Giants-Phillies Series Preview: It could be worse!

**Series overview**

*Who:*San Francisco Giants (13-15) at Philadelphia Phillies (9-19) *Where:*Citizens Bank Park | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania *When:*Tuesday & Wednesday at 3:40pm PT, Thursday at 10:05am PT *National broadcasts:*MLB Network simulcast (Wednesday) **Projected starters** Tuesday: Tyler Mahle (RHP 1-3, 5.26 ERA) vs. Jesus Luzardo (LHP 1-3, 6.91 ERA) Wednesday: Logan Webb (RHP 2-3, 4.86 ERA) vs. Cristopher Sanchez (LHP 2-2, 2.94 ERA) Thursday: Adrian Houser (RHP 0-3, 7.36 ERA) vs. Andrew Painter (RHP 1-2, 5.25 ERA)

Players to watch

Phillies

***Kyle Schwarber:*** Again, always keep an eye on this guy. He’s been the second-best hitter on the Phillies in the 16 games since the Giants series (135 wRC+) but with 6 homers and an 11% walk rate. On the negative side, just a .197 average and 29.6 K%. ***Bryce Harper:*** He has been the best hitter on the Phillies over the same span (150 wRC+) and has mixed in 4 homers, 2 doubles, a triple, and a home run to go with a 10.4 BB% and 20.9 K%. ***Jesus Luzardo:*** It’s going to be tough to get to Cristopher Sanchez twice in a month, I’d think, so the series might come down to how they handle the other Phillies lefty. He’s had just one great start this season (11 strikeouts and 1 run in 6.2 innings at Coors Field), but his only other decent start was last week against the Cubs in Chicago where he allowed just 1 run in 4.2 IP to go with 4 walks and only 3 strikeouts. He’s made 6 career starts against the Giants and sports a 5.37 ERA in 31 IP. Last year, though he was 1-0 in 2 starts with a 2.19 ERA.

Giants

***Adrian Houser:*** It’s probably not going to go well for the Giants’ well-paid pitching machine, but he’s pitched okay at Citizens Bank Park for his career. In 4 games and 2 career starts, he’s 1-1 with a 3.38 ERA and — gasp — just 1 home run allowed. Now, that count could go up right away, but on the other hand, the Giants might need him to spin a gem for them to pull out a series win. ***Heliot Ramos:*** He appears to be sneaking back to his lefty-mashing ways (career .849 OPS vs. LHP) with a triple slash of .292/.346/.500 (.846 OPS) in 26 PA against them this season. He’s been on a roll of late, with a .932 OPS over his past 15 games (55 PA). ***Matt Gage/Ryan Borucki:*** It’s going to come down to getting some key outs against lefties and, well, these are the non-Erik Millers available to the Giants.

Tony Vitello watch

You know what? It could be worse for Giants fans, right? The Giants could’ve dropped $10 million on the manager’s position and be in a Phillies or Mets situation right now and we’d all have to sit there and let things play out while the front office hoped like hell that things would turn around. Vitello looks less deer in the headlights just a month into the job and, well, that’s a very good thing. But if *Don Mattingly* is able to exact some revenge against the Giants by catching Tony Vitello doing something “first time manager”-ish, I’m gonna lose it. The Giants were lucky that Don Mattingly was the Dodgers’ manager for all those years. Sorry, Phillies fans.

Prediction time

The Giants will figure out a way to win a game in this series… right? Don Mattingly isn’t going to turn this whole Phillies mess around in a single series… right??