How is surrendering baserunners literally EVERY appearance, "lights out"? If we prop his first 2 outings as "lights out", then yesterday was a "disaster". There is less room for error (bad calls, etc) when you have baserunners... and Giles likes his baserunners. I'm not dogging him and want his doing well, but let's say what it really is. Thus far (2 seasons), baserunners are a constant. Maybe he's improved the XBH problem.
I wasn't responding to you. I was thinking of discussions I saw here and on Twitter last season where I heard/read people talk about discounting all his bad appearances so you can arrive at the conclusion he had a really good season. I'm not calling for crucifixion...i promise.
Seems to be making a conscious effort to throw the slider for strikes to get ahead of the count. Fastball command has also improved a touch, albeit only if the ump actually calls the corner strikes when he throws it on the corner. Giles, like Lidge, becomes hittable when the batter simply decides to look fastball (and makes a commitment to lay off the late breaking slider, that breaks out of the zone... which is easier said than done). He's going to walk guys from time to time because when he's on... his best pitch is actually not a strike. And as long as he's able to strike out guys at an elite clip... baserunners don't matter "as" much. Its when he puts guys on AND leaves the fastball up out over the zone that he's going to get tattooed.
I I'm not touting him as the best closer ever, or even the best closer currently, but some of the posts around here seem to expect him to be Mariano Rivera. And I would say last night was a disaster of an outing, but not all Giles' doing. I have more confidence in him pitching than some other arms in the pen (Sipp, I'm looking at you). And we need to remember this is a 162 game season, and I'll be more than happy taking 3 of 4 the rest of the way. 121-41 sounds fine to me. Fair enough. I agree you cannot discount last April or May as much as I would like to discount April for the whole team. Hopefully 3-1 leads to a much better start to this season. Agreed, and that is part of my umpire argument. Plate ump missed pitch 3 to Segura changing what should have been 1-2 to 2-1. Then Giles had to come back with a pitch that got more of the zone because he wasn't getting the call on the corner. He ended up grooving a pitch that Segura hit rather than being able to work the edge on a guy that had to protect. That missed call probably affected his inning more than the missed call that should have been a Valencia K. He absolutely has to be able to put the ball on the corner and get a call (and that is as much on him as it is the umpires). If not then everyone is going to sit fastball and leave the slider. When that happens he is going to have games like he did last night. Let's hope that is less common than not.
if we are going to live up to the hype this year....giles should not see closer duty. they need to figure something out while it is still early!
Funny enough, his worst outings have come in non save situations (which tends to happen with 9th inning guys). Clearly his head gets in the way at times... if you look purely at his 9th inning only save situation numbers, he's actually converting and k'ing guys at a high rate. I think he needs more save ops to get in a rhythm... his usage factor has been inconsistent so far.
This. I don't care how hard he throws or how much movement he has on his pitches or how many strikeouts he has. Mentally he isn't all that great at closing, and when he doesn't have command on his pitches, he is hit hard. Give me a closer that gets the job done.
No, he just needs to pitch better if he is going to be the closer in high leverage situations on a playoff team.
Absolutely... its just that when we're assessing his ability to be a "closer"... you'd like to judge that ability on games he's actually in there to close. We've seen guys with great stuff thrive in some roles and not in others... certainly there's a mental aspect involved.
If McCann calls 70% sliders and 30% fastballs instead of the other way around last night Giles wouldn't have had any trouble at all. He has/had no idea that Giles needs to work in reverse.
I didn't catch the end of the game... but this could be stemming from Giles' last game, where the Mariners lineup seemed to take a collective approach to not swing at anything low in the zone (i.e. - the slider), and force Giles to throw his fastball. At the end of the day, Giles is only as good as his slider (which we all know)... and that slider, when its at its best, is actually NOT a strike. Conceivably, if a batter just went up there and said "I'm not going to swing", and Giles went up there and threw all sliders (and executed as he should), he's probably going to walk the guy. He needs to balance out the good slider with better fastball command... he won't survive otherwise.
These things tend to happen organically. Right now, the growing trend is that Devenski is excelling in his brief high leverage situations at a higher rate than any other Astros pitcher since Lidge. That changeup is like Gagne/Hoffman redux.
I get this argument. Giles can still throw his slider for strikes if he wants to and they still pretty difficult to hit even up in the zone. He has absolutely no idea where his fastball is going 90% of the time.
I dunno... the Giles slider for strike is a lot like the Lidge slider for strike... its infinitely hittable if the hitter even thinks its a possibility. I saw him use it as a "get ahead" pitch in game 2, which did set up the AB nicely.... but if he makes it a pattern, its also going to get shelled. Lidge had better fastball command, hence why his late-breaking/out of the zone slider was so damn effective. Luckily, fastball command CAN be improved with repetition.... while the ability to throw that sort of slider cannot be taught.
If you are looking to defend a guy whos job it is to come in and perform in high-leverage situations, you damn well can't do it by arguing that his numbers in low-leverage situations are bad, but he's done ok in a couple of save situations. That's like saying: "he can't hit a target on the shooting range, but I think he'll be fine once he goes out to battle." doesn't make sense. 2017: 4 IP, 4 ER, 4 BB, 1 HBP, WHIP 2.00 Giles will probably get 1 or two more shots, but his rope needs to be very short. This is a playoff team. We do not have time to let a closer "find his rhythm" He needs to get outs. period.
We don't have aroldis chapman just sitting there waiting to take his spot. Luke Greg and Harris are both options but I wouldn't feel that much more comfortable with those guys closing either. Short of making Devo the closer, there's not a better option I see than just leaving Giles there to take his lumps and hopefully round into form.
