San Francisco Giants: Closer Look at Offense and Pitching After Two Weeks

Bullpen 

The San Francisco Giants bullpen actually has a better ERA than the starters at this point.

In fact, the bullpen was nearly perfect in week two allowing just 2 earned runs in 17.2 innings. They gave up just 10 hits and 1 walk with 18 strikeouts.

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What jumps out to me the most is the lack of walks. That’s much better than the 13 walks they issued in week one.

Hunter Strickland has been dominant so far this year. He’s yet to give up a run in 5.2 innings pitched. Meanwhile, he’s allowed just 2 hits and surrendered 2 walks with 7 strikeouts. He’s becoming a great setup man for Mark Melancon.

Speaking of Melancon, he only got one save opportunity last week and converted it with little stress. As a whole, he pitched two shutout innings last week.

Bochy leaned on Neil Ramirez a lot last week as he pitched in three games. He now leads the bullpen with 6.2 innings pitched. His strikeout rate has been incredible with 11 on the season.

I think some of the concerns from week one were definitely lifted after last week. It helped that the starting pitching went deep into games, but when called upon the bullpen was very solid.

Hopefully this is more of the norm going forward.

Next: San Francisco Giants top-five third-basemen of all time

Check back with Around the Foghorn throughout the week and this season as we keep you up-to-date with news and analysis of the San Francisco Giants.