SF Giants: Three Key Takeaways from the Rockies Series

The SF Giants took the series against the Colorado Rockies after securing a 7-3 win in the rubber match on Wednesday night.

SF Giants: Three Takeaways From the Padres Series

1. The starting pitching remains a strength

Despite the number of high-risk starters the Giants brought in this past offseason, the rotation has emerged as an early strength in 2021. As of Thursday morning, San Francisco starters had combined to post a 2.20 ERA in 25 games, which was the lowest ERA in baseball.

At 8.9 K/9, Giants starters are not consistently racking up high strikeout totals, but they are inducing plenty of weak contact as they have generated a ground ball in 51.3% of batted ball events. Similar to rotation ERA, that ground ball rate ranks as the best in baseball.

The Giants have received solid contributions up and down the rotation even after Johnny Cueto hit the injured list with a lat strain. In the Rockies series, they continued this trend with a couple of impressive performances.

On Monday, Anthony DeSclafani strung together the most impressive performance from a Giants pitcher this year. He recorded a complete-game shutout, needing only 100 pitches to do so. Upon further review, complete games have not been outlawed by Major League Baseball… yet.

The right-handed hurler generated nine strikeouts while allowing only four baserunners to help secure a satisfying 12-0 win.

This was a tough act to follow, but Aaron Sanchez gave the Giants just enough to win while battling erratic command. He yielded two earned runs on just one hit and five walks across 4.2 frames.

Similar to DeSclafani, Alex Wood was nearly unhittable on Wednesday. I mean that literally as he did not allow a hit through the first 5.2 innings of the game. It did look like he ran out of gas at the end of his start as his final stat line included four hits, two walks, two runs, and nine strikeouts in 6.2 innings. Nevertheless, he put the Giants in a position to win and they did not disappoint.