SF Giants: 12 numbers that matter from the first quarter of the season

By the end of this weekend’s series with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the San Francisco Giants will have a quarter of the season in the books. Quickly as the 40-game mark approaches, it provides a large enough sample for trends to emerge and to sort through the noise.

The Giants have gotten the breakout performances and solid starting pitching they knew they would need to contend — Thairo Estrada, J.D. Davis and LaMonte Wade Jr. have been revelations, while Alex Cobb owns the best ERA in the National League, with Anthony DeSclafani not far behind him — but underperforming offseason additions and an unreliable bullpen have them stuck under .500.

Allow the numbers to tell the story:

4: Outs Above Average for J.D. Davis at third base, the fourth-best third baseman (tied for ninth overall) in the majors. By transforming into a Gold Glove-caliber defender and keeping up his strong performance at the plate, Davis has more than helped the Giants weather David Villar’s slow start, cementing himself as the everyday third baseman.

19.7%: Walk rate for LaMonte Wade Jr., the third-highest in the majors. At an average of 4.53 per at-bat, only two other players in the majors are seeing more pitches than Wade. He has such a command of the strike zone, Gabe Kapler said recently in a rare umpiring complaint that he believed Wade should be getting even more calls. “He’s so good at determining balls versus strikes. It’s just really important that when a guy is as disciplined as LaMonte is that he gets rewarded for his discipline,” Kapler said. “It’s really frustrating that’s not happening right now.” While he is batting only .260, Wade’s .431 on-base percentage ranks third in the majors, and his .951 OPS and 165 wRC+ lead the Giants. But Davis explained why his patience is just as valuable: “To have a leadoff guy who draws walks, to see those pitches on video and just get a clear idea and approach of how to attack that pitcher, it’s the best thing that we can have.”

11: Stolen bases for Thairo Estrada, the first Giants player to reach that number in his first 37 games of a season since Barry Bonds (1996). Combined with a .326 batting average and six home runs, Estrada has been the Giants’ most valuable position player (1.7 fWAR).

25.4%: Strikeout rate for Joey Bart, still slightly higher than league average but substantially lower than last season. With increased command of the strike zone, plus the third-best framing numbers of any catcher in the majors, Bart has seized hold of the starting duties behind the plate.

109: wRC+ for Blake Sabol, tied for 10th-best among qualified rookies. One of four rookies in the San Francisco era with five home runs in their first 20 games, joining Orlando Cepeda (1958), Willie McCovey (1959) and Jarrett Parker (2015), the Rule 5 pick has given the Giants reason to keep him on the roster. While there are areas to improve defensively (four catcher’s interference calls, already tied for an SF-era single-season record) and at the plate (a 40.5% strikeout rate, third-highest in the majors among players with as many plate appearances), Sabol seems to have done enough to earn his spot. If the Giants parting ways with Gary Sánchez wasn’t evidence enough, take Farhan Zaidi’s word for it. “We’re really committed, at this point, to keeping him all year,” Zaidi said a couple weeks ago on KNBR. “He has done a lot of good things, and hopefully, that continues.”

14: Number of different players to homer for the Giants, tied for second-most in the majors. Led by J.D. Davis (7) and LaMonte Wade Jr. (7), seven players have at least five, and 10 already have four. The only teams that can claim as much evenly distributed power are the Dodgers (10 players with four) and Rays (10 players with four, nine with six). The Giants’ 59 home runs rank fourth in the majors; however, few teams have been as reliant on the long ball, with 60% of San Francisco’s runs coming on homers.

.620: Combined OPS from the Giants’ two free-agent position player additions, Michael Conforto and Mitch Haniger.

7.07: Combined ERA from the Giants’ three free-agent pitching additions, Sean Manaea, Ross Stripling and Taylor Rogers.

137: Strikeouts by the bottom third of the Giants’ order, easily the most in the majors. It’s a good thing the Giants are hitting home runs because they are struggling to turn the lineup over: Their 7-9 hitters have struck out 14 more times than any other team, drawn fewer walks (27) than all but one team, with the third-lowest batting average (.199) and second-lowest on-base percentage (.260) of any group in MLB.

29.3%: Giants pitchers’ fly ball rate, the lowest in the majors; and 16.2%: the percentage of fly balls allowed that turn into home runs, the highest in the majors. While the Giants’ sinker-heavy group has succeeded at keeping the ball on the ground, they have been hammered by hard contact: 44.4% of balls in play hit at 95 mph or harder, the highest rate in the majors. The Giants, who have led the league in homer suppression the past two seasons, believe the first number suggests there will be some regression to the mean in regards to keeping balls in the ballpark. But the amount of hard contact is more troubling.

5.77: Giants pitchers’ ERA in the seventh inning and later, the highest in the National League and third-worst in the majors. Meanwhile, in innings 1-6, their 3.69 ERA ranks ninth in MLB and fourth in the NL. Despite failing to preserve the shutout bid started by Alex Cobb on Thursday, the bullpen has been better of late, with a 3.95 ERA in May (16th in MLB), converting all five save opportunities, after posting a 6.15 mark in March/April (28th) with six blown saves in 11 chances.

2:41: Average time of game, 27 minutes shorter than their average game last season (3:08). Of the new rules, none has been more noticeable or as welcomed as the pitch clock.