Hey Norton

San Francisco’s offense is criminal

Jayson Stark invented the Criminally Unsupported Start (CUS) metric a few years back: a game where the starting pitcher goes 6 or more innings and his team supports him with only 1 or fewer runs.

I cross-referenced CUS with Quality Starts (QS) for the 2011 Giants into a new metric—Criminally Unsupported Quality Starts (CUQS). These are games where the pitcher went 6+ innings, gave up 3 or fewer runs and got jack squat from his offense.

Here now, your 2011 San Francisco Giants starting rotation. Their current W-L records, followed by their imaginary records* if they’d won each of their CUQS.

Tim Lincecum; 13-12 (21-7)
Ryan Vogelsong: 10-7 (15-2)
Matt Cain: 11-10 (18-4)
Madison Bumgarner: 11-12 (18-5)

UPDATE: I realized the Giants actually won a CUQS on May 10th. Lincecum was the starting pitcher, and got no decision. I’ve counted that as a win also.

* I assumed all CUQS were wins and took away any loss decisions they’d received from a CUQS. As expected Madison Bumgarner had the worst luck: 7 CUQS losses and in each one he took the loss.

Rk              Player       Date  Tm Opp   Rslt  AppDec  IP H R ER BB SO
2         Tim Lincecum 2011-03-31 SFG LAD L  1-2 GS-7  L 7.0 5 1  0  3  5
3    Madison Bumgarner 2011-04-27 SFG PIT L  0-2 GS-6  L 6.0 5 1  1  1  7
4         Tim Lincecum 2011-04-29 SFG WSN L  0-3 GS-7  L 7.0 7 3  3  0  7
5    Madison Bumgarner 2011-05-02 SFG WSN L  0-2 GS-7  L 7.0 4 2  0  1  7
6       Ryan Vogelsong 2011-05-26 SFG FLA L  0-1 GS-8  L 8.0 8 1  1  1  3
7    Madison Bumgarner 2011-06-04 SFG COL L  1-2 GS-7  L 7.0 7 2  1  1  6
8    Madison Bumgarner 2011-06-09 SFG CIN L  0-3 GS-7  L 7.0 8 1  1  0  7
9            Matt Cain 2011-06-19 SFG OAK L  1-2    GS-7 7.0 3 1  1  0  5
10        Tim Lincecum 2011-06-29 SFG CHC L  1-2    GS-7 7.0 5 1  1  2  9
11        Tim Lincecum 2011-07-20 SFG LAD L  0-1 GS-7  L 7.0 5 1  1  4  7
12        Tim Lincecum 2011-08-02 SFG ARI L  1-6 GS-7  L 7.0 3 2  2  3  8
13   Madison Bumgarner 2011-08-04 SFG PHI L  0-3 GS-8  L 8.0 6 2  2  2  9
14           Matt Cain 2011-08-06 SFG PHI L  1-2 GS-8  L 8.0 3 2  1  2  8
15           Matt Cain 2011-08-12 SFG FLA L  1-2 GS-6  L 6.0 6 2  2  2  4
16        Tim Lincecum 2011-08-18 SFG ATL L  0-1 GS-7  L 7.0 5 1  1  2  7
17      Ryan Vogelsong 2011-08-19 SFG HOU L  0-6 GS-7  L 7.0 4 5  2  4  3
18      Ryan Vogelsong 2011-08-25 SFG HOU L  1-3 GS-8  L 7.1 6 3  3  4  4
19      Ryan Vogelsong 2011-09-04 SFG ARI L  1-4 GS-8  L 7.1 5 2  2  1  6
20           Matt Cain 2011-09-07 SFG SDP L  1-3 GS-7  L 7.0 4 2  2  3  7
21        Tim Lincecum 2011-09-09 SFG LAD L  1-2    GS-8 8.0 6 1  1  2  6
22      Ryan Vogelsong 2011-09-10 SFG LAD L  0-3 GS-8  L 8.0 9 3  3  1  6

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com
Generated 9/14/2011.

Here’s the full chart on Baseball Reference.

San Francisco’s offense is criminal

Notes