{"id":16079,"date":"2011-06-12T14:16:40","date_gmt":"2011-06-12T19:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=16079"},"modified":"2011-06-12T14:16:40","modified_gmt":"2011-06-12T19:16:40","slug":"espn-showdown-cincinnati-reds-take-on-s-f-giants-in-4th-game-of-4-game-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/espn-showdown-cincinnati-reds-take-on-s-f-giants-in-4th-game-of-4-game-set-16079\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN Showdown: Cincinnati Reds Take On S.F. Giants in 4th Game of 4 Game Set"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Reds (34-32) AT San Francisco Giants (36-29)<\/strong>
\nSunday June 12, 2011 at 8:05 PM EST<\/strong>
\nTV:\u00a0 ESPN<\/strong>
\nCurrent Spread:\u00a0 EVEN<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 7<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 CIN- Edinson Volquez; SF- Jonathan Sanchez<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Buster Posey is out for the season.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Giants have lost 2 out of 3 in this series and will look to go for the split tonight against the Reds.\u00a0 They lost 10-2 on Saturday, however, which means that the cumulative score is now 15 to 5, a blowout if things were scored the way Euro Futbol games are.\u00a0 But thankfully for the Giants, they are not.\u00a0 A win today would make the series a split.<\/p>\n

San Francisco, despite their great record, owes it almost entirely to pitching.\u00a0 They rank near the bottom of the league in runs per game (3.5) and BA (.240).\u00a0 They already lost one of their best hitters in catcher Buster Posey and now are going to be without Freddy Sanchez, who is replaced by the deft Bill Hall, a batter with a .224 average.\u00a0 Manager Bruce Bochy likes his versatility, though:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need some depth right now and he gives us that at every position in the infield and outfield,\u201d Bochy said. \u201cHe has some power, speed, so we\u2019re glad to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Reds will send Edinson Volquez to the mound, who returned to the rotation this week and threw a quality game, allowing only 1 run in 7 innings.\u00a0 He was the opening day starter, but had a stint in the minors after struggling early on.\u00a0 Reds manager Dusty Baker attributed the success to better control over his fastball, saying “He was locating his fastball a lot better…That’s the Volquez we knew from before.”\u00a0 Volquez’ still has yet to return to the form he had in 2008 when he was 17-6 with a 3.221 ERA.\u00a0 For this season, Baseball Prospectus projected a 9-7 W-L with a 4.03 ERA.\u00a0 As of right now, Volquez is 4-2 with a 5.74 ERA.<\/p>\n

Against San Francisco, Volquez is 2-1 with a 8.31 ERA.<\/p>\n

The Giants are countering with Jonathan Sanchez, who is 4-4 with a 3.51 ERA so far this season.\u00a0 He has struggled to keep it in the strike zone and walked 11 in 10 1\/3rds innings over his last two starts.\u00a0 He lasted only 5 innings last start, but did record six strikeouts.\u00a0 Against Cincinnati he is 2-1 with a 3.91 ERA.<\/p>\n

Sanchez had the second best Park Adjusted Defensive Efficiency in the majors last season while recording a 3.07 ERA.\u00a0 Baseball Prospectus says “He’s due to regress…but all the external factors…are in his favor, so the readjustment might be mild.”\u00a0 Their projection for his season is a 10-7 record with a 3.81 ERA, still very respectable and very good, but not quite as impressive as last season.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Cincinnati is 4-2 SU in their last 6 games and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of the Reds’ last 6 road games.\u00a0 The Reds are 4-10 SU in their last 14 on the road and the total has gone OVER in 6 of their last 8 against the San Francisco Giants.\u00a0 The total has also gone OVER in 4 of their last 6 on the road against the Giants.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of San Francisco’s 5 games and it has also gone UNDER in 4 of their last 5 at home.\u00a0 The Giants are 14-7 SU in their last 21 home games and the total has gone OVER in 6 of their last 8 against the Cincinnati Reds.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 4 of the Giants’ last 6 games at home against the Reds.<\/p>\n

This should be a good game tonight, as the Giants will come out motivated to avoid losing this series.\u00a0 Sanchez has been great in recent history, so I favor the Giants, although the line is set EVEN as of the time this was written.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Reds (34-32) AT San Francisco Giants (36-29) Sunday June 12, 2011 at 8:05 PM EST TV:\u00a0 ESPN Current Spread:\u00a0 EVEN Current Total:\u00a0 7 SP:\u00a0 CIN- Edinson Volquez; SF- Jonathan Sanchez The Giants have lost 2 out of 3 in this series and will look to go for the split tonight against the Reds.\u00a0 They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":15523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[78,736],"class_list":["post-16079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-san-francisco-giants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16079"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16081,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16079\/revisions\/16081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}