Braves (40-28, 5.5 GU, NL East) vs. Giants (35-32, 1.5 GB NL West), 8:05pm EDT; ESPN
Good morning, Happy Father's Day to all the great dads across this great nation. It's a great day for baseball in Atlanta, and the Braves will try to make all of us happy by winning tonight's game and the series vs. the San Francisco Giants. The match-up is Tim Lincecum (13 GS, 76 IP, 4.70 ERA, 3.75 FIP, 3.55 xFIP, 0.7 WAR) vs Julio Teheran (12 GS, 77 IP, 3.62 ERA, 4.06 FIP, 3.91 xFIP, 0.8 WAR).
Lineups- Braves: Atlanta Braves @Braves
Tonight's lineup vs. SF (8:05, ESPN/680AM/BRN): Simmons 6 Heyward 9 JUpton 7 Freeman 3 BUpton 8 McCann 2 CJohnson 5 Pena 4 Teheran 1
From the lineup hitters- Simmons has never faced the FreaK; JHey 4-15, w/ a 2B and 5 BB, 6 Ks; Justin 11-47 w/ 4 2B and 1 3B, 4 BB, 17 Ks; Freeman 0-11, 1 BB, 2 Ks; Melvin is 0-2 w/ 1 BB, 1 K; Mac 11-33, w/ 5 2B, 1 HR, 3 BB, 11 Ks; CJ 2-6 w/ 1 K; Ramiro Da Gawd 1-3; Teheran has never faced him
On the bench- Uggla 0-13 with 2 BB, 6 Ks; Reed, 1-11 w/ 1 2B, 5 Ks; Schaf 3-9, 3 Ks
Giants: San Francisco Giants @SFGiants
Tonight's (6/16) #sfgiants lineup - Blanco CF, Crawford SS, Posey C, Pence RF, Belt 1B, Torres LF, Arias 3B, Noonan 2B and Lincecum RHP
No Giants hitters have faced Teheran enough times for the stats to matter
Pitching Comparison-
Lincecum- Lincecum has had a rough year. He had a decent April, but got completely torn apart in May, to the tune of a 6.37 ERA. His 2 starts for June have been good (11.2 IP, 2.31 ERA), but that was versus the Blue Jays and Pirates; not exactly teams that have firepower like the Braves. He still gets his strikeouts, even despite a drop in velocity. He is, however, more apt to allow walks, so a patient approach from the Braves tonight would be nice to see. Right-handed batters have fared better against Lincecum than lefties this year, by about 100 points in OPS. Tonight would be a good night to see Gattis or Chris Johnson get a start over guys like, say, Pena or McCann.
Teheran- Teheran was the focus of much hype the past few seasons; he was also the cause of major concern last year as he got dominated by AAA hitters. He has laid much of these fears to rest however, and is now looking like the guy that he was projected to be. His K% needs to rise, but he's not doing too bad right now; the strikeouts will come. What he is doing is limiting walks (4.7%), and this is allowing him to work through many innings without surrendering runs. Until his start in San Diego, Teheran had put together 8 straight starts during which his cumulative ERA was 2.13. He threw 69% of his pitches for strikes (yes!) and had a K for about every 4 outs. He's getting ground balls (44% GB) and a fair number of fly balls as well. If he keeps this up, he'll be a very good starter both tonight, and for the rest of the season.
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