked really sharp. Two hits and two walks, is all. No runs over six innings. So yeah, he had a really good game. His curve was in control, had seven strikeouts, a really solid outing. And he also looked good early in the year last season. So I really like him early in the year. So though those are the reasons why I'm gonna go with the first five money line for the Giants. It's an even pitching matchup, but with a few slight advantages in our favor, I think. And it takes the bullpen out. It's even money at minus 110. So it's minus 110 for Roop, minus 110 for Holmes. So it's even money either way. But I like Roop at home in an even matchup. And in an even matchup, you have to take the Giants, right? Plus, we are due for a good beat. We've had a couple of tough ones, so you know sooner or later you're gonna get one of those that comes in, comes in your favor, comes in our favor, and that's gonna be tonight with Roop on the Mound. So that will be our pick of the day for today. It will be Giants first five money line, minus 110. So that's all I have for today. I need to get down to San Santa Cruz. So tune in tomorrow, and it is Kodai Singay versus Yeah, it's Webb on the Mound. Yeah, Logan Webb. So that should be a really good one tomorrow. Singun Webb on the mound, 105 first pitch time, nice afternoon game. Gonna be a beautiful day today. Be a good one to be out at the park, but I don't think I'll make it to that one. But anyway, so tune in tomorrow. We will discuss Roop's work tonight and the Giants and how they do, and then go into tomorrow's game. With that, everyone, have a great day out there. Hopefully, it's as nice where you are as it is here. Stay safe as usual, as always. Go UC Santa Cruz and go Giants.