It’s the next big test.
The big story will be Mike Yastrzemski’s return trip to Boston, but stories 1A and 1B — to me, anyway — are Andrew Bailey’s tenure as the Red Sox pitching coach after leaving the San Francisco Giants and whether or not the 2024 Giants can mount a challenge against a tough team and demonstrate that they’re taking a step forward in this early season.
As of this writing, Boston has the best pitching staff in the American League by wins above replacement, registering +4.6 fWAR. The Giants — thanks to the strength of their rotation only — check in at 21st in MLB (11th in the NL) with +1.8. Boston’s relief corps is a far step down from its rotation (+0.7 fWAR), but when I surveyed the starters I didn’t see what I had theorized would be “the Andrew Bailey effect.”
I have noted over the years that the Giants seek out sinker-slider guys whose sinkers average 95+ mph and sliders spin at 2,500+ rpm. My hypothesis was that Bailey would’ve altered some pitch arsenals to match this very successful mix (the Giants were the 6th-best pitching staff in MLB during Bailey’s tenure of 2020-2023), but that’s largely not the case. There’s perhaps a bit more emphasis on the sweeper and cutter, but in the early going, it looks as though he’s done his job on the game planning/usage front and, probably, instilling confidence in what is a
Last year, the Red Sox were 20th in MLB by fWAR and were led in starting innings by Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck, and Chris Sale. This year, due to injury and trades, the front five include Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck, Cooper Criswell, Josh Winckoski (opener — he’s like their Ryan Walker), and literally Chase Anderson. If anything, a bit of a downgrade, yet the staff has performed well in the first month of the season.
If the Giants had a better lineup, one might fear that Andrew Bailey would have some sort of codebreaker scheme to disrupt it, but the Giants do not have a good lineup and so all that will need to happen is that the starting rotation need only perform as it has been.
For the Giants, a win in game one of the series clinches a .500 month, a rarity in the past five seasons if you discount 2021. Rarer still is a winning month, something the Giants have done just six times since the start of 2019. They can’t obviously add a seventh month with a win in game one, but a series win might set the tone for May.
A couple of weeks ago, the Giants got their first road series win since last July by taking two out of three from the lowly Marlins. They’re 5-8 away from Oracle Park right now while the Red Sox are 5-8 at Fenway. Remarkably, the Red Sox are also 5-1 in interleague play, coming off a series win against one of the Giants’ main Wild Card #3 competitors, the Cubs. One of those wins was a 17-0 drubbing led by 23-year old shortstop Ceddanne Rafaela, who went 4-for-4 with 7 RBI.
The Giants have watched their offense slip a bit over the past two weeks. Through that Miami series, they had a 101 wRC+ as a team and since then it’s down to 98. That’s the Oracle Park park factor for you, of course, so maybe a trip to Fenway will be just what the lineup ordered. Mike Yastrzemski’s quasi-homecoming is notable in that in his last 8 games, which coincided with the Giants’ return to Oracle after that Florida trip, he’s 9-for-22 with a pair of homers, 8 RBI and 2 walks against 5 strikeouts. His line in this stretch is .409/.435/.682.
Series details
Who: San Francisco Giants vs. Boston Red Sox
Where: Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts
When: Tuesday (4:10pm PT), Wednesday (4:10pm PT), Thursday (10:35am PT)
National broadcasts: MLB Network simulcast (Thursday)
Projected starters
Tuesday: Logan Webb vs. Cooper Criswell
Wednesday: TBD (probably Daulton Jeffries) vs. Kutter Crawford
Thursday: Kyle Harrison vs. Josh Winckowski
Where they stand
Red Sox, 16-13 (3rd in AL East), 139 RS / 106 RA
Giants, 14-15 (2nd in NL West), 116 RS / 133 RA
Red Sox to watch
Tyler O’Neill: In six seasons with the Cardinals (2018-2023; 477 games), .248/.319/.458 (.776) with 78 home runs and a 3.61:1 strikeout to walk. In just 20 games with the Red Sox? .329/.447/.729 (1.176) with 9 home runs and a 1.54:1 strikeout to walk (20-13 K-BB). He looks to have changed his swing in that his average launch angle right now is 26.1 degrees. The last time it averaged over 20 was in 2018 (22.2 degrees). The five seasons in between? 16.3. Did the Red Sox retool his swing or salvage it after the Cardinals nearly ruined it? Or is this merely small sample size theatrics?
Kenley Jansen: You’d like to think that if it’s close late the Giants could get to their old adversary. Just when you think Jansen is out he manages to persevere. He’s 5-for-6 in save opps so far this season with a 1.86 ERA in 9.2 innings (3.06 FIP). The velocity is way down (92 on his cutter), but he’s still got movement. We’ve seen the Giants beat him before, can it happen again?
Basically the entire lineup: Rafael Devers is slugging .471, 25-year old RF Wilyer Abreu is slugging .472, Masataka Yoshida has a .348 OBP and just a 12.4% strikeout rate (top 7% of the league). He seems to be elevating the ball a bit more this season, too, which is making up for his general lack of power — the Red Sox lineup has the fifth-lowest groundball rate in MLB (fourth-lowest in AL). It’ll be like facing the Dodgers or the Orioles lineups.
Giants to watch
Thairo Estrada: The last road trip saw him begin with a .413 OPS, but in the 15 games since then (Tampa, Miami, Arizona, New York, Pittsburgh), it’s jumped up to .676 thanks to a line of .308/.333/.596 (.930 OPS) in 54 plate appearances. The Giants will need league average or better contributions from as many spots of the lineup as possible to match their superior team defense (in which Estrada is a key figure). He’s on his way back to league average (he ended last season at 101 wRC+, remember). Let’s see if the trend continues.
Taylor Rogers & Erik Miller: With 7 left-handed hitters on the active roster, it’s going to be really important for the left-handed relievers to hold the line in crucial spots. Rogers is capable, but that 7.24 FIP on the season is scary. Miller’s stuff is intriguing (17 K in 13 IP) but can he hold his own against a tough lineup? His 2.93 FIP is encouraging.
Jorge Soler: 14-for-52 (13 games) with 3 home runs at Fenway. .269/.356/.519 overall.
Matt Chapman: My favorite stat I saw this morning:
Barrel rate for hitters is quite predictive. Historically, it already only regresses halfway to league average after just 44 balls hit into play. For hard hit %, that’s 37 balls hit into play. https://t.co/YEgmunGFuD
— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) April 30, 2024
Now, Chapman hasn’t made a jump year over year, but as I mentioned Sunday, Statcast peripherals suggest he has a very healthy bat. He’s currently 68th in MLB in Barrels per batted balls at 10.8% — that is, 10.8% of his batted balls are barreled — which is right around Bryce Harper (11%), Manny Machado (10.8%) and Max Muncy (10.8%). In Fenway, he’s hit .291/.361/.455 (.815) with a pair of home runs, 10 doubles, and a triple in 28 games (122 PA).
Prediction time