Both Pittsburgh and San Francisco find themselves in tight postseason battles as this series begins. This middle game offers an interesting pitching matchup and is an important swing game of the series as the Pirates look for revenge after dropping three of four against San Francisco at home.
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ODDS ANALYSIS
The Pirates finished off the first leg of their two city west coast swing, taking two of three from the Dodgers over the weekend. On Sunday, Pittsburgh topped Los Angeles 11-3 thanks in large part to a five-run first with homer runs from Jordy Mercer and Sean Rodriguez.
Sunday’s win gave the Pirates their sixth victory in their last nine games as the Pirates are once again streaking. Pittsburgh has been a bit of a streaky team this season. After a 9-19 June, the team has gone 20-15 in July and August.
On the other side, the Giants have continued their slide since the All-Star break, going 9-18 with a late-inning loss to the Orioles on Sunday.
The loss was demoralizing for San Fran and the type of loss that could stick with a club for a few days. They had a 7-1 lead going into the seventh and were up 7-5 going into the ninth.
PROBABLE PITCHERS
The veteran Jeff Samardzija will toe the rubber for the Giants as he faces a Pittsburgh team with the youngster Jamison Taillon on the rubber.
Taillon has only made 10 starts at the big league level after putting together a strong start to the season at Triple-A Indianapolis. Samardzija’s season has been a tail to two seasons as well. The veteran pitched very well for the Giants during the first two months of the season, but over his last 12 starts, it’s been an entirely different story.
If we look exclusively at those last 12 starts compared to Taillon’s first 10 starts in the majors, we see a clear advantage for the road team.
Over those 12 starts, Samardzija has pitched to a 5.57 ERA, going 3-5. In that time, Samardzija has had just two quality starts. Over his last eight starts, the team is 2-6 when he takes the mound.
Overall, Samardzija’s numbers are a bit better thanks to a very good start to the season. He’s 10-8 with a 4.23 ERA and 1.227 WHIP.
Meanwhile, Taillon’s first 10 starts have gone about as well as you can expect. He’s 3-2 with a 2.85 ERA and 1.083 WHIP as the Pirates have won seven of his 10 starts.
He seems to be getting better with experience, too. His last start was a strong one, holding the Padres scoreless over eight very effective innings.
Since we examined Samadzija’s overall numbers, we can look at how Taillon was pitching before his promotion to see if there are any red flags.
Of course, there aren’t any as he was putting up his best numbers of his minor league career going 4-2 with a 2.04 ERA and 0.811 WHIP as he was baffling less experienced hitters.
LIVE BETTING
Since the All Star break, the Pirates have scored 100 runs and the Giants have plated 96, having played one fewer game.
While Pittsburgh has a slight edge based on the numbers, these two teams are in similar positions on offense with concerns abound, even after better than normal offensive days on Sunday.
San Francisco has long been a team built on production top-to-bottom and they’re not getting that production. Buster Posey and Brandon Belt remain strong players in the middle and the return of Hunter Pence is very helpful, but the team hasn’t gotten much from Eduardo Nunez since he was acquired from the Twins and Joe Panik and Denard Span each have provided below average production to date.
For the Pirates, Andrew McCutchen’s struggles continue to puzzle the Pirates and the rest of the baseball universe. Strong play from Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco still make this one of the best offensive outfields, but the rest of the order has OPS+ numbers well south of 100 with few exceptions.
QUICK PICK
Samardzija hasn’t pitched well for the last few months and the Giants’ team as a whole has fallen flat on its face since the All-Star break. Meanwhile, the Pirates are playing pretty good baseball and have a young stud toeing the rubber that’s off to a great start to his major league career.
Look for the Pirates to steal a win from the Giants on the road on Tuesday. The trends favor Pittsburgh and the Pirates certainly have the personnel to matchup with San Francisco even if the overall records don’t quite matchup.
MLB Odds: Pirates 6, Giants 4
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