AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2006 > July > 14
Friday, July 14, 2006
Orel history and the Giles brothers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Idle thoughts while wondering if there’s any significance to the thinking-man’s analyst, Orel Hershiser, who made his name pitching for the Dodgers in the NL West, going out on a limb Thursday night to pick the Braves to win the NL Wild Card.
Hey, just telling you what I heard. Sorry to disappoint those of you who believe all the ESPN talking heads have it out for the Braves. And just curious, whose opinion you going to put more stock in, Hershiser’s or Steve Phillips’?
Before I forget, got a encouraging update on Peter Gammons today. He’s walking around, was transferred to a rehab facility near his home on Cape Cod. He’s eager to get back to work. Say a prayer for the man if you’re a baseball fan, even if you hate the Red Sox.
OK, I was crunching numbers awhile ago before tonight’s Braves-Padres series opener, and something struck me: This has not been a good year to be one of the baseball-playing Giles Bros. At least not on the field, it hasn’t been.
Braves 2B Marcus Giles is batting .248 with seven homers, 33 RBIs, a .343 OBP and .368 slugging percentage, and it’s taken a recent surge to get him to those levels.
But as bad as the first half was for Marcus, he actually has more homers and nearly the same slugging percentage than his brother. Startling, considering San Diego OF Brian Giles, not long ago, was widely regarded as one of the best five all-around hitters in the NL. This season, Brian is batting .269 with six homers, 46 RBIs, a .384 OBP and .372 slugging percentage in 331 at-bats.
Remember, this is the Brian Giles who hit 35 or more homers four years in a row (1999-2002) for Pittsburgh, averaging 109 RBIs in that stretch. The Giles who had OBPs of .418, .432, .450, .427 and .423 in five of the past seven seasons.
As for Marcus, consider his .248-.343-.368 so far this season in comparison to his three-year averages in 2003-05: .305-.377-.480.
Even more dramatic, consider Brian’s .269-.384-.372 this season compared to his career averages before this season: .299-.413-.542.
Granted, he is 35 (Brian, I’m talking about; Marcus is only 28). But the age has nothing to do with another huge factor that’s affected Brian Giles: He can’t hit at Petco Park, at least not anything like he does at most places. The three-year-old park isn’t quite as spacious now after they moved the fences in a bit, but Brian Giles still is batting just .243 with two homers and a .308 slugging percentage there in 47 home games. That’s hard to believe, truly, for a hitter of his pedigree.
Anyway … here’s another interesting set of numbers. While Brian Giles has always killed Braves pitching, the same can hardly be said for little brother against the Padres.
Brian Giles has a .364 career average and whopping 1.091 OPS in 47 games against the Braves, with 60 hits, seven homers and 40 walks. In 24 games at Turner Field, he’s hit .354 with a .475 OBP and .531 slugging percentage.
Meanwhile, Marcus Giles has hit .265 with only one homer and 10 RBIs in 31 games against the Padres, including .211 with one extra-base hit (double) in nine games at Petco Park.
OK, sorry for the Giles family information overload.
Wait, just one last Giles thing: Marcus showed no ill effects of his Sunday cortisone shot in the left wrist when he took batting practice at Thursday’s off-day workout in his hometown (yes, the Giles brothers are from San Diego, but you probably knew that). The Braves need desperately for him to continue his recent resurgence, because his production at the top of the lineup seems to change everything and stoke the entire offense. They got going as a lineup recently at the same time that he began hitting better than he had all season.
Marcus has hit .287 with four homers, 13 RBIs, 19 runs, a solid .388 OBP, and almost as many walks (13) as strikeouts (14) in his past 24 games. And he’s got a 12-game hitting streak going in which he’s hit .333 with three homers, nine RBIs and a robust .481 OBP, reflective of 10 walks (with only six strikeouts) in that span.
Giles is viewed as one of the Braves’ most-tradeable commodities, and moving him wouldn’t be as potentially devastating to the team’s chances this season as moving Andruw or Smoltz would be. But unless the Braves got back a leadoff hitter in any deal for Giles, they’ll have to turn to an even less-suited hitter for leadoff duties, either that or move one of the game’s best No. 2 hitters, Edgar Renteria, to the leadoff spot. So while the Braves could get by with Betemit or Prado (or Pena) at second base, the leadoff thing could be a major problem the rest of the way if they moved Giles.
Besides, I haven’t heard any rumors at all recently regarding Marcus, so it looks like he’s staying the rest of the season. At least it looks like that for now.
Betemit’s name keeps appearing in San Diego’s paper, regarding the Padres’ interest in him. But unless the Padres give up reliever Linebrink, I don’t see it happening. And all indications are that they won’t move Linebrink because of the hole it would put in their ‘pen.
So we’ll see. Should be an interesting series on the field. Perhaps it’ll also be interesting off the field, in terms of rumors and gossip over possible trades.
Ray Davies was in concert in downtown San Diego last night, but the show was sold out and I had something else going on anyway.
I ate some killer lobster risotto. The weather today is picture-perfect San Diego, lower humidity than yesterday (real low, in fact) and about 77 degrees with a breeze. Wish you were here (well, some of you).
