Why the SF Giants just do not give up that many home runs

The SF Giants entered Wednesday with the second-lowest home run rate in baseball at 0.77 HR/9. Playing at Oracle Park certainly helps, but the pitching staff does a good job of preventing hitters from getting the ball in the air.

Why the SF Giants just do not give up that many home runs

It is really hard to hit a home run without getting the ball in the air. You can do it. Heliot Ramos proved that not too long ago when he hit a walk-off "home run" on a ball that traveled two feet. You need a bunch of defensive breakdowns for that to happen.

The Giants have played 20 out of 35 games on the road, so playing at Oracle Park helps, but that is not the sole reason that they do not allow home runs. Some of road ballparks they have played at even lean in favor of the hitter, such as in Cincinnati, New York, and Houston.

So, while they play in the pitcher-friendly confines of Oracle Park, they have pitched in some hitter-friendly parks as well. It is not necessarily where they are pitching, but how they are pitching.

The Giants' pitching staff has allowed the lowest percentage of batted balls in the air at 51.5 percent, according to Baseball Savant. Hitting the ball is a bad outcome for pitchers, as it leads to hits, extra-base hits, and home runs. The Giants' pitching staff minimizes that outcome better than any team in baseball.

However, not all balls in the air are created equally. There are pop ups, line drives, and fly balls. Pop ups are the best outcome because the expected batting average on those tend to be low.

Line drives lead to more base hits, and fly balls have the highest home-run rate among the batted-ball outcomes. The Giants have the second-lowest fly ball rate in baseball at 23.4 percent. The New York Mets are the only team ahead of them at 22.0 percent.

It just so happens that the Mets also have the lowest home-run rate at 0.55 HR/9. You can pretty quickly see a correlation between fly-ball rate and home-run rate when you start to crosscheck the numbers.

Part of winning ball games is hitting more home runs than you allow. The Giants have done a nice job at that, hitting 39 home runs and allowing only 28. Keeping the ball on the ground and out of the air is a pretty good winning formula, and part of the Giants' success on the pitching